Hi everybody, I'll try to cut it short. I have an iMac with 10.9.3 installed and Parallels 8.0 Build 18619. I am trying to install Mavericks on VM (or ML doesn't matter in this) but after the eligibility, it starts downloading Mavericks and usually around 40% it stops downloading and giving me the error, "Can't download now etc etc" and on Installer log it says "not enough space" most probably that is the reason. The thing is as soon as I choose OS X installation, Parallels doesn't let me configure the machine and boots the VM immediately and if I stop the VM and try to configure the HDD size this time it keeps giving "can't resize hdd". I googled this error and on a Parallels troubleshooting page they said "don't mind the error, just resize and continue, even though it gives error you hdd will be resized" but that is not the case. It gives that can't resize error and shows the size I configured but the VM shows the first number i.e. if it was 64GB in the beginning after changing the size still 64GB. That is one of my problems. The other one, I think you can drag and drop the Install.dmg or Mavericks Installer .app to VM setup page and depending on your choice it creates a bootable image but there is no option for that on 8 . Is there a way to install Mavericks or ML using a bootable image? I couldn't find that setting and if I show the bootable image on CD/DVD conf. menu, the VM starts with Parallels rescue options screen . I have a spare 120GB SSD, Mavericks installed, is there a way to connect this to a VM and boot up the Mavericks installed on that SSD? Cause also I couldn't find the option to add a physical drive to VMs . I am really sick and tired of missing features of Parallels guys and started to regret buying it (also didnt upgrade to 9 because of these probs.), and if I can't get help here IDK what to do cause this forum is my final place to solve above problems . Thank you so much in advance to all. Have a great day. Cheers.
Parallels does let you add a physical drive to VMs. 1) There's the Boot Camp option which lets you select Windows partitions but not Mac partitions even though there's no technical difference. 2) You can attach a USB drive to a virtual machine. In Parallels Desktop 9, you can also attach Fire Wire and Thunderbolt drives. You can't attach an internal drive or an eSATA drive even though there's no technical difference. Resize might have resized the disk but not the partition. In that case, you need to use Disk Utility in the VM to resize the partition. You could try using Disk Utility to construct a disk image of a bootable disk. Make the disk image Read/Write uncompressed, GUID partition scheme with at least 1 partition. Use Recovery in Disk Utility to duplicate your Mac OS X partition (source) to the partition on the disk image (destination). Unmount the disk image and change the file extension from .dmg to .hdd. In Parallels Desktop 9, do the following (Parallels Desktop 8 is similar): Create a new virtual machine using "Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file", click Continue, click "Continue without a source", click Continue, select Mac OS X, click "Customize settings before installation", set the name and location of the VM, click Continue, click Hardware, Hard Disk 1, click the [-] button to remove the hard disk, click "Move to Trash", click [+], select Hard Disk, Type: Existing image file, choose file path of the new .hdd file. It will say "This is an old format virtual hard disk. Do you want to convert it to the new format?". Click Convert. Click OK. Start the new virtual machine.
Dear Joevt, Thank you so much for your time, effort and detailed information. I managed to install OS X (Mountain Lion) on a virtual drive before reading your answer just like you explained using Parallels 9 (I used the trial version) and uninstalled that, carried on using my Parallels 8. I was suspicious if there will be any compatibility problems but luckily no issues . Even more, I copied the .pvm file and updated one of them to Mavericks . Again thank you so much for you reply, I learned a lot of details from your answer. Have a wonderful day ahead.
