Disabling "Connect at Power On" for CD-ROMs and Other IDE Devices

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

How do I configure the devices for the virtual machines that I manage on ESX Server so they do not connect at power on?

Environment

VMware ESX Server 2.1.x
VMware ESX Server 2.0.x
VMware ESX Server 2.5.x

Resolution

You can make this change from the VMware Management Interface.

1. Log onto the management interface as root or other administrative user.
2. Access the menu for a virtual machine, then click Configure Options.
3. Click the link under Verbose Options.
4. Look for IDE devices. They are prefixed with ideX:Y, where X is the bus and Y is the device number. The section appears as:

   

   This block controls the settings for the CD-ROM.

5. For each device that this virtual machine doesn't need to routinely access, change the startConnected value tofalse.

   Note: To make the device unavailable to all virtual machines, set the present IDE attribute tofalse.

VMware recommends that you create all new virtual machines with this configuration, unless you have a specific need otherwise.

If you are working in the service console:

1. Log onto the service console as root or as another administrative user with the correct permissions.
2. Edit /root/vmware/guestOSname.vmx, whereguestOSname represents the name of the virtual machine.
3. Find the block of data that contains the information for IDE devices, and change the startConnected value toFalse. For example:

    ide1:0.present = "True"
   ide1:0.startConnected = "False" ide1:0.deviceType = "atapi-CDROM" ide1:0.fileName = "/dev/CDROM"