Help on VMWare snapshots and CDROM image

[jimanny]

Does anyone have a problem with vmware not seeing changes in the ISO file that is mounted to the virtual cd? I've done the search and found a couple threads in the ball park but could not find any mention of this issue...

I'm using vmware to test my unattended install. I create the ISO and mount it to a a virtual cd inside vmware. Then I pause it during the install just when it hits the T-13 mark, and take a snapshot. This saves a lot of time because now I can just update the ISO and revert (then play) the vmware machine where it resumes the install at T-13. Is this how you guys are doing this?

Well, this works fine for me as long as I only change the contents of the existing files in the ISO. For example, removing or adding a line in cmdlines.txt is OK - the install still resumes correctly. But if I add files and directories to the ISO, vmware still resumes fine, but just skips reading the cmdlines.txt file.

Any suggestions? How can I force vmware to read changes in the ISO without starting the entire installation over ?

- jimanny

[jimanny]

Ok, posting this made me dig a little deeper and I got it to work.

If a resume the install, I have to open the "Virtual Machine Settings" dialog box, click CDROM, uncheck "Connected", click OK. Then do it again except check "Connected". For anyone who needs to know, taking the snapshot at T-13 is barely early enough to still be able to disconnect and reconnect the image with all those mouse picks. On the next rebuild, it'll be better to take the snapshot about half-way through T-14.

[turbomcp]

upgrade to 5.0 rc1

its icredible

multiplae snaphots

[Spunge]

I find the easiest way to deal with this is to create a virtual drive with something like Alcohol, mount your image to that drive then use that virtual drive as the cdrom within vmware. No need to mess with dis/connecting but you do need to shutdown vmware when swapping images in the virtualdrive.

HTH.