VMWare quite possibly makes some of the greatest software products in the world. They practically invented the virtualization market, and they are still the market leaders. This is evidenced by the their add on product for their server and workstation product lines called the Disk Mount Utility (DMU).
The DMU allows you to take the .vmdk or hard drive files that are used for your virtual machines and mount and access them in the same way you would a USB Thumb Drive to access the files located on the virtual drive. One might ask, “Why would you want to do such a thing?” the answer is simple, what if you just need the files on the VM not the whole VM, do you really want to have to fire up the VM, waste time and resources only to have to copy files between a computer and the VM? This method makes this process much more straight forward. This works well when used in conjunction with VMWare Converter. If you need more info on Converter, see the VMWare site or my presentation on it.
On to the Howto:
1) Get the Disk Mount Utility software from VMWare.
2) Install the software.
3) Launch a command prompt. Start > Run and type CMD.
4) Change your working directory to the Install Directory by typing:
cd “\Program Files\VMware\VMware DiskMount Utility”
5) Next you will run the mount program using the format of vmware-mount <the drive letter you wish to mount it to> <the full path to the target virtual disk>
Example:
vmware-mount z: “f:\My Virtual Machines\Windows XP Server 2003\Windows Server 2003 Professional.vmdk”
Thats it, within a few seconds you should see the drive in the My Computer window. When you are done with the virtual drive simply type the following to dismount it:
vmware-mount /d z:
If you need further help or want to explore some of the other options available type the following:
vmware-mount/?
It is also of importance that there are some GUIs out there for this to simplify the process, but they usually are fairly cumbersome.
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