Saturday, May 12, 2012

VMWare Fusion 4: Easier Boot to BIOS

I found this cool method to quickly boot to bios, especially useful for unattended operations.
Adding this line into the .vmx file will boot the virtual machine into BIOS on the next power-up.

bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"

VMWare Fusion 4: Unable to Add Hard Disk

After removing the original hard disk from an existing Virtual Machine, I was unable to re-add the existing hard disk back to the same Virtual Machine.  I went through the proper procedure but the apply button did not work.  When selecting "Show All" to go back, I was then asked if I wanted to add the device.  Naturally, I said yes, but that did not work either.  There was no errors or indication why this would not work.

I did manage to get it working by manually editing the  vmx file.

Step 1
Power off the virtual machine and remove from the library.

Step 2
Change the following:
scsi0:0.present = "FALSE"
to
scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"

Add the following line:
scsi0:0.fileName = "{Name of VMDK}.vmdk"

Step 3
Add the virtual machine back to the library and review settings to see if the change worked.

Sstep 4
Power up and enjoy!