I'm trying to import a Vmware virtual machine into Parallels using the Transporter utility and I'm having some difficulties. I would appreciate any suggestions on where to start debugging this issue Host OS: Mac OS X 10.4.11 Transporter: Build 1456 (16/01/08) Vmware Fusion: 1.1.1 I have a custom Linux distribution based on an i686 kernel and I have successfully built a vmx that runs under Vmware Fusion version 1.1.1. However, I'd like to import this particular vm into Parallels. When using Transporter, when I try to import the entire virtual machine, I get the following error message "No operating system is installed on virtual disk(s), or Parallels Transporter is unable to make it bootable. You can migrate the disk(s) as data disk(s)." This is quite perplexing since the vm contained in the vmx file boots quite nicely under Vmware. I really don't want to buy Vmware and ditch Parallels, but given the need to run this particular custom distro, unless I can find a solution, this may be my only recourse. Thanks for any and all suggestions.
Thanks for the pointers. However, we do have the Realtek driver in the kernel and we boot from IDE devices. My interpretation of the guide is that I do *not* need to re-install the boot loader under these conditions. I must be missing something here. Another datapoint is I can not browse the partitions using Parallels Explorer. I see all 6 partitions, and they are correctly identified as EXT3FS, but when I try to open one of these partitions, I get an error dialog informing me that the partitions contain errors or is an unrecognized type. Any more thoughts?
It seems you have errors on your ext3 partition, so Parallels Explorer can't mount it. You should check all partitions with standard Linux tools (fsck). For now Parallels Transporter cannot detect all the rest of boot loaders correctly, so you need to reinstall it anyway. You can use grub boot loader for example as it described in guide I told above or someway else. Use any working Parallels VM with Linux, add this converted .hdd, then check/mount partitions.
Thanks again for your insight. I do have some updated information however. I have been successful in getting the VM across from Vmware into parallels, but I did not follow what I believed to be the supported, or at least documentation process. Firstly, I must apologize. I believe some of my file system corruption issues were due to the fact that I was imaging a suspended VM. The process I followed was this: - I shutdown the VM in Vmware - I used Transporter to import the VM. Again, it complained that it could not find an OS, but I made a data disk - I created a new Parallels VM based on a Generic 2.6 kernel, but I used the disk image created from the Transporter step. The new VM boots successfully. Thanks for your help and suggestions.
