TUAW Tip: Disconnect Parallels CD-ROM

Yesterday I wanted to do something simple with my MacBook Pro: burn a CD. Nothing fancy, I just had a 200 meg file that I needed to give someone and there wasn't a USB drive to be found, so a CD it was. I inserted my blank CD into my MacBook Pro and nothing happened.

I thought, perhaps, I had a bum CD so I tried a few more (5 to be exact). Each time I got the same result: nothing. I double checked my prefs to make sure I had 'Ask me what to do,' when inserting a blank CD, and I did.

What the heck was going on?

I was running Parallels, and it was being helpful by taking over the CD burner of my Mac, just in case I wanted to burn a CD from Windows. That's why it wasn't showing up in OS X! Luckily, this is a simple thing to fix. If you go to the lower right hand corner of your Parallels window you'll see a little CD icon. Click on it and the menu pictured at the top of this post comes up. Click 'Disconnect.' Boom, OS X sees your blank CD and asks for instructions.