Yesterday I wanted to do something simple with my MacBook Pro: burn a CD. Nothing fancy, I just had a 200 meg file that I needed to give someone and there wasn't a USB drive to be found, so a CD it was. I inserted my blank CD into my MacBook Pro and nothing happened.I thought, perhaps, I had a bum CD so I tried a few more (5 to be exact). Each time I got the same result: nothing. I double checked my prefs to make sure I had 'Ask me what to do,' when inserting a blank CD, and I did.
What the heck was going on?
I was running Parallels, and it was being helpful by taking over the CD burner of my Mac, just in case I wanted to burn a CD from Windows. That's why it wasn't showing up in OS X! Luckily, this is a simple thing to fix. If you go to the lower right hand corner of your Parallels window you'll see a little CD icon. Click on it and the menu pictured at the top of this post comes up. Click 'Disconnect.' Boom, OS X sees your blank CD and asks for instructions.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-07-2006 @ 12:44PM
Ed said...
I hope it didn't go "Boom"...
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11-07-2006 @ 12:56PM
Brandon said...
I've come across the same problem. It was a little annoying for me. Now by default I disable the CD-ROM and only connect it when I need it. I do all CD burning and only need the DVD drive in Mac OS X anyway so it's not a problem for me. Good tip though. I usually use fullscreen mode so I didn't know you could disconnect from the console.
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11-07-2006 @ 12:58PM
John from Buffalo said...
It's called commonly in the Parallels Manual as the P-RTFM, page 1 I think. *snicker*
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11-07-2006 @ 1:57PM
Drew said...
Can you burn within Parallels now? Last I heard it was read-only...
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11-07-2006 @ 2:41PM
Allan Leedy said...
You'd have had the same fun with your USB ports. I've torn my hair out trying to connect an iPod, forgetting all the while that I have Parallels running in the background and it's capturing whatever device I connect. (Some of them cause Parallels to raise its hand, but the iPod isn't among them. Lucky I don't have the Windows version if iTunes loaded, or I'd be getting that sync'ing feeling.) It's nice to know there's an easy fix.
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11-07-2006 @ 2:42PM
DrWho said...
Nice tip - i had exactly the same problem. My solution was slightly more drastic - shut down parallels!
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11-07-2006 @ 2:50PM
Pete said...
I figured that one out too :) What I havent been able to tackle yet though, is how to claim back my (USB connected) printer from Parallels without stopping it. Somebody got any ideas?
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11-07-2006 @ 3:54PM
thebillionaire said...
Thank you! That's been bugging the hell out of me for a few days now.
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11-07-2006 @ 4:23PM
Steve Clifford UK said...
LOL i had the same issue, i spend a whole morning going though forums, like you i worked it out!! but it was so annoying!!!
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11-07-2006 @ 11:33PM
Mephistophelian said...
I have been thinking about installing Parallels but I am wondering how easy it is to 'uninstall' it if I ever want to.
Anyone know?
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