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Cannot Read DVD, CD-RW or Multisession Media in a Virtual Machine
Details
I cannot read DVD data, CD-RW discs or multisession CD-R media.
What is wrong?
Solution
All CD-ROM drives work as standard CD-ROM drives in a virtual
machine. DVD players, CD burners and CD-RW drives can all access CD
media with no adjustment nessecary in the virtual machine.
DVD movie media is not supported within a virtual machine. DVD
movies can only be viewed with a DVD viewer on your host system. In
order to read DVD-data, burned CD-RW, or multisession CD's, raw
access needs to be enabled for your CD-ROM device in the virtual
machine.
To enable raw access for your CD-ROM device, open the
Configuration Editor (choose Settings>Configuration Editor) and select your virtual CD-ROM
drive.
On Windows hosts, check the Enable raw access checkbox.
On Linux hosts, change the device drop-down to CD-ROM (raw access). In order to use raw access mode for a
CD-ROM drive on a Linux host, you must configure the host operating
system to use the ide-scsi module. For more information, see Knowledge Base
article 834. Go to http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=834.
To go back to reading regular CD media, remove the CD-ROM from
raw access mode.
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