VMware Workstation 8: Map a virtual hard disk to a drive letter

VMware Workstation 8 provides you with the ability to map the contents of a virtual hard disk file to a drive letter, thus making the contents of that virtual hard drive easily accessible to the host operating system. Of course, you can also accomplish the same goal by firing up the virtue machine and establishing a shared folder, but this is a bit more involved than simply mapping a drive letter.

To get started, you have to have a virtual machine and have started VMware Workstation 8. From the File menu in Workstation, choose Map Virtual Disks.

Next, you will get a screen that shows you the virtual disks that are currently mapped to drive letters. There is a button labeled “Map” click that button to open the Map Virtual Disk window. In this window, click the Browse button and locate the VMDK file associated with the virtual disk you’d like to map. All of the individual volumes inside the VMDK will be list; I have two volumes in my VMDK fil. Choose the volume you’d like to map and then click OK.

I’ve actually mapped two drives – drive Z: is mapped to volume 1 while drive Y: is mapped to volume 2.

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1 thought on “VMware Workstation 8: Map a virtual hard disk to a drive letter”

  1. Help me! My vm ware is not working. Error reading volume information. Please select another disk file. ???

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