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I'm almost embarrassed to ask this, but I'm stuck. I installed VMWare ESXi on a Mac Pro. It's working great! The problem is that you press F12 to eject the disk, and F12 is what you use to shutdown ESX. I can power down, open the case, pull out the CD drive and use a paper clip to force the drawer open, but that's kind of a pain.

Any other way to do this?

EDIT: Setting password was a good idea - no shutdown now :) However, F12 doesn't eject the disk when VMWare is running. Attaching the drive to a VM and ejecting from there ("Eject" in Windows Explorer for example) does work. Kind of a round about way though. But maybe that's the best I can do with this Mac. Wish they had exposed the eject button...

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4 Answers

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Have you tried binding the physical drive to one of the VMs and then issuing an eject command?

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This seems to be the only way to get the disk out while the machine is running (ie without a reboot). Not sure why, but F12 wouldn't do it from within VMWare. – DougN Mar 30 '10 at 14:09
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Set a password - that way F12 WON'T shut down you box without you entering it first.

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Spot on as far as ESXi is concerned but will F12 still eject the drive when the Mac Pro isn't running OSX? – Helvick Mar 24 '10 at 18:23
Yeah, it's an EFI-thang, works the same in windows before you install the bootcamp code. – Chopper3 Mar 24 '10 at 18:25
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up vote 3 down vote

Try issuing the eject command on the ESXi service console via SSH

http://vmwaretips.com/wp/2008/10/20/access-the-esxi-service-console/

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Holding the mouse button down while rebooting the machine will eject the disk.

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I think he's looking to do this with the server running, could be wrong though. – Chopper3 Mar 24 '10 at 18:14
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