The VMware DiskMount Utility allows you to mount an unused virtual disk in a
Windows host file system as a separate drive without needing to connect to the
virtual disk from within a virtual machine. You can mount specific volumes of a virtual
disk if the virtual disk is partitioned.
DiskMount is a command line program called vmware-mount that works similarly
to how you use the subst command on Windows. Once the disk is mounted, you
can read from and write to the disk as if it were a separate file system with its own
drive letter on your network. However, you cannot power on any virtual machine that
uses this disk until the disk is unmounted.
You can perform activities such as scanning a virtual disk for viruses and transferring
files between the host system and a powered off virtual machine.
When you are finished using the mounted virtual disk, delete the mapping so the
virtual disk can be used by virtual machines again.
This tool isn’t exactly new (it get’s installed with VMWare server automatically) but I do find it underappreciated. And so does VMWare. In their new VMWare Workstation 6 (beta now available) they are building it in the GUI. No more remembering difficult command lines! With three simple clicks on your mouse you will have a virtual disk mapping…Virtualization: everybody can do it!
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In the current beta of Workstation 6, the feature is useless if you have UAC enabled, because Windows Explorer will not show you the new mounted drive. If you go down to the command prompt, you can get to the mounted drive, but you won’t be able to do more than list the files and directories; you somehow don’t have permission to open the files. If you start an elevated command prompt, the drive isn’t accessible anymore… Hopefully they will fix this before it ships.