1) connect your external drive
2) goto the command line – Terminal – and type diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *111.8 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS MAIN 82.4 Gi disk0s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data 29.0 Gi disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *37.3 Gi disk1
1: DOS_FAT_16 BOOT 2.0 Gi disk1s1
2: DOS_FAT_32 UNTITLED 2 35.3 Gi disk1s2
make note of the disk number
3) Create a virtual disk file for the external usb drive
cd ~/Documents/’Virtual Machines’
‘/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-rawdiskCreator create /dev/disk1 1 USB-DRIVE1 buslogic.
This should create 2 files
USB-DRIVE1.vmdk
USB-DRIVE1-pt.vmdk
The parameters read like this /dev/disk1 = disk1 , 1 = partition 1, USB-DRIVE1 = location of Virtual Machines drive files, buslogic = interface parameter ( ide , buslogic , lsilogic ) only buslogic works for usb drives, have no idea why.
Make note in Unix-like OSes, the single quotes is used to enclose a path with a space in the name, ‘Virtual Machines’, without the quotes the command will fail.
4) Then just create a new VM and choose an existing virtual disk, and point it to the new file you just created, IE –> USB-DRIVE1.vmdk