Prevent Parallels from dismounting data HDD when starting Windows

've got two harddrives in my Macbook. A SSD with OSX and Windows 7 (via Bootcamp) on it and a ordinary HDD for data which is formated as exFat (because both OSX and Windows can read/write it).

I'm able to boot into Windows natively and also inside OSX via Parallels. All is working like a charm but one thing.

In Bootcamp the data HDD is mounted with drive letter F. To see it when booting via Parallels as well I added a HDD to the virtual machine pointing to the data HDD. When I start Parallels it gets drive-letter F like its supposed to.

However Parallels dismounts the data drive on OSX when starting Windows. I can still access it via another folder it has mounted called "[F] Boot Camp" but since the name is different programs on OSX who have data saved on the data-partition won't find them anymore.

Do you have any idea on what I can do about this?

 

Use the drive in Parallels as a shared folder, not as a mounted drive. In the VM configuration, with the machine shut down, under the Hardware tab, remove the data drive. Then, on the Options tab, under Sharing, set Share Folders to All disks, or go into Custom Folders and add the drive as a shared folder.

Steve

 

While that is valid it will be shown as an ordinary drive in Windows. If I have a program on the Windows-side accessing data from the shared folder (in Parallels) or drive (in native Windows) it won't work.