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I am running Ubuntu 64-bit on VMWare workstation 10. I want to access the files on my windows 8 PC (both on same PC). I have checked "always enabled" for folder sharing on VMWare and gave path to my drives (E,F,G and a folder on my PC). Installed VM tools, they're upto date. The first two worked fine for me. But for the third one - "Error: cannot mount filesystem: No such device" is being displayed. I am not able to find the shared files in /mnt/hgfs.

sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools
sudo mkdir /mnt/hgfs
sudo mount -t vmhgfs .host:/ /mnt/hgfs

Should I enable any permission access for my drives. For the sharing properties of the drives on W8, I enabled "Share this folder" option. Even then I cannot see shared folders in my hgfs (ubuntu). I am a new bee to linux OS, so please help.

Thanks, Ramu.

user12345
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Ramu Vennavelly
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2 Answers2

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I have a similar problem and I solved it with the procedure suggested here, as indicated in Jorge's comment:

$ git clone https://github.com/rasa/vmware-tools-patches.git
$ cd vmware-tools-patches
$ ./patched-open-vm-tools.sh

I hope this can help you.

Good luck!

PieCot
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  • Hi PieCot, Thanks a lot for the help. I have, however tried steps from here http://theholmesoffice.com/how-to-share-folders-between-windows-and-ubuntu-using-vmware-player/ , and yea the shared folders are working fine. – Ramu Vennavelly Feb 01 '16 at 20:38
  • I'm using open-vm-tools and this way works for me, thank you! – soulmachine Feb 05 '16 at 20:01
  • THANK YOU sorry for saying "thank you" I may not suppose to do that, but I just lost about 1h digging this and all answers was pure BULLSHlT be cause seems like there is no more vmware-config-tools.pl (apt-file find results nothing) and vmhgfs support (grep -i vm /proc/filesystems results nothing), but (even '16 answers) was keeping up with those, like they are there and count on it X( ... so, THIS SOLUTION ACTUALLY WORKS ... THANK YOU – THESorcerer Jun 06 '16 at 18:04
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    Please someone mark this as the correct answer. I've been battling with this problem for hours on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Thanks! – J Evans Jul 08 '16 at 13:40
  • works like charme without restarting the server. I agree to G Forty. It is the correct answer. – Dirk Schumacher Nov 02 '16 at 20:26
  • This solution broke clipboard sharing in Ubuntu 15. – Sergey Dec 04 '16 at 17:12
  • I can confirm this fixes the problem on Ubuntu 16.04 (kernel 4.4.0-53-generic). clipboard doesn't work, nor sound, but it does allow me to mount my shared folders – ekkis Dec 11 '16 at 01:40
  • If anyone find this that is looking for a solution to fedora 25... it works there as well, with clipboard and sound intact at the end. Thank you very much for this solution to the problem! – Jon Feb 20 '17 at 22:44
  • I was also not able to use shared folders in my Linux (Cent OS) guest, running on Windows 10 host (VMWare Workstation 14 Player). I reinstalled VMWareTools, then installed the git patch suggested above, and finally used the command

    sudo mount -t vmhgfs .host:/d:/sharedFolder /mnt/sharedFolder

    to mount, but am getting the message

    Error: cannot mount filesystem: No such device . Any ideas what else I can try? VMWare apparently do not provide any support...

     – z8080 Apr 12 '18 at 09:28
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There is a known incompatibility between the VMware tools and the kernel in 14.10 and later. It is yet unpatched by VMware.

We have to use an alternative to VMware Tools, the open source variant, open-vm-tools. This should be patched for the issue and shared folders should then work again. First, remove the VMware tools. Then, reboot the guest, and run sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools. Reboot again. It should then have hgfs support again.

Thomas Ward
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  • Did as suggested, but I am not able to see the shared folders. The command "vmware-hgfsclient" shows the shared folders ramu6390@ubuntu:~$ vmware-hgfsclient E F Q Hard Drive Mp3s – Ramu Vennavelly Mar 02 '15 at 23:43
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    You still have to run the mount command from the documentation (https://pubs.vmware.com/workstation-9/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.ws.using.doc%2FGUID-AB5C80FE-9B8A-4899-8186-3DB8201B1758.html) mount -t vmhgfs .host:/ /mnt/hgfs will work, but create the shares directory first, and run it. It should work then. – Thomas Ward Mar 02 '15 at 23:45
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    mount -t vmhgfs .host:/ /home/ramu6390/shares Error: cannot mount filesystem: No such device...This error is being displayed. I created shares folder as said. I tried "mount -t vmhgfs .host:/ /mnt/hgfs" , however the error result is the same. Thanks, – Ramu Vennavelly Mar 03 '15 at 00:02
  • Did you restart the virtual machine afterwards, and make sure that Shared Folders are enabled in the VM's settings? – Thomas Ward Mar 03 '15 at 00:12
  • Yes, everything was done as said. The same error throws up for the mount commands. – Ramu Vennavelly Mar 03 '15 at 07:05
  • I still cannot figure out what the problem is..!! Could anyone please help?! Thanks- – Ramu Vennavelly Apr 13 '15 at 22:45
  • @RamuVennavelly You need to install build tools and kernel headers. The traditional vmtools will not work without a kernel module – daisy Dec 19 '16 at 04:47