XP startup hang after cloning VM

I'm about to attempt the Files and Settings Wizard to import Dell settings into my XP VM. To secure against any problems, I cloned my VM. I then closed the clone and started the original VM. The result is

"Windows is starting up..."

for 10 min. Lacking any other voodoo I restarted the Mac Pro, retested - same result. I then started the cloned VM - same result.

I looked at the structure of the VM files - winxp is the original VM, winxp2 is the clone:

/Library/Parallels/winxp/winxp.hdd
/Library/Parallels/winxp/winxp.pvs
/Library/Parallels/winxp/unattended.fdd
/Library/Parallels/winxp2.pvs
/Library/Parallels/winxp.hdd

This looks very strange. Two instances of winxp.hdd at two different directory levels? Different structure of XP2 vs XP?

NB: The top level winxp.hdd has a creation date of today at about the time I did the cloning.

What have I done wrong?

 

Further info on my failed clone effort. First note that my Parallels installation is dead in the water until I fix this. Possibly I could start over building a new XP VM - but I expect the same will happen when I clone as this is a fresh Parallels 1970, fresh XP VM already.

Second observation of strange Parallels behavior: when I tried to shut down the Mac Pro last night the shutdown stopped at Parallels -- I had left if running showing the "Windows is starting up..." hang. Parallels was displaying a dialog asking "Suspend or power off the VM" evidently in response to a shutdown event. Parallels was unresponsive - I had to force quit.

 

I wonder if this problem stems from the goofy directory structure I outlined at the beginning of this thread.

What does a "proper" VM directory look like?

 

A "proper" Vm directory (meaning a VM directory that Parallels VM creation methods creates) has one file per hard disk (an hdd file) and one VM description file (a pvs file). It may also contain other files if you choose to put floppy or CD images there.

The file naming convention is for the directory to be named for the OS (say myos) and the files to be named myos.hdd, myos.pvs, etc. The default location for the VM directories is ~/library/parallels/ (where ~ stands for your user main directory. There is a lock file (ending in .lock, but unfortunately for now invisible in Finder) present when the VM is running (or has crashed). These lock files have been a source of much confusion and I really hope Parallels makes them visible in a future release.

Other configurations will work as long as you point Parallels to the pvs file (an easy way to do this is to double click the file in finder) and the pvs file has correct pointers to any other files you are using such as hdd files. These pointers can be edited in the VM console once the VM is selected.

 

Joem,

Many thanks for the directory brief. And .lock files - I've already encountered that problem as well.

So the minimum is [...pvs, ...hdd]. I've deleted the .pvs, .hdd files that Parallels created at the ~/Library/Parallels level when I cloned the XP VM. I'll try the clone operation again - I may have committed operator error on my first clone attempt.

Meanwhile I'm awaiting XP to get beyond the "Windows is starting up..." Parallels is only using 3 to 4% CPU [out of 400%]. Activity Monitor shows a constant chatter of disk reads 80 kb/sec, intermittent writes. I'll let it run overnight to see if XP ever finishes startup.

I haven't changed the default 256MB memory, as I'm not running anything beyond basic XP for testing.

Aha -- XP just got to login prompt after about 20 minutes of startup... So I've repeated the clone operation - ensuring that the clone goes into its own subdirectory of .../Parallels. As I suspected, Parallels copies the parent .hdd with same filename into the clone directory [winxp.hdd in my case].

More to come on whether the looooooong startups are still a problem.

 

Mmmm... Cloning a VM should not be done while it's running (or am I misinterpreting you?).

Constant disk activity could be partly due to spotlight attempting to index the VM. Making ~/library/parallels/ private might be useful.

If you just want to back up a VM, just option-drag it somewhere in the finder. Much easier IMO.

Have fun.