Ошибка cannot locate the dvd rom

Just installed VirtualBox version 6.1.32 under host Windows 7 64 bit SP1.

Then installed Windows XP SP3 in VirtualBox via Windows 7 optical drives (drives L: and M:). This was followed by the installation in Windows XP under VirtualBox of software via Windows 7 optical drive M:.

In order to run the installed software, it requires that a disc remain inserted within an optical drive.

Virtual Windows XP under VirtualBox shows that there are just two drives are available, drive C: (the HDD) and an optical drive labeled D:.

When attempting to run the installed software in Windows XP, the software asks for the DVD-ROM to be inserted within the optical drive D
:, but the software is unable to locate the DVD-ROM regardless of whether the DVD-ROM is in Windows 7 drive L: and M: !?

So it appears that Windows XP optical drive D: is not associated with Windows 7 optical drive L: nor drive M: ?

I have had a search for others with similar issues, but despite trying to follow some suggested solutions by making changes in settings here and there in VirtualBox, I can’t seem to get the DVD-ROM to be recognized.

How do you get DVD’s to be recognized in virtual Windows XP drive D: via Windows 7 optical drive L: or drive M: ?

Virtual drives are virtual — not the same as the physical drives on your host PC. Basically you have been inserting a DVD into one PC and expecting a second PC to notice it.

If you want the host DVD drive to be mapped to the guest DVD drive then you need to configure that in the VM settings.

Note however that the drives are still separate, you will never see the host E: drive directly. Instead you’ll find that the VM D: drive has the same contents.

mpack wrote:Virtual drives are virtual — not the same as the physical drives on your host PC. Basically you have been inserting a DVD into one PC and expecting a second PC to notice it.

If you want the host DVD drive to be mapped to the guest DVD drive then you need to configure that in the VM settings.

Note however that the drives are still separate, you will never see the host E: drive directly. Instead you’ll find that the VM D: drive has the same contents.

Thanks for the response.

Although of some help, I really don’t know how to «configure» settings within VirtualBox to «map» Windows 7 (host) optical drive to VirtualBox drive D: ?

So, how exactly do you configure VirtualBox for my case here, please?

First understand that there is no «VirtualBox drive D:». VirtualBox provides virtual drives, it does not control how the guest OS labels them. It so happens that the DVD is the second drive in your VM recipe, and a Windows guest OS customarily gives the second (non floppy) drive a D: label by default. There is nothing inevitable about this — e.g. a Linux guest would give the same drive another label entirely.

If you go to the VM settings, Storage panel, select the CD/DVD drive on the left of the dialog, then on the right you can choose an ISO file or host drive to map to the virtual drive.

There is also the «Devices» menu on the running VM where you can make a similar choice.

Thanks for the detailed reply!

I believe I have selected Windows 7 (host) optical drive L: as being «mapped» to VirtualBox (?)

Screenshots enclosed —

But despite the software DVD being located within optical drive L: of the host (Windows 7), the software continues to ask for the correct location of the DVD-ROM!?

Can’t get screenshot of message when attempting to start the software within VirtualBox, but message box appears entitled —

Cannot locate the DVD-ROM

and with the message —

Please insert the correct DVD-ROM, select OK and restart application

The correct disc is inserted within host drive L:, I double checked that.

From quick research online, I’m guessing that the issue might have something to do with the software disc copy protection which detects the presence of emulation software which in turn prevents the software from running?

Otherwise, I am still puzzled as to why the software will not detect the disc?

We are now straying into Windows tuition, which is not really what this site is about.

It is quite possible that you have to tell guest software which drive to use. In the guest you would browse to drive D:. And you need to stop looking at the VirtualBox menus for that, this is a matter of operating the (virtual) PC.

Noted thanks.

Regarding the possible «emulation» issue, on further research it appears that the software displays a message to the effect that emulation software was detected. But in my case, that message was not displayed. So emulation should not be an issue here.

Yes, it appears to be an issue of the software being directed to the correct optical drive in order to read the disc. This is being looked into right now.

I missed this part earlier:-

meeshu wrote:From quick research online, I’m guessing that the issue might have something to do with the software disc copy protection?

If the CD/DVD disk employs copy protection techniques then you may need to enable Passthrough mode in the VM settings for the CD controller. This gives the VM a closer look at the physical CD/DVD. See the checkbox in your own first screenshot in your most recent post.

If the software is question is detecting that you are running inside a virtual machine (it would not say anything about «emulation») and refusing to run, then nothing can be done about that. There are many ways to detect a VM and VirtualBox doesn’t attempt to hide itself. But, I’d be surprised if software intended for the XP era knows anything about VMs. More likely it is just noticing that the CD image appears to be a copy (passthrough should fix that).

Thanks for the additional information!

Passthrough setting box was found to be greyed out. But on searching for a solution for this greyed out box, I found that the guest OS should be shut down and then passthrough should be selected and enabled under storage options.

This seems to have basically fixed the issue of addressing the host optical drive, so that the software now appears to know where the disc is and the program now starts!

However, there is now an issue regarding the video/graphics. The software stops running with a message to the effect that the current video setup is not suitable for running the program. This is an operating system issue which I will address now.

Basically the issue has indeed been resolved.

Thanks again for the assistance!

Briefly as an aside: although the software under virtual Windows XP now starts, the software stops running owing to relatively low specification graphics driver that VirtualBox has available. The host (Windows 7) video hardware and associated driver does provide sufficient graphics capability to run the software under Windows XP (guest). But unfortunately the guest software can’t access the host video hardware and software while running under VirtualBox.

For that reason (software not able to be run completely under VirtualBox which has severely limited graphics capability), I’ve had to abandon the setup completely and have now uninstalled VirtualBox.

It’s a pity that you didn’t clearly state your intentions at the start. If you had said that the application needs better graphics acceleration then I would have told you to install nothing older than Windows 7, or else use an older version of VirtualBox (i.e. 6.0.x) that still provided accelerated graphics for XP. I have fond memories of it too, but I must admit that being two decades old at this point inevitably means that XP isn’t going to be the #1 priority for the devs.

To be clear, guest apps can indeed use accelerated graphics if you configure the VM correctly and install the right guest OS.

To be clear some more: a VM never uses host hardware directly, so you can never expect a VM to use the host GPU directly. What VirtualBox does do is provide an accelerated graphics emulation which is implemented using OpenGL. So provided you have decent host graphics with a good OpenGL layer, and you use the correct guest as mentioned with the Guest Additions installed and 3D acceleration enabled… then graphics performance should be ok. A bit out of date (like all hardware in a VM) but ok. This should be fine for moderate CAD, older games, and all non-fussy graphical apps.