Can't Access Windows Drives From Mac

I'm running Parallels 11 on 10.13.6. The reason is twofold, one I can use the "Full Screen Mode" in P11 without blacking out my other two displays. The second is that it's that last version where I can use more than 4 virtual processors and 8 gigs of ram without having to buy a subscription. Truthfully, that doesn't happen much, it's mainly for the issue with the displays.

In any event, I have a couple NTFS drives that Parallels VMs take full control of when they boot (configured under the hardware tab in settings.) The reason for that is that there are thousands of files on these drives catalogued via a database system that gets corrupted when I'm simply sharing the drives from the Mac side via Parallels.

I have Sharing > Access Windows drives from Mac and the Mount on Desktop option selected. This has worked great for years, till recently. Now only the Windows C: drive (the virtual one) is shared with the Mac side, the other drives are not. I'm not sure when this started, I'm thinking that the 10.13.6 upgrade may have had something to do with it.

If I turn off the "Access Windows Folders from Mac" option the C: drive disappears as expected. Turning it back on the C: drive reappears, but not the other drives.

This now has created the situation where the photos stored on those other attached dives are not accessible from the Mac side for editing. Open in Mac does not work. I cannot navigate in Mac finder to those folders either. However this will work with any files on the virtual C: drive which is sharing correctly.

I've been digging through the forum for days, trying different approaches to fix this without any luck.

Anyone have any ideas?

Edit:

Perhaps this is a clue, I uninstalled and reinstalled Parallels. I double checked that under Parallels General Preferences>Devices>Mirror Windows-connected drive on Mac was selected. I started one of the windows VMs and when it booted I had the connected raid array showing up on my desktop (Hooray!) but only the raid array, not the C: drive. I toggled the share windows folder option for the VM on and off and the raid array on the Mac desktop was replaced with the C: drive. So it would seem that maybe Parallels is only allowing one drive to be shared and that is actually the real issue. (?)

 

Hi @JamesMcDowell , please go to configure > options > Sharing > Select "All Disks" and check if that helps.

 

Thanks Arun, but there is no "All Disks" option. Just "Access Windows folders from Mac" and "Shortcuts to virtual disks on Mac desktop" (plus the "Share One Drive" which is not selected.)

 

Hi @JamesMcDowell , please let us know what are the drives you are expecting to get displayed on your mac using sharing option in Parallels Desktop for mac.

 

Hi Arun; thanks for taking a stab at this. This is a feature that worked reliably previously for years, I'm unsure what has changed.

In the VM's configuration/hardware tab I have 3 hard drives configured, Hard Disk 1 is the VM C: drive, Hard Disk 2 is a NTFS (Boot Camp) partition which has a database on it, Hard Disk 3 is another NTFS drive which has a bunch of photos on it. Under sharing I have Access Windows folders from Mac and Shortcuts to Virtual Disks on Mac desktop selected.

Under "Parallels Desktop/Preferences/Devices" I have Mirror Windows-connected drives on Mac selected.

These drives are accessible from OS X via Tuxera when Parallels is not running.

As a preference under OS X I typically have my hard disks showing on my desktop. That's not important, but helps me see what's happening as the VM starts.

What used to happen when I started the VM was that the drives would disappear off my desktop (the 2 NTFS drives with the database and the photos) when Parallels started, then reapear as blue network mounted drives once the VM was running. At this point I would have my 3 Parallels drives available to OS X, the VM's C: drive and the other 2 NTFS drives. The Windows 7 VM was happy in that it had direct control of the drives and I could also still access the files from the Mac side.

What happens now is that the 2 NTFS drives disappear off my desktop (are removed from the Finder window) when Parallels starts (as expected) but then are inaccessible from the Mac side. They are not mirrored in the Finder, they do not show up on the desktop, they are not available in any way, only the C: drive was showing up on the desktop.

I don't know if perhaps this is a clue, but recently the C: drive has also stopped showing on the Mac desktop as well.

I've tried removing and resetting the attached drives under the VM's Configuration/Hardware tab. I've tried toggling the Mirror Windows-connected drives option on and off. As of now nothing has helped. I even tried reinstalling a prior version of Parallels 11 that I (in case an update was the problem) no luck.


Edit:

For what it's worth I just reinstalled Parallels again and got the C: drive back on the OS X desktop, but still not the other drives (which are the ones I need.)

I uninstalled Tuxera just to see if that would have an impact, no change.

 

I'm going to add one more post here; I think I've found the problem, but I don't know what the solution is.

I've been trying to chase this down and came across this;

https://download.parallels.com/desktop/v10/docs/en_US/Parallels Desktop User's Guide/32922.htm

The interesting bit is near the end,

When I do that only an alias to the c: drive is in that folder. I have older backups of these .pvm files, I can see the alias's to the other drives in them, but apparently they are no longer working.

 

Here's what my Mac volumes looks like pre and post the VM start. The drives in question are all NTFS.



iMatch DB is mounted in Windows as I:\. Shots is mounted in Windows as S:\. Internal Raid is mounted in Windows as R:\.

The drives are attached to the VM directly. After the VM starts this is what I have for those same volumes, only the C:\ dive is available to the Mac.



Interestingly the C:\ drive initially shows up as a folder with no access permissions (looks like the others) then changes to the network drive icon, the others stay as the inaccessible folders. If I quit and restart the VM I will get an I1 then an I2 then an I3 etc for each of the non functioning links. It just keeps creating new useless folders without removing the initial ones. They don't go away after the VM shuts down. I have to restart the Mac to remove them.

Something in the "Share Windows Folders with Mac" is broken.

 

Hi @JamesMcDowell , we are unable to view the images attached. Please re attach it once again.

 

Odd, I'm looking at them right now.

Here's the volumes folder before I start the VM


Here it is once the VM is running

 

Hello,

I'm wondering what was the final solution to this problem?
As Parallels is running on my mother's iMac I can not say when exactly this issue started to occur. The issue is exactly as described by James. Except that the setup here is actually way simpler. Just one hard drive with two partitions (C: and D inside of the Windows VM. I can guarantee until some point last year I was perfectly able to access the D: drive from macOS side. But today not any longer. Only C: drive appears in Finder. And everything else looks exactly as described by James.
Except Parallels and macOS updates I'm quite sure, nothing has happened to the system.

I already tried:
- checked that configuration options are set as described here (Finder has "Show Shared" enabled and VM has "Access Windows folders from mac" enabled (might be called slightly differently as it's a German Parallels running here))
- new installation of Parallels Tools (followed by restart host system and system in VM)
- deinstallation and re-installation of Parallels itself (with system restart inbetween)
Nothing worked so far.

In console under /Volumes it looks like so:
After fresh start of macOS before starting Parallels:
drwxr-xr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 2 Jul 15:07 .
drwxr-xr-x 32 root wheel 1024 2 Jul 15:02 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 2 Jul 15:01 Macintosh HD -> /
After first start off Parallels:
drwxr-xr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 2 Jul 15:07 .
drwxr-xr-x 32 root wheel 1024 2 Jul 15:02 ..
drwxrwxrwx 1 ursula staff 16384 2 Jul 14:26 C
d--x--x--x+ 2 ursula wheel 64 2 Jul 15:07 D
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 2 Jul 15:01 Macintosh HD -> /
And then after quitting Parallels:
drwxr-xr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 2 Jul 15:07 .
drwxr-xr-x 32 root wheel 1024 2 Jul 15:02 ..
d--x--x--x+ 2 ursula wheel 64 2 Jul 15:07 D
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 2 Jul 15:01 Macintosh HD -> /
And finally after starting Parallels for a second time:
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root wheel 192 2 Jul 15:29 .
drwxr-xr-x 32 root wheel 1024 2 Jul 15:02 ..
drwxrwxrwx 1 ursula staff 16384 2 Jul 14:26 C
d--x--x--x+ 2 ursula wheel 64 2 Jul 15:07 D
d--x--x--x+ 2 ursula wheel 64 2 Jul 15:29 D 1
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 2 Jul 15:01 Macintosh HD -> /

So, can please somebody help me get this working again. It's a pain to work without access to the Windows D: drive from macOS side.

Thanks in advance,
Andreas

 

I now have the same issue... I used to be able to find and see all my mac files from my browser in Windows.
I am running Parallels 17.1.1 on iMac 2019 to macOS Monterey. Since I updated to Monterey, when I launch Parallels, I can't see or find my mac files on Windows running on Parallels. The only files that I see on my Windows desktop are old files from 10 years ago that are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\Adminsitrator
Desktop\
When I try to access files that I was working on through Microsoft Office Excel or Word etc, I have the message "\\Mac\\AllFiles\Users\Shared\Home Documents\..... cannot be found. Check your spelling, or try a different path."
When I try to access the folder "Allfiles on Mac" from Windows, I get the message "\\Mac\AllFiles is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. ..."
When I look at permissions on my iMac, Parallels has all the permissions.
I cannot find a folder called "AllFiles" on my iMac.
I reinstalled Parallels 17.1.1, and still the same problems.
Parallels worked flawlessly for so many years, can anyone help?

 

Follow up to "The only files that I see on my Windows desktop are old files from 10 years ago that are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\Adminsitrator
Desktop\" .
From my Mac Finder, I can see my files stored on the Windows C:\ ... \Desktop.
But I still cannot do the reverse... see files stored on my Mac FROM Windows running on Parallels.

 

Follow up:
I found a work around... I created a new WORKFILE folder on my Windows C:\ Desktop and moved the words and excel documents that are stored on my Mac to this new WORKFILE. The disadvantage is that the files on my Mac are organized in many directories and folders... now I have to either move or copy them to this folder, instead of access them directly from Windows.
It is not a permanent solution but will allow me to get some work done until someone at Parallels can find a solution.