Recognize SATA DVD drive?

Thread was moved from "General Discussions > User Solutions and Workarounds" to "Parallels Desktop for Mac > Installation and Configuration in Mac OS".
Stacey M

Can parallels recognize SATA dvd drives? I only see "IDE X:X" under the CD drive window. And the "Use physical CD" option is greyed out for me. Currently I am creating ISO's an connecting them that way... but that's not exactly ideal. Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

Can parallels recognize SATA dvd drives?

To get mine working I did the following in the CD/DVD Options tab in the Configuration Editor:
1. Disabled the device by un-checking the "Enabled" box.
2. Enabled the device again to activate the "Use real CD/DVD-ROM" option.
3. Selected the "Use real CD/DVD-ROM" option.
4. Enter the path to your sata CD/DVD-ROM Drive in the entry field - Mine was /dev/scd0 (Ubuntu 6.06).
5. Select the "OK" button and save the VM.

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Steve

 

Apologies for resurrecting such an old thread, but the subject is appropriate.

I recently installed an SATA DVD drive in the second optical drive bay of my Mac Pro and have it connected one of the onboard SATA ports on the logic board (SATA 6). I am having absolutely no luck getting this drive detected through Parallels Desktop build 5584.

First, I attempted to add it through the VM Configuration Editor "Add Hardware Assistant". After selecting "Use a real CD/DVD-ROM drive", the only option available in the drop down is "Default CD/DVD-ROM" which always connects to the stock ATA DVD drive that came with the machine and not my second SATA DVD drive. Thinking I could perhaps trick the wizard I unplugged the ATA and power connectors from the stock ATA DVD drive, leaving only the SATA DVD drive connected. After rebooting and running through the configuration editor again, "Default CD/DVD-ROM" was still the only option available but this time it was greyed out and non-selectable. Launching the VM in this state resulted in a "Unable to open device/file Default CD/DVD-ROM".

Next, I reconnected both drives and attempted various edits of my VM's .PVS file. Here is the starting point which successfully connects the stock ATA DVD drive:

I tried a variety of entries for Disk 0:1 image = <XXX> where "HL-DT-ST BD-RE GGW-H20L" is the name of the drive in OS X System Profiler and /dev/disc2 is the device name when a disc is mounted:

All of these result in a "Unable to open device/file <XXX>" when attempting to connect the drive in Parallels.

Any suggestions for making this work or are SATA DVD drives simply no longer supported in Parallels? I have absolutely no problems using this drive through VMWare Fusion which simply lists both drives using the OS X System Profiler drive name, making things easy to configure. It would be unfortunate to switch to their product and jump through the Windows activation hoops again, so hopefully that is not the solution.

 

Are there no thoughts on connecting SATA optical drives in the new Mac Pro?

I have come up with two small workarounds that I have tested, neither of which are entirely satisfactory, and a third workaround that I have not tested.

First, I can gain read access to the files on a disc mounted in OS X by exposing this disc as a shared folder through /Volumes/My Disc. However, this treats the drive as a network folder in Windows rather than as an optical drive which reduces functionality - ex. I would not be able to burn discs from a Parallels VM session. Additionally, this requires a shared folder to be created for each each unique disc inserted.

The second workaround is to connect the drive to a SATA-to-USB adapter. Parallels then connects to the drive as a USB device which seems to work well. However, this is not an ideal solution since I would prefer the drive to be internal to the Mac Pro chassis.

A third possible workaround would be to purchase a third-party internal SATA PCI card and attempt to use those ports rather than the Mac Pro's onboard SATA. Without confirmation that this would work in advance and not have the same difficulties as the Mac Pro's SATA ports, however, I am reluctant to try this.

 

Hello,

unfortunately, it is not possible to connect your SATA dvd-drive with its full functionality to the Parallels VM directly. You are right, you can use it as a shared folder or connect it via SATA-USB adaptor.

As for internal SATA PCI card, we haven't tested it so I can't guarantee it will be possible.