iMac - Windows Xp - can't see USB drives

[David Sundstrom]

I have an iMac, just installed Parallels Desktop 5 and then Windows XP. Everything seems fine. I inserted a flash drive, the system asks me which OS I want to use, MAC OS or Virtual Machine. I chose Virtual Machine but in Windows the drive is not seen. I checked the format of the USB drive, it's FAT32 so I'm thinking that's not the problem.

Any ideas what I can do to see the USB drive in Parallels/Windows XP?

 

[hscott]

I have the same problem with a brand new macbook pro. I'm very interested in seeing any answers.
I noticed that if I assign the usb stick to the mac side, it appears there, and on the xp side under MyComputer as a network drive (assigned y. Is this normal behavior? If I re-assign it to the xp side, it disappears from the mac side and from MyComputer on the xp side.

This is a new installation.

macbook pro 2.8GHz 4G
Snow Leapord 10.6 all current updates
XP sp3 all current updates
Parallels 5 all current updates

 

[hscott]

Success!

I found this info and this exact procedure worked for me. I can now see the USB ports.

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How I got USB drive to be recognized (XP Pro)
This affected a new installation of Parallels Desktop 3.0 (5608) with Windows XP Pro guest OS on Leopard 10.5.4.
The USB drive would show up in Parallels Devices as checked, but Windows would never notice the USB drive.

Received the following from Ekaterina Tuzova at Parallels Tech Support which resolved the issue:
1. Start Windows guest OS, go to Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager and uninstall all devices under the Universal Serial Bus Controllers (right-click the devices).
2. Shut down your VM.
3. In VM Configuration Editor, delete the USB Controller and start Windows guest OS again.
4. Wait 5-10 minutes until Windows finishes the driver setup.
5. Shut down Windows.
6. Add "USB Controller" back to your VM configuration and start Windows again.

In my case, in step 4 Windows never appeared to do any driver setup, Windows installed USB drivers after step 6 when I reinserted the USB device.

Now works as expected, USB drive visible in Windows. This avoids the (low performance) workarounds like creating a link to the USB drive and accessing through Parallels Shared Folders.

(Those not in US can substitute recognise for recognize above.)
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macbook pro 2.8GHz 4G
Snow Leapord 10.6 all current updates
XP sp3 all current updates
Parallels 5 all current updates

 

[youds]

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[youds]

Hi

I'm having this exact problem. I followed the instructions above to try and resolve the issue but not joy.
I've struggled with this for nearly 2 weeks now, coming back to it every now and again. I've even formatted the drive as NTFS knowing that Windows can read FAT32 partitions, however thought it was worth a try.
Really stuck with it. As I said, the problem is exactly the same as the person who started the thread. When I connect my USD drive I can't see it in My Computer.

I've attached a screenshot of the VM with the Flash Disk selected.

Thanks