ResScan plus VMWare Fusion on a Macbook Pro SD Card Reader

[Colin Worth]

Hi, this post describes a fix for importing data from my S9 Autoset CPAP (with a standard SD Card that can be read by any SD card reader) to a Windows 7 Virtual Machine running on OS X Lion using VMWare Fusion software. Lion is running on an early 2011 Macbook Pro. Note this fix should work for other versions of OS X - Mountain Lion, etc.

I ran into a problem importing data from my CPAP to the computer. Note that this is different from the problem other users have had getting a proprietary card reader for the S8 CPAP to work with VMWare. I have an S9 Autoset.

The problem was that ResScan was not recognizing when I inserted my SD Card into the Macbook's built in Macbook SD Card reader. I tracked the problem a bit and realized that the Windows OS didn't see the card (or any other SD card I tried) at all. The best information I found said that VMWare does not support the new Macbook SD Card readers: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/409552?tstart=0

The solution is the following: get a cheap USB 2.0 all-in-1 card reader, and plug it into a USB port with VMWare already running. VMWare will ask you if you want to connect the card reader to OS X or Windows, choose Windows. That's it.

Now everything works perfectly and I no longer have to shutdown OS X to use ResScan ! I am posting this fix because I didn't see it mentioned in this forum when I was searching for solutions for my S9 Autoset. Apologies if this is a duplicate of another post or if there is already a better solution.

Note: the link above about VMWare and the card reader is pretty current with this post (August, 2012), but if anyone knows a way to get the internal card reader in the newer MacBook Pro's to work with VMWare Fusion, please post here. The card reader's identifiers are Vendor ID: 0x14e4, Device ID: 0x16bc. [note: if you want to find the numbers for your card reader, you can look in Apple Menu->About This Mac->More Info->System Report->Hardware->Card Reader]

[JohnO]

Note: the link above about VMWare and the card reader is pretty current with this post (August, 2012), but if anyone knows a way to get the internal card reader in the newer MacBook Pro's to work with VMWare Fusion, please post here.

Thanks for posting that. Unfortunately, it won't work unless (or until) VMware puts PCIe bus support into their product. What happens is that the virtual machine knows only how to deal with certain underlying hardware. The older MacBook Pro machines had the SD Card reader on the USB bus, so as long as USB was supported, the SD card reader was supported. As of the 2011 unibody MacBook Pros, Apple moved the SD Card to the PCIe bus, and VMware doesn't support that yet, and has not indicated whether they plan to or not. I wonder if Parallels supports the built-in SD card reader on the newer MacBook Pro computers?

Here is the VMware knowledge base article, but it doesn't say anything I didn't already say, other than giving a workaround that won't work unless all you want to do is pull files off the card. Both ResScan and the Philips Respironics Encore software look for -the device- and therefore won't work with their workaround. The only acceptable workaround that I have seen (and use regularly) is the one you mention.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=1035825

[festar]

I have just come across the same problem with my new S9.

I knew if I searched enough I would find a solution. Thanks so much for the post.
cheers
festar

[festar]

Well Colin,

I tried it again using a card reader and still cant get ResScan 4.2 to read my card. I also tried it using Parallels with the same problem. I know the card is ok with data on it because it works fine using Sleepyhead.

Any suggestions?