Migrating Windows 7 to a Different Harddrive

How can I migrate Windows 7 to a different hard drive?

I am currently running Mac OS X 10.9.5 (Mavericks) and Parallels Desktop 9 for Mac (version 9.0.24251.1052177). I also have Windows 7 Professional (x64) SP1 running on an external OWC SSD over FireWire 800. The OWC SSD is a 60 GB hard drive but it's not large enough for the technical applications I require. How can I move everything on the OWC 60 GB SSD drive to an OWC 1 TB hard drive? This larger OWC drive also has FireWire 800 connections. In fact, both hard drives have dual FW800 connections, so they can be daisy chained. If I copy the smaller drive to the larger drive, Windows 7 thinks the larger drive is a 60 GB drive. Even though I have the original Windows install disk (a DVD), is there an easier way to copy the information between drives than starting from the beginning of the Parallels installation process? Thanks.

 

Hi Michigander,

Please follow the steps as suggested at http://kb.parallels.com/114118 which might help you in transferring your Virtual Machine.

 

Hello Abdul, I think you misunderstood my problem. I do not want to transfer my Parallels VM machine to a different Mac. I want to transfer Windows 7 from one external drive to another external drive. Windows 7 is not on my MacBook drive. It's on an external drive. If I copy Windows from one external drive to another larger external drive, it still appears to Parallels as a the smaller drive. How do I utilize the full disk space of the new, larger external hard drive when I move the files? Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

Hello Michigander,

basically you just copy the virtual machine's file (.pvm) over from one external drive to another external drive.
Could you please clarify what you mean by " it still appears to Parallels as a the smaller drive"?

Your virtual machine is a .pvm bundle (a sort of a folder) which contains its virtual hard drive in a form of a .hdd bundle. The guest Operating System (Windows) you run inside the virtual machine uses this virtual hard drive as its main hard disk (C:\). So, your virtual machine is not aware it is running on some real drive (be it internal or external) - it "believes" it uses its own drive.
The size of that virtual drive depends on the two factors:
- the size of the virtual hard disk you set in your virtual machines's Configuration > Hardware > Hard Disk
- the actual space taken by the virtual machine.

You can resize your virtual hard drive by following http://kb.parallels.com/en/113972

 

Hello Sergey,

I copied the 60 GB hard drive to the 1 TB hard drive. Using Windows File Manager in the Taskbar, right clicking on the large hard drive, the Properties of the large drive still indicate it's size is 60 GB, not 1 TB.

 

Hello Michigander,

Yes, this is correct. As I said your virtual machine is not aware it is running inside a real Mac. Windows "thinks" it is installed in a separate computer with its own hard disk, which is 60 Gb in size. The virtual machine does not work with your Mac disk (be it an internal or external one) directly - it works with its own hard disk, which is a .HDD bundle inside your virtual machine's .PVM bundle.
If you want to increase the size of your virtual hard disk you may follow http://kb.parallels.com/en/113972
Make sure to backup your Virtual machine before applying the solution in the article.

 

Thanks for your quick response. I have one more question Sergey. What format should be used on the external 1 TB hard drive? Mac OSX Entended Journaled? NTFS?

 

Well if you plan to use this external disk with your Mac, it is better to have it formatted as HFS+ (OS X Extended Journaled).
Parallels virtual machines are designed to work on HFS+ formatted hard drives, so there is no need to format your external drive to NTFS.

 

Sergey - can I ask Parallels to clearly state somewhere on the website that the external hard drive should be formatted in "HFS+ Extended Journaled?" The best place to say that is where Parallels discusses using an external HD for Windows. Thanks.

 

I don't understand how you can recommand to have PVM on HFS+ ? You may notice that Virtual Machine can not be resizable on HFS+ ...
Look at http://kb.parallels.com/en/113840
Same with version 10 ...

 

Hello Frederic,
The virtual hard disk cannot be resized if it is formatted as HFS+
We need to distinguish the file system the virtual hard disk resides on (basically the .hdd file on the Mac disk), and the filesystem the virtual hard disk is formatted inside.

To put it more clearly:
- the virtual hard disk is a bunch of files that constitute the .hdd bundle. So from the OS X point of view it is just a folder. This folder and the files inside do not really care what OS or a file system they are stored on.
- At the same time this bundle serves as a virtual hard disk device for the virtual machine - much like a real hard disk for your Mac or PC. The virtual machine, being a "software computer" regards this virtual hard disk as a real hard disk.
- Same as with the real hard disk devices, it may or may not contain any data inside, may or may not be formatted to a certain file system, be it HFS+, NTFS or Ext. When you install a guest OS, you (or a script used for the Express installation) first of all format the space inside the virtual hard disk to a certain file system. So KB 113840 tells us about the file systems _inside_ the virtual hard disk.

 

My current hard drive is nearly full and I plan on replacing the HDD on my iMac running OS 10.10.2, Parallels 10.1.4 and Windows 7 Pro. I plan to clone the old drive with OS X Disk Utility. Will everything work as it is currently or will I need to reactivate Parallels and/or Windows?

 

Hi @TerryB1, if you would like to replace Mac HDD you will need to reinstall Parallels Desktop and all of you previous Mac apps. (before the replacing please make a full backup copy of your Mac HDD and also of the VM file).
So after the replacing please reinstall Parallels Desktop and reactivate it.