Raw devices give the guest direct access to a physical disk, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM drive on the Windows host. Available devices are listed in the Device drop-down box. The Configuration Utility omits physical disks that it detects are in use by Windows or whose disk identity it cannot determine. If a disk is missing, run the utility as administrator and check the Windows storage driver and device permissions before retrying. Never expose a disk that is mounted or otherwise in use by Windows or another application: concurrent access can corrupt the disk.
Select CD-ROM for optical media. Avanti then presents the device as read-only removable media. If an optical drive is unexpectedly absent from the Device list, check Windows device permissions and enumeration. Avanti normally requires administrator rights to open a physical device. Existing configuration files may use a Windows device path beginning with \\.\ or \\?\; use the Device list for new configurations.
A raw disk requires license units. A zero-unit configuration includes the first physical CD-ROM or DVD-ROM when its device path uses the canonical \\.\CDROMn form produced by the Device list. An extended \\?\ path does not qualify for this allowance. Additional physical optical drives or any raw disk require at least 10 units.
The raw-device [+] dialog contains these settings:
vendor, model_num, rev_num, serial_num
Set the guest-visible SCSI inquiry identity. When model_num is empty, Avanti selects its default vendor, model, and revision, replacing any separate vendor or rev_num value. Set vendor, model_num, and rev_num together when overriding the automatic identity. Use a distinct serial number of at most 255 bytes when guest software distinguishes devices by serial number.
tcq (default: false)
Enable tagged command queueing. This is required for an OpenVMS cluster quorum disk and requires disconnect to remain enabled.
disconnect (default: true)
Allow the disk to disconnect and later reselect during long SCSI operations so another target can use the bus.
write_through (default: true)
Open the raw device with Windows write-through caching. Leave this enabled. Disabling it risks data loss if the host stops unexpectedly. A guest SYNCHRONIZE CACHE command waits for earlier writes and asks Windows to flush the raw-device handle; a flush failure is reported to the guest.
lock_cd_tray (default: true)
For an optical drive, ask Windows to lock the tray while Avanti is accessing the medium and unlock it after the drive becomes idle. A host drive or driver may decline the request.
heads, cylinders, sectors (default: 0)
Override the guest-visible disk geometry only when all three values describe exactly the physical device size in 512-byte blocks. Heads and sectors may be 0 through 255; cylinders may be 0 through 65,535. Leave all three at zero to derive a geometry automatically; an incomplete or mismatched override is ignored.
debug (default: false)
Reserved for a purpose-built diagnostic version supplied by Migration Specialties. This setting has no effect in an ordinary Avanti build.
