3.0 corrupt HDD files

torchydt, no, you can use snapshots and suspend. But you should not try to use Parallels Explorer at suspended VMs.

bscholl, you can create disk with same size and use data from it.

 

Ynot, thanks for fixing this! Hope it gets released SOON!

Is that also going to be fixed?

 

Can't follow instructions to fix corrupt .hdd

 

Lucky to have a backup

I had the same issue and want to share my experience. My machine crashed and I got into this situation. I as lucky enough to have a backup copy of my Win XP VM. Using the information in this port I replaced the DiskDescriptor.xml fired up the VM and now everything works.

This one is nasty. I hope this is fixed in the next build.

 

This thread saved me; Parallels support did not

I'll save you the details and say that I'm a member of this club. I had no backup that worked, and my DiskDescriptor.xml file was just plain empty.

My solution was to create a new VM with parameters as identical as possible, use that VM's DiskDescriptor.xml, and edit the HDD name in the file.

Thanks to all who posted such helpful advice. My support requests to Parallels have been ignored for weeks now.

 

My XML file is human-readable; nothing appears to be amiss. My .hds file within the .hdd package, though, has this name: winxp.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds . Is this normal?

EDIT: Just on a whim I deleted all the gibberish from the name; no change, so I'll just copy it back into the file name.

 

One man's gibberish is another mans, errrr, gibberish?

Said gibberish was in my files as well. So long as the line read real.hd.name.{gibberish}.hds., Parallels was happy. YMMV

 

That particular "gibberish" is actually a GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) number, probably used by Parallels internally to uniquely distinguish your drive from any other ever created in the world, even if they're named the same thing and otherwise appear identical.

 

Yes, it's GUID. But used not to distinguish a drive, but every snapshot has its own GUID. Except special one (5fbaabe3-...).

 

Same issue here

I don't think I had suspended my VM either. The sequence was as some describe it. I ran parallels, and the Mac crashed. I booted back up, tried to start up the VM and got the same error. I have a zero length DiskDescriptor.xml

 

I/O error reading winxp.hdd

I found out my winxp.hdd was corrupted when I tried to back up my Mac for the first time (I use Super Duper). It failed trying to read that file, with I/O errors.

As a test, I tried to duplicate it using Finder, and that resulted in an error message.

What seems really odd is that Parallels works fine and the Windows virtual machine runs fine... for now, anyway.

Can anyone suggest how I might be able to create a clean copy of the winxp.hdd from within Parallels? I don't have a backup of the XML file!

 

tkn - is your disk full?

 

No, the Mac OS partition is only half full (27 GB remaining), and I don't believe the Windows XP virtual disk is full either - I certainly haven't seen any error messages about it, and there's not much installed in it either. I also recall having set the virtual disk to grow (ie. no fixed size).

 

I'm screwed

same story as above, both XP & Vista with empty diskdiscriptor.xml? Reverting to a previous snapshot produces another error.......and parallels support is terrible.

Any guidance here?

 

I haven't tried this, but I wonder if you can create a new XP vm definition, but don't actually install it. Just see were in the install process the xml file is created. It may be possible to create definition and copy it to your damaged vm (and make a copy if it works). There may be some editing required to wedge it into your exisiting vm but it just may work out.

 

diskdiscriptor.xml

Can someone post the contents of a valid diskdiscriptor.xml file?

As well, maybe point out what fields should be edited?

Thank you all for your help, what a mistake jumping on this upgrade has turned out to be!!!

 

Same error, different conditions

I experience a different situation. Same error, however, my .XML is fine. (I have tried a backup, tried a new VM and copy, etc.) The XML IS ok. They are identical (used a file compare program).

However, My VM Keeps telling me the very same error. Yesterday I posted that a possible solution was to delete the paralells folder from user/library but that doesn't work anymore.

Now, if I fast user switch to the original user of the box (when I Installed OSX) ... IT WORKS. The VM is on an external drive and both users are admins, both users have ReadWrite permisions (heck, even Others have ReadWrite). I used the migration tool to get my user back (and hence paralells 2.5). But I had to reinstall Parallels (to get the kernel extension back I suppose). Then I upgraded to 3.0 and this problem arose.

I don't know what permission is Paralells missing, or what is wrong. I am a little bit disappointed with this but above all, I need to find a fix, I work in Paralells.

ANy ideas?

For the folks asking for a "correct" XML here's mine:

Code:

<Parallels_disk_image Version="1.0" >
    <Disk_Parameters>
        <Disk_size>65536128</Disk_size>
        <Cylinders>65016</Cylinders>
        <Heads>16</Heads>
        <Sectors>63</Sectors>
        <Tools>
            <Installed>No</Installed>
        </Tools>
    </Disk_Parameters>
    <StorageData>
        <Storage>
            <Start>0</Start>
            <End>65536128</End>
            <Blocksize>63</Blocksize>
            <Image>
                <GUID>{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}</GUID>
                <Type>Compressed</Type>
                <Flags/>
                <File>winxp.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds</File>
            </Image>
        </Storage>
    </StorageData>
    <Snapshots>
        <Shot>
            <GUID>{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}</GUID>
            <ParentGUID>{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}</ParentGUID>
        </Shot>
    </Snapshots>
</Parallels_disk_image>

Ideas? I've repaired permissions, checked everything. I don't want to reinstal paralells, because I don't know if my Key is going to work!

 

exact same issue happened.

I need help.

My hdd image is 10.29 gb (11,053,186,048 bytes) according to the the hdd image.

it is already too late to use my backup since i backed it up when the issue happened so I am stuck.


Can someone let me know how my xml file should look like. I have a tried a few different combinations but its not working!!

I use this for work so this is driving me nuts.

This might help in troubleshooting though... the situation in mine happened when my computer ran out of disk space. My suspicion is that when the hard drive ran out of space, the xml could not be written and thus the file is blank.

10.2 gb of working data is not a good thing to lose.

I know it worked before in versions pre-3.0... I think the new package deal is what causing the issue...

There must be a way to save my image!!

 

actually, I am looking in the package contents and i have two hds files

winxp.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds ----- 2.05 gb

winxp.hdd.0.{9bac708c-226b-43ee-a0d0-589d312ab016}.hds ------8.25 gb

does this impact how my xml file is supposed to look like?


ps. - I also used compressor to compress the image a few times before..... and expanded the image once before....