SLServer Guest and USB = Dead Flash Drive

[FarmerBob]

Bought Snow Leopard Server especially since it is said to work the best with Parallels as a Mac-OS guest. Found that additional volumes and USB devices are not as easy to set up. Got the volumes in as folders in the dock, but they don't show up in a window side bar as devices. The USB routing isn't working either. I set to ask me what to do and it does every time I plug it in. But since I couldn't link in/find a volume that I needed to move files over from, I loaded up a flash drive and plugged it in. Parallels saw it and asked me what to do. I told it to mount in the SLS guest and nothing happened. And now the flash drive is unusable on any computer and when plugged into a Windows machine they go haywire. And I dare not try to plug any USB device in fearing the same damage.

When all else was so easy and seems effortless, why did this fail so monumentally?

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

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[MichaelLAX]

WOW: Sorry to hear you are having such problems!

Try plugging the USB stick into your Mac BEFORE you launch Parallels and see if that fixes that problem.

The same should be true of external drives; be sure they are mounted on your real Mac's desktop before you launch Parallels.

The internal HD and external ones should show up in a Shared Folders folder on your vSLS desktop. A workaround is to turn on File Sharing in the real Mac and get its IP and then in the GO menu in the Finder of vSLS use the GO menu to Connect to Server and enter that IP. Then enter your real Mac's account name and password when asked and select one of the drives and it should now appear in the Finder of vSLS (if in Preferences of Finder in vSLS you have checked all the available options.

Try reinstalling Parallels Tools: http://kb.parallels.com/en/4841

 

[FarmerBob]

MichaelLAX,
Thanks for the suggestions. I have tried most everything and although the vSLS installed and works like a charm, peripheral simplicities just don't want to work as they should or as easily as they are said to. Somehow my support got activated in my searches for help on this and I keep forgetting to call and talk to them about this. The USB stick reacts to the computer, after all is up and running the light on the stick come on. Where it should be only flashing with use. But it just won't mount or even show up with recovery software. And a really strange thing is that I tried your suggestion and took it s step further. And in doing so, I restarted the machine as a whole with the stick plugged in and Parallels fired up. vSLS did not start on its own, I had to do that. But Parallels is not set to start on startup. The light on the stick is on, but nobodies home. DiskUtil sees nothing either. I even put it in the card reader on my printer that shows everything and no joy. As I sit here and type this the light on it goes on and off with no reason. Unless there is a background read or write going on. But it does show up under Devices > USB > Manufacturer of the stick is listed and checked.

Oh, and Thank You for all your posts all over on how to make this work. I used them to decide on Parallels and SLS. Plus I gto an offer to get Parallels for a nutz price. Have you discovered how to strip out the server part yet? One thing I noticed is that in trying to trouble shoot the WiFi issue with the MBP, I installed Mountain Lion over the vSLS just to see what would happen and all the server app icons went missing with ? marks in the Dock and no apps to be found. And it looks like the server aspect was gone and it was just plain Mountain Lion. I hope this might lead you somewhere? Also I would love to try to link in SLS from another partition. I saw that mentioned and the way that it was suggested to try to do, I could not find. Which leads to the EHDs. Which aren't really EHDs. They are partitions on the main HD of which the parent OS's partition shows, but not the rest. I was able to grab them and place alias' in the Places column. But they did not show up as they normally would or how Parallels said they would. That's was the other dilemma. Sharing is se

I need to get use my TS before it expires. Which I think is cheezy. And how it got activated is beyond me. So . . .

I'll try reinstalling Tools. I did install them in the beginning so that they would be there whether I needed them or not. Will post back with results.

Thanks again.

 

[MichaelLAX]

I've decided not to work on the "strip out Server" project; as I really see little functional difference in running SLS in Parallels from when I ran SL client there, too! I just removed all of the Server apps from the Dock

One change was turning on File Sharing which did require the server application to easily do, but I do find it hard to access the Macintosh HD through File Sharing on my real Mac. So far I have not had the requirement to do so.

 

[FarmerBob]

I've decided not to work on the "strip out Server" project; as I really see little functional difference in running SLS in Parallels from when I ran SL client there, too! I just removed all of the Server apps from the Dock

Makes sense. I removed the apps.

One change was turning on File Sharing which did require the server application to easily do, but I do find it hard to access the Macintosh HD through File Sharing on my real Mac. So far I have not had the requirement to do so.

Have had issues with sharing and connecting to volumes and drives in and out. Feels as if vSLS is sandboxed. So far all is amazingly well. I just need to get the fried flash drive and a couple other questions dealt with through TS. I think I have days left until support expires which is proving to be the greater point. If I had paid full price and had not gotten such a great deal, I'd be really pis . . . upset.

I'll be following your posts for future issues and findings. Thanks for your attention with this software. It is nice to have a lead to follow.