warning box - unable to access disk 1

I keep getting a warning dialogue that says "Unable to access disk 1" when I start up Parallels Desktop 6 (never got that with 5) - however everything seems to run okay. Should I be concerned and how do I stop it from doing this?

 

oops

Should note that I'm running it on a Mac Mini 1.83 Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.6.4, with 2GB of ram and 80GB drive, 2 partitions, one set for Mac, one set for BootCamp.

 

I'm having the exact same problem.

I have opened a discussion in the sticky thread under Parallels for Windows Guest OS.

Here's my question: when booting from BOOTCAMP can you read the macintosh hd? When running under parallels, do you have a hard drive parallels cannot read?

If not - maybe the two of us together can come up with something we have in common that might be generating the error.

I have everything running fine as well, just this irritating pop up that arises occasionally.

 

Are you using NTFS-3g or other 3rd party software like that to access the Boot Camp partitions with read/write permission in Mac OS X or are using the Mac OS X built-in NTFS support which only allows reading?

Use Get Info in the Finder on the Boot Camp partition when the virtual machine is not running. It should say "Windows NT File System (NTFS)" which is from Apple's NTFS driver.

 

No special drivers. It indeed says Windows NT File System (NTFS) under format in the get info bootcamp area.



Other than upgrading to Parallels 6, I do notice that there is a difference when booting in bootcamp: Windows 7 can now see the Macintosh HD (read only I THINK), whereas before Bootcamp 3.1, it did not see this. Also when booting to Parallels, there is now a Disk Drive e: which is not readable and Parallels wants to format it.

.

 

Boot Camp 3 added an HFS driver so you can see Mac partitions in Boot Camp. Parallels will not let the virtual machine read data from Mac partitions (I guess all the data appears as zeros) and it will not let the virtual machine write to the Mac partitions (you'll probably get an error if you try to format it).

 

That was what it looked like to me, too (re HFS driver for Bootcamp) The question then arises, could this be what is causing the "unable to access disk 1 - invalid parameter" that happens occasionally when running in parallels? If so, is there a way to stop that?

If not, then the question as to what is causing the error would be the next fallback question.

 

I don't think the driver is causing it. You could try temporarily moving AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys out of the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\ folder and then restarting. I think you can also disable it just be renaming AppleMNT.sys and restarting.

 

Wouldn't that disable using the mac partition in bootcamp if i boot in bootcamp?

I want to be able to access the mac area with bootcamp 3.1 when I boot in bootcamp.

In parallels vm, I just want the "can't access hard disk 1 : invalid parameter" to go away.

 

Yes it would. You asked if those drivers could be causing the problem so I suggested that you disable the driver to find out.

Are you running any antivirus software on the Mac? Try disabling it.

Try adding the ~/Documents/Parallels folder to the Spotlight Privacy list.

If you have Time Machine enabled then disable it for at least the ~/Documents/Parallels folder.

 

The new version 1990 has made this an intermittent, but ignorable problem to something worse:

Can't post the new message, had to reboot!

Now, instead of just a nag, which you can cancel, there is a longer message, and it says simply "retry" or "stop" - retry just goes into an infinite loop retry retry retry, stop of course kills everything.

And the nag window is on top of every app - so you can't ignore it.

What changed here? Can we get a new fix? Glad it is only intermittent, but still - now you can't make it go away.

 

Here's the message. Can we at least get an ignore option? as it is, you either retry until you get tired, or you stop the entire virtual machine. No other options. and it stays on top and doesn't let you do anything.

An error occurred while accessing the Hard Disk 0 used by "Secondstar--7".

Click Retry to try again or click Stop to forcibly stop the virtual machine. If this error persists, please contact the Parallels support team for assistance.

Note: If you stop the virtual machine "Secondstar--7" now, you will lose all unsaved data.

Error ID: PRL_ERR_DISK_READ_FAILED (80021029), errno=22 (Invalid argument).

 

I see the same thing on my iMac running 10.6.5 running Windows 7 on my BootCamp partition. Windows 7 runs fine when I boot directly into Windows 7 (not using Parallels). Started seeing this problem when I upgraded to Parallels Desktop 5. I just tried Parallels Desktop 6 and see the same issue. I see this problem every time I boot into the virual machine.

"An error occurred while accessing the Hard Disk 0 used by "Windows 7 1".
Click Retry to try again or click Stop to forcibly stop the virtual machine. If this error persists, please contact the Parallels support team for assistance.
Note: If you stop the virtual machine "Windows 7 1" now, you will lose all unsaved data.
Error ID: PRL_ERR_DISK_READ_FAILED (80021029), errno=5 (Input/output error)."

 

I am experiencing this problem as well. I am on a Macbook Pro using Parallels version 6.0.11990.

 

Same problem here.

PRL_ERR_DISK_READ_FAILED . Using iMac. Parallels runs Win7 from my BootCamp partition.

Any solution ?

 

same here

I also have this issue, it occurs after about ten minutes of using Windows 7 and forces me to shut down the machine. Until this is fixed Parallels is useless, unless I have only a quick ten minute task to accomplish!

 

Prl_err_disk_read_failed

Just chiming in with another "me too".

I've found that the error occurs the first time I boot my BootCamped Windows 7 VM after about 10 minutes. After stopping the VM and restarting it, though, I don't usually have any subsequent problems (for the rest of that day at least).

Whilst testing some things with Parallels Support, it appears that uninstalling Parallels Tools from Windows removes the crashing (but then you don't get any of the features provided by the Tools).

I too hope this is diagnosed and fixed soon.

Gary

 

Ok guys, try to set number of CPUs used by virtual machine to 1. Then let us know the result. It helped for me. At least for now.

 

@CsabaK, my VM has always been configured with just one CPU, so that's not the issue. Thanks.

 

I have the same error, except mine gripes about Hard Disk 0 instead of 1. I've tried all the things suggested in this thread:
- Disable NTFS-3G
- Disable anti-virus
- Exclude Parallels files from Spotlight indexing
- Exclude Parallels files from Time Machine
Like gcbartlett, I was never using more than 1 CPU, so I didn't consider that suggestion.

NTFS-3G is definitely one of the culprits. So far, I've removed it and reenabled my anti-virus; and things have been humming along for a few hours. Next I will try reenabling Spotlight indexing; I will probably retain the Time Machine exclusion in any case.

Update: I have now pretty much excluded Spotlight as a cause. I have deleted the Parallels files from the "Privacy" list in the Spotlight preferences, and I have explicitly launched a search on the "[C] Boot Camp" volume, and my VM keeps on ticking.

Update 2: For completeness, I also deleted the Parallels files from the exclusion list in the Time Machine Preferences. This, of course, caused a flurry of backup activity, but my VM continued working. So I've pretty much exonerated Time Machine.

Conclusion: I think that in my case, the guilty party is (was) NTFS-3G.