There have been posts about this issue in other threads, but I wanted to open a new one in order to see if this is indeed a global issue. The problem: when trying to boot Parallels from a BootCamp partition (iMac 20", 32G FAT32 BootCamp partition), it fails with "cannot open image bootcamp". It appears that Parallels does try to install its files onto the partition, unmounts it, and then fails to load it. When booting from BootCamp, a message appears at boot: "cannot connect to parallels". Otherwise it works fine. It is possible to attach the partition as a second drive to an existing image. Possible source of problem: my license for my WinXP SP2 Corp is a volume license (legit one), which does not require activation. If the Parallels team indeed constructed a mechanism to avoid multiple activations in this build, it seems it is interfering with volume licenses. I did try the sp2.cab fix, but it does not seem to have any effect. I would appreciate it if others suffering from this issue can confirm it, and of course - if anyone found a workaround.
Aloha Roner, I had exactly the same problem. The solution is one you probably won't like, but I had to do the same thing. Apparently, the latest beta of Parallels does not work with FAT32 partitions. I reinstalled my Boot Camp partition with WinXP SP2 (also legit VLK), but partitioned it as NTFS, and I have no problems, even when dragging files from one OS to the other! I don't know of any other fix for the problem; I just wanted to pass on what I experienced. HawaiiMacAddict
Newest beta works with FAT32 The new beta DOES work fine with FAT32. As for what they are doing to avoid the activation problem, I can't say.
From what I gather from other threads, VLKs worked on NTFS BootCamp partitions in build 3036. They don't seem to work on either FAT32 or NTFS in build 3094. HawaiiMacAddict - thanks for the input, but you must be referring to build 3036.
Working Parallels 3094 With Boot Camp, Fat32 And Xp Sp2 Corporate Edition Of course, these instructions / tips only work if you haven´t messed up your config by repairing windows etc, but even then I think it should be possible to uninstall Parallel Tools, install Boot Camp drivers and then start over with Parallels for Boot Camp. What may come in handy though, is a Hardware profile backup: Always make them in Windows. The only day in your life you need them, you´ll be glad you did. The beta builds for Parallels are of such BETA quality that I find it horribly irresponsible to recommend or make it available to so many people. I would call it Alpha at best, maybe not even that because of the dangers of it.. So many people are hosing their OS X and Bootcamp installs these days. If you must install this, PLEASE BACK UP YOUR OS X _AND_ BOOTCAMP PARTITIONS. YOU DO HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU´RE DOING. THINGS WILL GO AWRY, KEYBOARD AND MOUSE STOP RESPONDING ETC. THESE BETAS ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE. Some issues are workable though. If you´re setting memory too high on a VM, your harddisk will start swapping. Try setting memory lower for Parallels overall (like 512MB), and manual not automatic. Most important, set VM-memory to something small like 392, especially if you don´t even have 2GB. Maybe even 128MB-256MB is enough if you´re restrained. In the beginning of installing Parallel tools on a bootcamp partition, lots of things are installing, hardware being detected and setup up in the background. Expect slowness in the setup period.. even when you think setup should be over, it´s not, or when shutting down the first few times. (Especially when you can´t abort FAT32-checking because keyboard doesn´t work. The unresponsive keyboard really sucks, but in Boot Camp at least the keys are mapped at next boot. It´s just the first boot after an OS X boot you have trouble in Boot Camp. In Parallels on the other hand, boot camp partitions give unresponsibe keyboard and mouse, and this bites alot of people trying this. Hopefully these instructions may help you to make the leap.. So I want to share how I got Parallels to work off my FAT32 WIN XP Corporate Ed. Partition. It was alot of trial and error, and since I do not know what made keyboard and mouse start working in Parallels, bear with me and try to follow all steps from your starting point. Bootcamp with FAT32 _and_ Corp ed. XP SP2 was already working, and I didn´t even reinstall anything from a working bootcamp / OS X Tiger install. Nothing from scratch here.. I already was running the 1970 standard build with my own file-images of XP and using Bootcamp 1.1.2 (latest beta from Apple), working beautifully. But I wanted to venture into BETA reading about the latest and greatest features, hoping to benefit from having just one Windows partition to play with. I had already backed up my entire OS X drive to an external HFS+ partition using SuperDuper / Carbon Copy Cloner. And not wanting to lose my FAT32 partition, I backed up my Bootcamp to a .dmg image using Disk Utility (Now some smart-ass Mac-hacker should tell me how to restore this since Disk Utility / commandline doesn´t seem to support anything else than HFS!!) No, I don´t want to copy _files_ from an _image_, I want to copy bits and bytes. Maybe dd works, but I´m afraid to hose anything up unnecessarily on unfamiliar partition-grounds, so I continued with the same OS X / Parallels / Bootcamp install throughout.. Ok, venting a bit over missing utilities on the Mac (damn where is good freeware / free software on OS X?), I installed the 3094 beta2 from Parallels on OS X, but not before making a few backup hardware profiles in Bootcamp through Control Panel->System->Hardware etc.. (never know if you´re gonna need´em. Can always clean up some later) Of course I chose to make a new VM with Bootcamp in Parallels (if you don´t know what this means, stop reading now..) I disabled much from being started up by using regedit in XP. Especially Apple´s kbdmngr.exe, since many people had problems with that one. I used _one_ HW profile, for both Parallels and Boot camp. This worked for me as long as I turned off Apples kbdmngr.exe in regedit / LOCAL_MACHINE / RUN. Utils such as Daemon Tools fails in Parallels, but otherwise it seems good. Maybe I´m wrong though, and will get bit later.. =) I also used the hack of copying C:/WINDOWS/DRIVER CACHE/DRIVER.CAB to sp2.cab (search for it) This fixed the error message of "Unable to open image file" or something, from Parallels when booting the VM. When booting in Bootcamp, I tried installing Parallels Bootcamptools manually, but failing with Error 1. The whole thing rollbacked. I don´t think it´s necessary, so you can probably skip it unless desperate times are at hand.. I booted in Parallels, but was meeted with not actually being able to press any key or move the mouse in Parallels, while it was working to install new hardware. In this beta2 this is commonly reported when booting a Bootcamp partition. I also got some complaints about missing SP2 files, so keep a slipstreamed XP Corp. Ed. with SP2 handy in the CD-ROM drive.. When things started working, I got my mouse and keyboard. What I did was turn on Automatic USB in the VM and put in TWO USB mouses. What did the trick I don´t know.. But if you having 2 USB-mouses, worth a try all I´m saying.. I also tried turning on the USB devices in Parallels in the menu: Devices->USB->Mouse/Keyboard. This hosed my OS X input and I had to press the power-key in OS X, but the next boot Parallels worked. So maybe something happened (doubt that..) What ALSO seems necessary is to WAIT for all things to install (hardware, SP2, whatever keeps the focus..). Wait until all disk activities dies down, THEN do the Install Parallell Tools in the Parallels menu.. Then wait even more, and after a while, reboot.. The last time I did this, my keyboard and mouse started working.. Magic! If you´re not desperate I must recommend to wait for a better BETA. This one is horrible and possibly dangerous, but at least, 3094 should work with FAT32 and Corp.Ed. despite bugs encountered. So don´t do anything stupid. Play it safe, and keep backups. Always. That should be all. If I remember something more, I will add it. Just keep rebooting some times and have some patience when there´s alot of activity. Keep your head cool and try different things in a safe manner. Parallels 3094 with Bootcamp partition seems just as fast as with a fileimage when finally up and running! I don´t think there´s any need for reinstalling OS X, XP and all that shit some people have been doing (alas it´s good for testing the BETA.. it´s a PITA) Good luck! This is a success story I hope others may duplicate easily and without too much effort. Hopefully Parallels will fix this very soon.. So enjoy the holidays.. Btw, having just tried this for 1-2 days, I consider myself very lucky to have it working, and with a combo setup of FAT32 and Corporate Edition XP which so many have bug-reported! Thanks to everybody who has made these suggestions. Most of this is from Googling and reading about others´ misfortunes and experiences. PS. Keep regular backups, esp. when using the Bootcamp partition in this manner.. Do NOT try to hibernate or sleep, and switch OSes. The mount-points may become destroyed (already did that years ago with VMWare so it´s real..)
Thank you for your elaborate reply, Aandri. Unfortunately, it is not relevant to my problem. I have Win XP Corp. with a volume license key, and could never (NEVER) get anything but "unable to open disk image Boot Camp" when trying to boot from Parallels, even with the sp2.cab hack. You did not mention whether you had a VLK. As for free backups of windows partitions, I recommend the combination of Drive Image XML and BartPE startup CD. Already saved me once. Search for them in this forum and on Google; there are detailed instructions for their use.
Well the way I see it people have been bugging Parallels for this and that, left and right. When finally they deliver a first wack at it and it causes some problems they get their hands slapped for delivering "sub quality" beta software. I think they've been very very clear about this. This comes straight from the header message telling us 3094 was available for download: It is often hard for many of us to realize how intensely complex this effort it. Not only is OS X layers upon layers of drivers and devices that must work, then you layer on Windows and all of its requirements. I write software for Windows based bio-medical devices and still, every single day, I find myself shaking my had at some strange wierd thing Windows did, or requires. Personally I was happy with the concept of file based VMs. To me they make sense. They are portable, you can move them from machine to machine. They are a snap to backup. NOTHING SPECIAL REQUIRED. Simply shutdown Parallels and drag the files where you want them. Sure a 20gb file takes 8 minutes to copy to a USB disk but gee go and get a starbucks... You'll be refreshed and when you come back you'll have a backkup you and rely on. Once Parallels became stable enough for me I instantly deleted both BootCamp partitions on both machines. It didn't make sense to me to have 20gb of disk space sitting there that I'd never use. This is just my opinion but I love the disk based VMs. I'd never use a bootcamp partition even if I had one. I have my machine setup automatically backup my WinXP VM file every morning before I get started. It rotates the backups so I only have 3 backed up at a time. So far I've never had a problem with a Parallels update that has taken me down. I simply uninstall, install the last known working version, copy my backup VM file in place and I'm good to go. It has never failed. As far as Parallels releasing this as a Beta to everyone, that is their corporate decision. It is your decision to use this software. Making the beta available to all offers Parallels the best chance at finding/flxing bugs. As the poster I quoted above said, backup! That includes BootCamp. But why wouldn't you backup anyway?
Volume key license I`m not sure what you mean by volume license and how many schemes Microsoft has, but it is XP Corporate Edition with SP2 slipstreamed. No activation needed ever. Just enter serial number once in the install. Hope this helps.
Problem is other websites Sounds like you`ve got a scheme working for you. More power to you for a nice scheme. The problem with these BETAs are that they are advertised on MacUpdate, VersionTracker, DownloadSquad, etc, and nowhere do you see any real warnings about the thing. People might just try this out, and screw over their Boot Camp and I`ve seen some complain over making OS X unbootable even. Too many people are getting Betas that really don`t work as advertised, from websites that usually churn out quality products. It would be better to restrict these downloads to parallels.com only, which is almost opposite: Impossible to find the beta-downloads =)
