Adding data partition to Boot Camp VM

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by DerekE, Nov 5, 2010.

  1. DerekE

    DerekE Bit poster

    Messages:
    1
    I have a MacBook Pro which I have been running as a BootCamp Windows 7 machine for quite some time now. I have been booted by default in to Windows 7 and holding down the Alt key at boot to boot in to Mac OS X. I now am changing that around and boot in to Mac OS by default and hold down the Alt key at boot to boot in to Windows 7. As I still need to get back to a couple of programs which only run in Windows I thought I would install Parallels Desktop to allow me to do this without having to reboot my Mac. I am having difficulties with the partitions...

    My internal hard-disk is a 256 GB Corsair SSD drive split in to 3 partitions:

    Windows 7 boot partition (90 GB NTFS-formatted)
    Mac OS boot partition (90 GB Mac OS Extended formatted)
    Data partition shared by both Windows and Mac (90 GB FAT32-formatted)

    Creating the BootCamp VM in Parallels was extremely simple and automatic. But I can not figure out how to use my existing FAT32 data partition where all of my files are stored. Every time I try and access this partition in Windows it tells me that it needs formatting. I am certainly not going to reformat my data partition.

    Without Parallels Desktop:
    I boot in to Windows 7 and I have full access to my Windows partition (NTFS) and my Data partition (FAT32) OR
    I boot in to Mac OS and I have full access to my Mac OS partition (Mac OS Extended) and my Data partition.

    With Parallels Desktop:
    I boot in to Mac OS and I have full access to my Mac OS partition and my Data partition. But when I launch my Windows VM, aptly named "Windows 7", it only has access to my Windows partition (NTFS) and can not access my Data partition (FAT32).

    How can I set this up so that my Windows VM can access my Data partition like Windows and Mac do when they are booted through BootCamp.

    Many thanks.
     

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