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SvenGus
Expert
Expert

Fusion 4: no VMDKMounter

In Fusion 4.0.1, as in the June 2011 Beta, there is no VMDKMounter anymore, despite MacFUSE having been updated to OSXFUSE:

http://osxfuse.github.com

... which indeed works in 64 bit mode and with Lion.

In the meantime, one can always install Fusion 3.1.3's VMDKMounter with Pacifist (the installer metapackage is located inside the Fusion installer application): that should work, hopefully...

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DAlonso20111014
Contributor
Contributor

Sven G, can you post some more details on how to do this? One feature I liked about Parallels was the automounting of drives from the VM.

SvenGus
Expert
Expert

OK!

You need a copy of Fusion 3.1.3 and Pacifist 2.6.4, available respectively from:

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_fusion/3_0

http://www.charlessoft.com

Drag the Pacifist application to your /Applications or /Utilities folder (and maybe run it a first time, to see that it indeed works, also in LIon), but of course do not install Fusion 3.

Instead, after the mounting of the VMware-Fusion-3.1.3-416484.dmg disk image on the Desktop, right-click on the Install VMware Fusion application and click on Show Package Contents: then, in the Finder, navigate to Contents -> Resources -> Install VMware Fusion.mpkg, right-click on it and do an Open With -> Pacifist.

In Pacifist, navigate to Contents of Install Vmware Fusion.mpkg -> Contents of Install Vmware Fusion.pkg -> Library -> Application Support -> VMware Fusion, then select only VMDKMounter.app and click the Install button in the Pacifist toolbar.

After the installation has completed, you will find the VMDKMounter application in the "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion" folder (but probably you can also extract it elsewhere, or move it afterwards; BTW, that folder isn't used by Fusion 4, anymore: everything now is inside the main application bundle).

The VMDKMounter now should work as usual (from the Finder context menu).

That's it: once done, it's really easy...

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DAlonso20111014
Contributor
Contributor

You da man Sven G!

DanWhite
Contributor
Contributor

This is great but now i'm getting the error:  You must have root privileges to perform this action.

http://imgur.com/JmVHa

Can anyone help?

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

DanWhite wrote: This is great but now i'm getting the error:  You must have root privileges to perform this action.

Did you install the VMDKMounter.app with Pacifist?

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DanWhite
Contributor
Contributor

yes. I even tried extracting it manually (just keep "show package contents) until you get to that .pkg and copy/paste. Same results, slightly diff wording.

edit: tried each one twice and it now works 😕 k, thanks.

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GermanV
Contributor
Contributor

All you need to do is a chmod 777 to both the image and the VMDKmounter.

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

GermanV wrote: All you need to do is a chmod 777 to both the image and the VMDKmounter.

The correct permissions for the VMDKMounter.app bundle and the vmware-vmdkMounter executable are 755 not 777 and the Owner/Group is root:wheel.  Additionally the vmware-vmdkMounterTool needs to be set to 4755.

(Click image to enlarge.)

Proper_permissions-owner_for_VMDKMounter.png

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gbullman
Expert
Expert

WoodyZ,

Thanks for posting the necessary permissions / ownership info.  I copied VMDKMounter.app from my 3.1.3 install before upgrading to 4.0.2.  After the 4.0.2 upgrade I moved VMDKMounter.app to /Applications/Utilities but it was bombing everytime I tried to mount a Virtual Disk.  I fixed owner, group per your suggestion and it is now working.  Should have read the whole thread the first time through.

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

Yeah, sometimes it helps to read the entire thread (or just go right to my reply Smiley Wink).

Seriously though, I've done it both manually setting the permissions/owner/group as previously noted and have used Pacifist without any issues.  I will note that when done manually I copied the VMDKMounter.app bundle and then set permissions/owner/group as previously noted and then before trying to use it, execute (double-click) the app.  After that then I use it normally and without any issues.

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SvenGus
Expert
Expert

Sadly, Fusion 4.1 has still not resurrected the VMDKMounter (it is not present inside the Fusion application bundle): but shouldn't it be easy - essentially seamless - to migrate to OSXFUSE?

Or maybe they are working on some other system for mounting virtual disks, who knows...

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Mephist13
Contributor
Contributor

There is an app for that: Paragon Virtual Disk Mounter. Beta version is available here:http://www.paragon-software.com/support/betatesting/vd-mounter-mac-beta/index.html

.vhd, .vmdk, .vdi are supported at the moment.

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SvenGus
Expert
Expert

Seems to work rather well: I tried it with an OS X VM (where the virtual disk is preformatted as JHFS+, and thus readily mountable, even without installing an OS), and it mounted the Macintosh HD volume, with the standard name and hard drive icon, without problems; but that of course is still a rather limited testing...

As I also have Parallels Desktop 9 installed, I tried to mount the same virtual disk with Parallels Mounter, which resulted in two volumes, named [C] Virtual Disk and [D] Virtual Disk, both mounted as a "Generic File System (MacFUSE)", with the former being the hidden EFI partition and the latter the OS X partition: so, the two utilities work in a rather different way, with the Paragon VDMounter much more similar to the previous VMware Fusion VMDKMounter; and, if OS X had been installed, probably Parallels Mounter would have mounted also the Recovery partition.

In both cases, I had to navigate inside the VM package, in order to mount the VMDK directly from there (while it doesn't seem to work if you try to mount the whole VM).

Strange that they discontinued the Fusion VMDKMounter, BTW...

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ChipMcK
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Sven G wrote:

Strange that they discontinued the Fusion VMDKMounter, BTW...

At the time of V4 release, there was no viable 64bit Fuse product

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WoodyZ
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ChipMcK wrote:

Sven G wrote:

Strange that they discontinued the Fusion VMDKMounter, BTW...

At the time of V4 release, there was no viable 64bit Fuse product

That was true then, it's not now and there is a 64-bit fuse available and has been available for quite a while too.  Not only that if Parallels can do it then there is absolutely no good excuse whatsoever that VMware hasn't provided a proper and included VMDKMounter in VMware Fusion 6! Smiley Wink  Why should we have to purchase Paragon's App once it goes GA!   Parallels features are so far ahead of Fusion at this point that if VMware Fusion 7 doesn't surpass Parallels 9 if not 10 then I will probably migrate, everything that I don't need cross platform for, to Parallels 10.

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ChipMcK
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

It has been only recently that an imbed-able package has been available - approx four/six months and there were problems.

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

Not sure what particular embed-able package you're referring to however I compiled from 64-bit code over two years ago and the only issue I had was Finder opening a new windows with every level change so I do not use Finder when mounting with VMDKMounter, I use muCommander.  I often just use Paralles Mounter which has been available for many years.  So again if Parallels can do it the VMware could if they wanted to! Smiley Wink

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SvenGus
Expert
Expert

Agreed; and perhaps Fusion should also get more developers from VMware, in order to catch up with Parallels Desktop's best features (and maybe also add Fusion-specific ones)...!

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SvenGus
Expert
Expert

I also tried to mount the virtual drive of my OS X 10.9 VM, of course after shutting it down: well, Paragon VDMounter behaved as before, mounting the VMDK as a local drive, thus also accessible - and repairable - from Disk Utility (where it appears as VDMounter VMDK Media); while Parallels Mounter had its usual network-style C, D and E drives, respectively for the EFI, Recovery and OS partitions (but there seems to be a bug, causing the network drives to unmount by themselves after a few seconds: strange; but, anyway, not directly related to this topic...).

Personally, I probably prefer the local drive approach (as, IIRC, it was for the Fusion VMDKMounter, too)...

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