VMware GSX Server 2.5.2

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Adding DVD or CD-ROM Drives to a Virtual Machine

You can add one or more DVD or CD-ROM drives to your virtual machine. You can connect the virtual machine's drive to a physical drive on the host machine or to an ISO image file.

You can configure the virtual DVD or CD-ROM drive as either IDE or SCSI, no matter what kind of physical drive to which you connect it. In other words, if your host computer has an IDE CD-ROM drive, you can set up the virtual machine's drive as either SCSI or IDE and connect it to the host's drive. The same is true if the host's physical drive is a SCSI drive.

The DVD or CD-ROM drives in the virtual machine can be used to read data from DVD-ROM or CD-ROM disks. GSX Server does not support playing DVD movies in a virtual machine.

If you need to read from multisession discs, configure your DVD/CD-ROM drive to use raw access mode.

Adding a DVD or CD-ROM Drive on a Windows Host

Open the Configuration Editor (Settings > Configuration Editor) and click Add to start the Add Hardware Wizard.
Click DVD/CD-ROM Drive, then click Next.
Select Use physical drive if you want to connect the virtual machine's drive to a physical drive on the host computer. Select Use ISO Image if you want to connect the virtual machine's drive to an ISO image file.
Do one of the following:
- If you selected Use physical drive, choose the drive you want to use from the drop-down list, then click Finish.
- If you selected Use ISO Image, enter the path and filename for the image file or click Browse to navigate to the file. Then click Finish.
The drive is set up initially so it appears to the guest operating system as an IDE drive. If you want to change so it appears to the guest operating system as a SCSI drive, click the drive's entry in the Configuration Editor and make that change in the settings panel on the right.

Adding a DVD or CD-ROM Drive on a Linux Host

Open the Configuration Editor (Settings > Configuration Editor). If you want the drive to appear to the guest operating system as a SCSI drive, click the + sign beside SCSI Devices. If you want the drive to appear to the guest operating system as an IDE drive, click the + sign beside IDE Drives.
Select a device that is shown as Not Installed.
From the Device Type drop-down list, choose CD-ROM to connect to a physical DVD or CD-ROM drive. Choose CD-ROM Image to connect to an ISO image file.
If you are connecting to a physical drive, enter its device name (for example,
/dev/hdc) in the Name field or click Choose to navigate to the name.
If you are connecting to an ISO image file, enter the path and filename in the Name field or click Choose to navigate to the name.
Click Install to create the new DVD or CD-ROM drive, then click OK to save the configuration and close the Configuration Editor.

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