IDE Optical Drive

[Zodis]

I have a LG CD/DVD Burner I plugged it into my system it shows up in the BIOS and opens normally when I press the button but Unraid doesn't see it as a device. I have the unassigned devices plugin installed but that doesn't see it either. Is there a plugin or docker that might work with this? I also have 2 VMs running on my server (Windows 7 and Windows Server 08) is there a way to pass the drive through to one of the VMs?

[BobPhoenix]

The only thing on the IDE controller is the burner - right?  If so I would pass the IDE controller to the VM if your MB is IOMMU capable.  Then you would install drivers in Windows for the IDE controller and IT would pickup the burner.  Maybe post diagnostics as that might give more info about your system to help.

Edited October 12, 2017 by BobPhoenix

[Zodis]

How do I pass the IDE controller to the VM?

[BobPhoenix]

First is your MB/CPU/Bios capable of pass through?  Click on info and see if HVM: Enabled, IOMMU: Enabled show up.  If they are then you can pass through the IDE controller.  Until you get this to show up you cannot.

 

[Zodis]

I have a AMD FX-8350 and a ASRock 990FX Extreme4. IOMMU was disabled in the BIOS and now I've enabled it. So what do I have to do now to get the IDE controller to pass through to a specific VM?

[BobPhoenix]

1. Go to Tool tab and click on "System Devices" icon.
2. Find your IDE controller in the list of devices.  For instance my 4 port SATA controller looks like this: "[8086:1d6b] 06:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller: Intel Corporation C602 chipset 4-Port SATA Storage Control Unit (rev 06)"
3. Make note of the characters between the "[]" - for my 4 port SATA above it is "8086:1d6b"
4. Go to the Main tab and click on the "flash" hyper link
5. Find the label for the normal boot you use.  I use "label unRAID OS" rather then the GUI boot for instance.
6. Find the "append initrd=/bzroot" line
7. Insert the "vfio-pci.ids=" line for your controller.  For my 4 port SATA controller I inserted "vfio-pci.ids=8086:1d6b" so that after editing it looked like this: "append vfio-pci.ids=8086:1d6b initrd=/bzroot"
8. Now reboot your unRAID server.
9. When you can get to the unRAID GUI again edit your VM.
10. You should see your IDE controller listed in the list.  For my 4 port SATA controller it was listed like this: "Intel C602 chipset 4-Port SATA Storage Control Unit | Serial Attached SCSI controller (06:00.0)"
11. Then just check the box next to it.
12. Boot your VM.  It should boot up with the IDE controller passed through if you don't have other problems.
13. Now just setup the drivers for it in your VM if needed.

You might see in step 2 above that there are more then one device listed under the same IOMMU group.  If you do you would have to pass those devices too.  Or you can try to turn on the ACS Override option in VM settings to see if that splits them apart. 

 

The process is the same for other devices.  Here is a how I have my append line above with multiple devices for pass through: "append vfio-pci.ids=8086:1d6b,1131:7160,8086:10d3,1912:0014 initrd=/bzroot"  You can only pass through the device to a SINGLE VM at a time.  So as long as the VM is running you cannot start another VM that has the same device passed through.  I've yet to have found a device that would let me share it between VMs but I suppose it is possible.  The worst that should happen if you try it is the second VM won't start I believe.

 

Edited October 15, 2017 by BobPhoenix

[Zodis]

Thanks a lot for help with this, I was able to pass it through to the VM. But while the VM can see the cd drive and it can see blank discs, when I try to read or write anything it fails. I think it might be  a driver issue.

[BobPhoenix]

Not going to be able to help with that I'm afraid.  Sorry.