Any way out of this?

At the time I installed Parallels, I did not think I was going to have any use for bootcamp. I was SO wrong.

So now I can run Windows 7 on my MacBookPro, but only under Parallels. Startup disk preferences only shows the Mac OSX (Lion) operating system. When I reboot and hold down the option key, only the Mac OSX shows up as an option to boot into.

I know now I should have installed boot camp before I installed Parallels.

Other than completely uninstalling Parallels and Windows 7, then installing Bootcamp followed by Windows 7 followed by Parallels, is there another (hopefully simpler!) way to fix this?

Thanks!

(This is about a different computer than my earlier question.)

 

Well in case you didn't ever installed Boot Camp before you should install it mo your Mac hard drive - there is no other magical way it can appear on your hard drive.

There is not need to uninstall Parallels or remove virtual machine - boot camp is an independent way to run Windows on your Mac which has been created by Apple.

Parallels can be used for running Boot Camp in the virtual machine without rebooting - but before you need to install Boot Camp following the Apple guide step by step.

Please read Apple and Parallels manuals and user guides in order to understand how everything actually works and what is the connection between Parallels and Boot Camp

 

OK, understood.

I am just worried that BootCamp will try to set up a new partition for Windows, rather than using the one that was set up when I installed Parallels....I don't want to end up with two Windows 7 partitions, that is a waste of space.

 

This is actually what will happen. You can use an existing Boot Camp partition under Parallels, but not the other way around (i.e. use a Parallels virtual machine for Boot Camp). So, if you want to avoid wasting space, you may consider installing Boot Camp, uninstalling your Parallels virtual machine, and then use Boot Camp as your only virtual machine.

 

Well as i understand you don't have any partition allocated to Windows at all at the moment. If you have a Windows virtual machine - it does not take a hard drive partition. It is just a brunch of files stored at your hard drive in your Documents folder.

To check if you have a Windows partition open Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, choose your hard drive from the list on the right side and go to Partitions - and make a screenshot. Post it here please