Refreshing the CD-ROM drive in Virtual Server

This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I’ve been installing Exchange in a virtual machine this evening and ran into an interesting issue with Virtual Server and CD/DVD access. The virtual machine in question had a virtual CD/DVD drive was attached to the host computer’s CD-ROM drive but each time I switched CDs, the guest seemed unaware of the change.

I found a workaround on the microsoft.public.virtualserver newsgroup. It’s clumsy, but by releasing the guest’s virtual CD/DVD drive (connect to no media) and reconnecting to the host’s physical CD/DVD drive I was able to force the virtual machine to recognise the new disk (Virtual PC users can release and recapture the CD drive within Virtual PC).

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