System Profiler will not recognize installed hard drive if drive is in use by VMWare

Question

System Information will not recognize installed Hard Drive (Boot Camp) when in use by VMWare.I work in IT for a School District and I am creating a Script that system information about the computer. I am testing this on a Mac Pro with two internal hard drives. One drive is Mac OS 10.8 and the other drive is a Boot Camp Drive that is used by VMWare Fusion.When I run System Information via the GUI or system_profiler via Terminal, both drives show up just fine. However, if I launch VMWare Fusion and run Windows from my Boot Camp drive, then run System Information via the GUI or system_profiler via Terminal, the Boot Camp Drive is no longer listed as an installed drive.Example:In the Terminal, I enter the following command.system_profiler SPStorageDataTypeThen it returns this information.Storage:    Lion Client:      Available: 217.84 GB (217,836,306,432 bytes)      Capacity: 639.28 GB (639,275,270,144 bytes)      Mount Point: /      File System: Journaled HFS+      Writable: Yes      Ignore Ownership: No      BSD Name: disk0s2      Volume UUID: CCB501BF-AF24-30E7-A938-5A4E52DF14D7      Physical Drive:          Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0 Media          Medium Type: Rotational          Protocol: SATA          Internal: Yes          Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)          S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified    BOOTCAMP:      Available: 255.58 GB (255,575,560,192 bytes)      Capacity: 319.79 GB (319,790,510,080 bytes)      Mount Point: /Volumes/BOOTCAMP      File System: NTFS      Writable: No      Ignore Ownership: Yes      BSD Name: disk1s2      Volume UUID: D4B39D4E-E244-403C-AE4D-4D58397130DE      Physical Drive:          Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0 Media          Medium Type: Rotational          Protocol: SATA          Internal: Yes          Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)          S.M.A.R.T. Status: VerifiedThen I launch VMWare, which uses the Boot Camp drive. The once again run the same command from the Terminal Command and I get this.Storage:    Lion Client:      Available: 213.39 GB (213,392,244,736 bytes)      Capacity: 639.28 GB (639,275,270,144 bytes)      Mount Point: /      File System: Journaled HFS+      Writable: Yes      Ignore Ownership: No      BSD Name: disk0s2      Volume UUID: CCB501BF-AF24-30E7-A938-5A4E52DF14D7      Physical Drive:          Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0 Media          Medium Type: Rotational          Protocol: SATA          Internal: Yes          Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)          S.M.A.R.T. Status: VerifiedThe Boot Camp Drive is no longer listed.I assume this is due to the the fact that the drive is "In Use" however is seems odd since the Mac drive is also in use and it appears without problem. I assume there is no "fix" for this, I was just wondering if someone may have an explaination why?Also, I do realize that I can query the various interface types like system_profiler SPSerialATADataType to get all the properly installed phycial drives, but then I would have to query all possible interface types, isolate only devices containing Volumes, then consoldate the information to just the information that I need. I was hoping for a cleaner query.

silvergc · Answer

I think the best place to go with this question would be VMWare to see if they can help.  But, I have a question for you anyway.  First, I assume you are using Fusion to treat the second disk as a virtual image of Windows so that you can run Windows and Mac applications side-by-side.  Am I correct?Here is the question:  Why not use Fusion to install the virtual machine on the second drive instead of BootCamp?  That way you could format the drive as an HFS partition so that OS X can see it as another drive and share files with the Windows virtual machine?  You wouldn&#x27;t have to dedicate the entire disk to the virtual machine that way.Like I said, just a question for my own information.

Daniel Ginther · Answer

Thank you for your response.VMWare may be the cause, but the actual issue I am having is with Apple&#x27;s System Information. I anticipated resistance from VMWare if I went to them with a question about an Apple software issue (even though VMWare software is part of the equation). I was trying to avoid the inevitable finger pointing game. I thought I would try with Apple Forums first since the issues presents itself within the Apple Software. However, you are correct that VMWare may have an explanation on why Fusion might be interfering with System Information. I will check with them next.To answer your question. Yes, In most cases I do use Fusion to run Windows side-by-side with the Mac OS. However, that is not always the case. There are a few reasons why I have it setup using a Dual Boot configuration.One, in some cases, due to the intense programs I occasionally run (graphic applications), I prefer to simply boot straight into Windows via Boot Camp so I may allocate all hardware resources to Windows. Additionally, some graphic applications like to have direct access to hardware and the extra layer of the VM environment can cause problems when an application is trying to directly access specific hardware like a graphics card.Second, I often use either side, both Mac and PC, for testing. There is an advantage to not having to rely on the Mac OS to run Windows. If, for whatever reason, my Mac becomes unstable due to testing, I can still jump right into Windows to do work if necessary.Third, I love the Mac OS, but I work in a PC centric organization. If there is a "problem" with my system, it is too easy for other system admins to say, "it&#x27;s because it&#x27;s a Mac". Having the definitive separation of the OS&#x27;s allows me to prove that the Mac OS is not a factor.

silvergc · Answer

Thanks for the background.  I was asking simply because I use Fusion for Windows and Linux virtual machines.  Windows because some of our corporate web pages only work with a Windows based browser due to addins used.  Linux because there are a few FGPA design tools that run better in Linux that Windows.  So I "convert" my machine to Linux by giving over 4 of the cores and 10-12GB RAM to the VM to run these tools.