win 8.1 installed in VM does not see my ext.hdd or flash drives.

[davidhk129]

Acer Aspire laptop.
Host OS : Win 7 Home Premium SP1.
Guest OS : Win 8.1 pro preview installed in VMware Player

Win 8.1 does not see my external hard drive or flash drive when I plug them into the USB ports.
How do I correct that?

Thank you.

 

[Mike]

You need to dismount the devices on the host computer and make sure they are defined in VMWare Player. There may be some limitations to player that do not exist in VMWare Workstation. VMWare Workstation will allow you to emulate all of the devices you have connected to your physical machine directly to the virtual machine every time you start the machine. VMWare Player is not as specific about this and there is likely a limitation of how well it is supported. You can try sharing them in a folder with the virtual machine as a way to get around it with the storage issue.

 

[davidhk129]

Acer Aspire laptop.
Host OS : Win 7 Home Premium SP1.
Guest OS : Win 8.1 pro preview installed in VMware Player

Win 8.1 does not see my external hard drive or flash drive when I plug them into the USB ports.
How do I correct that?

Thank you.

Editing..............
In VM, top right corner, there are some icons, one of which is my ext. hdd.
I right clicked at it and it said " Connect (disconnect from host)".
I clicked at it. But the ext. hdd is not found under Computer although it is supposed to be connected to the VM.

 

[davidhk129]

Editing..............
In VM, top right corner, there are some icons, one of which is my ext. hdd.
I right clicked at it and it said " Connect (disconnect from host)".
I clicked at it. But the ext. hdd is not found under Computer although it is supposed to be connected to the VM.

Here is the screenshot to show that I had done what VM told me. But still can't find it in VM.

 

[Mike]

Use shared folders.

 

[davidhk129]

Use shared folders.

Share option works. Had to give permission etc, but it is done.

Thank you.