How do I read the *.hdd file?

I am trying to read the *.hdd file while in OS X. When I try to choose which appliction to use and select Parallels, it doesn't work. Should I move the hard disk from ~/Library/Parallels/ to somewhere else? This is essentially a mount point for the disk partition, right?

Also, I am having some networking problems. On some networks, I have internet access with XP and others I don't. I'm not sure what gives.

Thanks in advance!

 

The *.hdd file is the disk image used for the VM, and contains all the disk data.

 

How do I read this from OS X? Or what I'm trying to say is, how do I read the "Windows" parition from OS X?

 

Mac does not have a NTFS driver (as far as I know), so it can not read the default filesystem of Windows XP. If you make your XP box as FAT32 then parhaps disk utility could mount the image?

I have not tried this....

 

OS X can read an NTFS drive, it just can't write to one.

 

I did make it FAT 32.

 

I tried to do this as well, but have failed so far.

It would certainly be extremely useful to be able to browse the winxp.hdd file from within OS X, compared to the dreadfully slow faff of using the networked shared folder.

I formatted the Win partition using FAT32 when I installed Windoze, so OS X should be able to both read and write to it. After all, using Boot Camp, you can browse the Win partition from within OS X without difficulty, and modify it if you want to.

Come on Parallels, sort this out !

 

This is a straight File Sharing issue and it can be done - I'm doing it.

1. Enable sharing on the Windows side for any folders you want to see.
2. Enable SMB/CFS in Directory Access on the Mac. (choose same "workgroup" as windows keeps it simple).
3. Navigate and share any of the Windows folders from the Finder.

enter user name password for the share (if the Windows side is running a diferent username).

 

If the question is "How can I mount the .hdd image on the Mac so I can use it from there?", I'm not sure. I get the impression that the .hdd file isn't a standard image format, so I don't think you can mount it. A mounting tool would be nice to have though.

 

I'm using Win Xp Home, and there is no facility to share any folder.

Right clicking on a folder I want to share only allows me to share folders in the 'All Users/Shared Folders' folder already created by Windows. Not very convenient.

 

AFAICT, the .hdd format -- at least for plain disks -- is just some optional (?) headers, aligned at 512 byte boundaries, followed by the raw disk contents.

This means it is possible to mount the file using ordinary OSX tools, but unless you have a really good idea of what you're doing: don't even think about it! Also, I haven't been able to mount NTFS properly, but I don't think it's a fundamental difficulty. FAT32 appears to be working.

How to do it:

1, Locate the offset of the x86 boot sector in your .hdd.

2, hdid -section offset-from-step-1-in-512-byte-sectors -nomount -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage your.hdd

3, Mount file system using mount_msdos (for FAT32) or whatever, using the block device hdid gave you in step 2.

Please note that you should never mount the file system in both OSX and Windows unless both are read-only. Neither OS expects the contents of the hard drive to change. You have only yourself to blame if your kernel panics after unexpected file system changes.

Also, remember that the .hdd format isn't publicly documented by Parallels (that is, don't be sad if you ruin your VM after mounting it as read-write in host).

I too think Parallels should add a GUI-mounter, which ensures that the VM isn't running before it mounts the disk. In the meantime, and to be able to share between host and running VM, find yourself a good file sharing system.

 

HDD in MacOSX

XP Home can use a folder shared by MacOS.

 

Assuming I want to mount it, what is the bitpattern I should be looking for? (Assuming I binary grep the file....)

Thanks.