Can't Start Windows 7Pro VM due to memory error

I am using Parallels 10 Desktop for Mac on an iMac 27 with OS X 10.3.
When I try to start my Win7 Pro VM that resides on an External LaCei HDD partition, after the startup spokes spin a while, I get the error message:
"An error occurred when working with this virtual machine memory".
Unfortunately this is not an error message in the Parallels Article ID 113964 pertaining to Startup Issues.
If I reboot iMac - same result. If I copy the Windows 7P.pvm to another external drive, same thing.
The LaCei drive that it is on Verifies fine using OS X 10.3's Disk Utility.
I can't get far enough into the Windows 7 VM to restore to an earlier snapshot.
I have some data on this broken VM I would prefer not to lose.
Parallels does not respond to many Problem Reports I have submitted, e.g. 64672821
Any suggestions on getting my VM back to health?

 

Hi Robert,
Please try creating and empty Virtual Machine and mapping the old Hard drive to the new Virtual Machine and check if you are able to launch the Virtual Machine. Refer to this article, http://kb.parallels.com/121578

 

Hi Druba,
Thanks for your fast and helpful reply. Because I was anxious and had some time, I solved my problem partially by myself, but your solution, Article 121578
How to transfer hard drive from the virtual machine to empty one
was perhaps better, but more complicated.
Before I got your reply, I wanted to see if it was the LaCei HDD that was causing the errors. So I copied my defective Windows 7Pn.pvm file to a newly formatted HSF-J external SSD and tried clicking on the .pvm file to launch Win7Pn (WIn7 Pro n version). I got the same failure as when I used the .pvm file on the LaCei, so it was something in the .pvm file that was bad. Not knowing how to fix it, I deleted the .pvm file from the SSD, downloaded the latest Parallels 10 Desktop for Mac and installed Parallels with Win7Pron on the SSD. It worked fine, but I had to load 135 Win7 updates and reinstall a handful of programs. I found my data was miraculously all there, thanks (I believe) to 2 (default) settings in the Parallels configuration: Option/Sharing - Shared Profile: (ck) Share Mac user folders with Windows, and SmartMountck) Map Mac volumes to Windows. I think these put my VM Windows data files in my Mac Drive's Documents Folder where they were safe - and backed up by Time Machine.
OK - I had essentially solved my own problem, but then I got your answer and decided tried that out as it was an interesting solution.
The technique in your Article ID: 121578 is to essentially rebuild the VM enclosure (assuming the problem was there) then slip the existing Windows.hdd into it, hoping the Windows.hdd was not the problem. My situation was slightly more complex because I wanted to move my VM from the external LaCei HDD to an external SSD for performance reasons. So I had to build the new VM shell on the SSD and move the Windows.hdd over from the LaCei HDD.
Anyway, your method worked and I kept that VM alive.
There were some places in Article 121578 (specifically steps 5,6,8 and 9) that I added my own notes in yellow to clarify the procedure to me using the instructions for the first time. I will put the steps I annotated here in case others would benefit.


Hope this helps someone else get his VM worling again.
BobD

 

Hi Robert,
Thank you for the update and we are glad that the issue is resolved.