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Adding USB Hard Disk to ESXi 4.1

We have ESXi 4.1 running on a Sun Fire X4170 server. A Windows XP guest machine is running inside the host. We connected a “Western Digital My Passport Essential 250GB 2.5 HDD” hard disk on the ESXi host and we are trying to make the guest Windows XP virtual machine to detect it.

This hard disk is listed in the HCL here http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1021345

On the guest Windows XP machine we have added a USB controller and when we try to add another device, under the “Choose the type of device you wish to add” window, we have “USB Device (unavailable)”

What could we be doing wrong?
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coolsport00
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The device may be on the HCL, but that doesn't mean it's a supported PASSTHROUGH device for USB. USB is still very much in its infancy with VMware...at least with its baremetal hypervisor. The key is to see if the HD is listed in the 'allowed' USB devices here:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1021345
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022290


Regards,
~coolsport00
If you can't get it to work through the above, the only other option you have is using VMDirectPath:
http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-esxi4-vmdirectpath.htm

or, AnywhereUSB by Digi:
http://www.digi.com/products/usb/anywhereusb.jsp#overview

~coolsport00
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AJKBOC

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The disk is listed in the first link you provided
Ok great; go through the 2nd KB to verify you've done the procedures correctly, although I know there's not much to it. If it doesn't work, try using VMDirectPath in the "Petri" link I gave.

~coolsport00
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I would really prefer leaving the VMDirectPath as a final solution, because it will require a restart of the ESXi host, it doesn't support vMotion, and we specifically bought this hard disk because it is supported.

I went throught the steps in the second kb, but I still get “USB Device (unavailable)”
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coolsport00
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We'll propably use anywhereusb