copying winxp.hdd FROM a usb drive

When I was running Parallels 3.x I ran my virtual machine with the winxp.hdd file located on an external drive. It worked fine.

I upgraded to 4.x. Had a few of the problems reported elsewhere (100% processor, a BSOD, the usual), but I spent the time getting (most of) them fixed. While running the (previously running flawlessly) VM and fixing things, it occurred to me that I should bite the bullet and move winxp.hdd back to the hard drive.

Which would be fine, except it won't copy (fails: "resource busy"). I can't burn an image (fails: "resource busy"). I can't use Parallels Transporter (hangs -- left it running for 8 hours overnight with no progress). I understand that winxp.hdd is actually a package, and it's the internal file that *also* ends with .hdd that actually holds the data, and it fails the same way.

Through all the various ways I've tried to move the file, it seems to fail after about 214 MB. Transporter seems to copy about 214 MB before it hangs.

I've unmounted the partition and tried creating a disk image of the whole volume. Hung after 214 MB.

I keep after this because I'm getting "resource busy" errors when the VM is actually running, and occasionally a BSOD. Really makes the VM unusable.

Oh yeah, even tried running a Transporter session from host Mac to the running VM. It didn't object and seemed to work until a "resource busy" error dialog came up, soon to be followed by a BSOD.

So my mistake was copying the winxp.hdd file out to the external drive 6 months ago, but it was fine until I upgraded.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Hello,

The "resource busy" message indicates that other process is locking the file.
The easiest way to move the VM from external drive to hard drive woulkd be by moving it manually. Of course you would not be able to do it while the VM is running, so make sure that Parallels is completely shut down prior to moving.

If that would would not help, please, try opening Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
and type the following command:

lsof | grep <the name of the VM here>.pvm

Please, post the output here.

 

Further Information

First off, thanks for the quick reply.

It's always hard to tell what people know and don't know when they write in, so I should have mentioned that I've only been trying to move the winxp.hdd file while the VM is shut down. And I'd previously looked at lsof output to see what else was accessing the file. For the record, prior to the copy: nothing. During the copy I get this:

Finder 1576 tom 10r REG 14,7 59795495936 352 /Volumes/streeter_portable/Parallels/winxp.hdd/winxp.hdd.copy.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds
Finder 1576 tom 22r DIR 14,7 238 350 /Volumes/streeter_portable/Parallels/winxp.hdd

After copying precisely 214 MB (and it always hangs at 214 MB -- 224,397,508 bytes, to be exact), it stalls with the message 'The operation cannot be completed because the item "winxp.hdd" is in use.' This is the lsof output then:

Finder 1576 tom 10r REG 14,7 59795495936 352 /Volumes/streeter_portable/Parallels/winxp.hdd/winxp.hdd.copy.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds
Finder 1576 tom 22r DIR 14,7 238 350 /Volumes/streeter_portable/Parallels/winxp.hdd

Which, of course, is hauntingly familiar .

Also for the record, I've attempted to do this with only the drive plugged into the laptop, and this drive is excluded from being indexed by Spotlight.

Again, thanks for the reply and I appreciate any insight or suggestions you might have.

 

Guess I'm out of luck

So I posted the output as requested, and now the silence is deafening. So much for help.

 

Shutdown Mac, and start it again not restart, try to copy again, without starting any application, or copy to another flder