I came across a bit of a strange quirk I downloaded shrink DVD and used it in Parallels Windows XP I closed shrink DVD and went to OSX and started Toast Titanium 7 but it said i had no hardware when you pulled down the info from the mainmenu it could not find a DVD or CD burner so I shut down XP and parallels wnet back to Toast in OSX and the hardware was released So I am assuming somehow that Parallels/Windows XP somehow "stole" the DVD burner so Toast could not see it existed Funny thing was that I went into profiler while this error was being stated and it showed up fine in Apples Profiler.. Anyone else seen this..
This is normal behaviour for Parallels Desktop. The system profiler still sees the hardware, but Parallels commandeers the hardware so that no other Mac software (Toast, Finder, iTunes, etc.) can see it. However, you don't have to shut down your VM or quit Parallels to free up the hardware; you can simply disconnect the hardware under the "Devices" menu in Parallels Desktop, and you can do this even while the VM is running. Of course, don't forget to re-connect the device when you are done using it in Toast or whatever and you want the VM to see it again.
