Boot Camp and multiple hard drives

There is a known issue with Parallels and boot camp partititons on systems with more than one hard drive. The Mac OS is inconsistent in how it designates hard drives, depending on which disk spins up first. On one bootup, the disk with bootcamp might be disk0s3, on a reboot it might be disk1s3.

This confuses parallels.

Any word on when this will be fixed? Is it fixed in Parallels 5?

 

I had no problem with Boot Camp on V4, but on V5, Parallels tells me that there is no OS on the drive. Is this a manifestation of this?

 

No, it isn't fixed in Parallels 5. I just submitted a post before I saw yours.

 

Not unless you have two internal hard drives. Check Virtual Machine -> Configure -> Hardware -> Hard Disk 1 to make sure it is pointed to the right drive.

 

To Ronlap,

The symptom you describe, failure to find OS, is indeed what would happen. But there are many other problems that can also do this. The problem I describe will only occur on Mac's with multiple hard drives, which means the Mac Pro. also, it occurred in Parallels 4 as well as Parallels 5.

The way to see if this is your problem is what I describe is to see how the Mac is designating your hard drives, and see if this changes from bootup to bootup. To see how the Mac is designating your hard drives you can use the disk utility, or you can use the diskutil command in a terminal window. I think it's "diskutil list" but I'm not on a Mac now, so I can't confirm the command.

Good luck!

 

I have been getting this problem quite a bit (just installed Parallels 5 on my late-model Mac Pro with 4 hard drives). Every time I restart, and then try to run Parallels, I get an error that the partition is not supported or something. I go into the Hard Disk 1 settings and when I change the dropdown from disk2 to disk3 or disk1 to disk2 (it varies), it starts up correctly. Annoyingly, it uninstalls the Windows Applications from my dock too, and says the Parallels Tools are not installed (even though they are).

Is there a way to prevent this problem? Can I lock the drives so that they boot up in a specific order and don't confuse Parallels? Any help would be really appreciated; this is hugely annoying. =(

Thanks!

 

I, and many others, have been dealing with this problem for years, and I've had many conversations with Parallels tech support.

There is no way to avoid the issues you describe in Parallels. The workaround you use (manually selecting the correct disk) works, but with the problems you have described. At present, for me, Parallels Tools works, and doesn't try to reinstall itself, so I am happy in that regard. I do get error messages, though. In the past Parallels Tools didn't work, but this issue mysteriously went away with the last Parallels upgrade. I think I also have the problems with applications folders, but I ignore these.

There is no way to fix the hard drive startup order in the Mac Os, which would make the issue go away. I and others have contacted Apple multiple times. As a certain Redmond company might put it "this behaviour is by design"

The problem is with the way parallels identifies disks. It is just not what a developer is supposed to do in the MacOS. Parallels knows this, but hasn't fixed it yet.

Best you can do is what you are doing - post complaints on the forum, and perhaps directly to Parallels tech support. When enough of us complain, hopefully they will correct the problem.

-Alex

 

Parallels is Terrible

Obviously, parallels is terrible. I have tried on numerous occasions to create a VM using my pre-existing bootcamp partition, but it will not work. Parallels tools will not install. I have tried absolutely everything I can think of to make it work to no avail. I spoke with tech support 3 separate times, all for over an hour and they couldn't find a solution. They then told me they were escalating my issue and someone would contact me within 24 hours. I was not contacted.

My advice is to ditch parallels and switch to VMware.

 

Does this problem also affect Windows programs?

I have a Mac Pro with two internal hard drives and I'm experiencing the Parallels problem detailed above. Re-designating the Bootcamp hard drive in Parallels config works for that day's session but while running Windows 7 under Parallels, some of my applications (Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe CS3 suite, etc.) complain that there has been a hardware switch since they were last opened. They want reactivation... again and again with each new Parallels re-config. I'm worried that eventually, Microsoft and Adobe will refuse to reactivate due to too many past requests. Anyone else running into this?

 

I don't believe a change on the Mac side (a disk moving from disk0 to disk1 in this case) should affect the virtual machine identification. When you reconfigure the hard disk, you're using the exact same settings as before, correct (same disk, same location IDE 0:0)?

It's more likely that the hardware switch is due to booting between Parallels Desktop and Boot Camp. A virtual machine has different hardware than a Mac. I think Parallels Tools is supposed to handle this situation after you've done the activation in both Boot Camp and Parallels.

Maybe try setting the virtual machine's RAM closer to the amount of RAM your Mac has.

Here's some other notes and suggestions:
http://kb.parallels.com/en/8706
http://kb.parallels.com/en/4672 (old)
http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v5/docs/en/Parallels_Desktop_Users_Guide/22241.htm
http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=13542
http://forum.parallels.com/thread13696.html
http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=16064

If Windows refuses to active, you can call Microsoft. I'm not sure about Adobe though. Here's some info about a patch to fix the issue:
http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=13722