Best way to add second NTFS drive to XP pro VM (curr Boot Camp)

S

ShaneW

Bit poster
Sorry for what is prob the 'newbiest' of newb questions:

Got a successful VM built and running of XP Pro on my Mac Pro tower via Boot Camp install (on separate internal NTFS drive). Plan on migrating the entire Boot Camp XP partition onto my Mac OS drive/Parallels VM folder soon.

But before that, I want to set up my XP virtual machine to see/mount the other internal NTFS hard drive in my tower. Do I create a virtual drive from it or do most people do drag/drop via the Mac interface (I have NTFS-3G installed)? I'd prefer it to show up as a drive under Windows Explorer as it does when booting in Boot Camp if possible.

Also, once I do (hopefully) successfully migrate the Boot Camp install via Transporter--will this drive need to be config'd differently?

Thanks!
 
Quick clarification/update...

OK, so I spent some time w/ Parallels support yesterday via online chat. A. Nasser, if you're out there, thanks for your patience. We discussed the VM's inability to see/mount the second Boot Camp/NTFS volume (Drive F: in my Windows system, dedicated to project media). The drive was originally created during the Boot Camp XP install as a Fat-32 volume so that I could read/write between Mac/PC. Just a couple of weeks ago, I used Windows command line exe in Boot Camp to reformat the drive as NTFS. Following that, I installed NTFS-3G on my Mac Snow Leopard drive to allow read/write.

So, Support (Nasser) said it might likely be NTFS-3G that was causing the issue, which is, when I boot into my now migrated XP VM (i.e. now NOT a Boot Camp launch, but local to my Mac drive), there is a conflict/corruption w/ the volume. See's the original Boot Camp NTFS boot volume fine. He suggested I launch Boot Camp XP, run a 'chkdsk' repair on the drive via command line and then relaunch Parallels VM. I did, seemed to go alright, but upon VM relaunch--no success, drive still didn't show up. I have since uninstalled NTFS-3G and am attempting a second 'chkdsk', this time through the Windows BootCamp GUI (which does it at restart).

Any other ideas?

I need to have direct access to that NTFS drive for my work in After Effects and Avid software. I wanted to get the XP VM sorted out ASAP, so I could then repurpose the Boot Camp drive and do a clean new Boot Camp 64-bit Windows 7 install...and then I have a lot of work ahead of me re-installing lots of software, seeing what works etc (reason I want a stable/usable XP to fall back on to 'get stuff done').

Thanks!
 
Alrighty--update #2. And hoping someone can chime in with an answer at this point as I feel I'm VERY close to a fully operable solution.

So, I re-ran the chkdsk through the Windows Boot Camp GUI. OK. Restarted, then on the Mac side, did an 'Add Disk' in the Parallels VM preferences/configure. OK. Started up, and voila! Disk is there and usable.

Two probs remain--1) occasionally, the Parallels Tools installer will launch in the XP VM, even though it has already installed everything. The Parallels installer 'disk image' is visible in the virtual optical drive. Can/how do I safely remove it? 2) Every other time I launch the VM, I get an error, says the Boot Camp partition I've assigned to Drive 2 isn't valid, so it shuffles it along to another ID#. I select the new/alternate ID#, launch and it's mounted just fine. What is the problem/solution here?

As I said--functional and very close. Just need to solve these remaining glitches. Thanks in advance!
 
hellloooo...echo, echo, echo...

So, time kept ticking, and I attempted to reach support via chat this weekend 4-5 times, got bumped off twice after 1hr+ waits.

The problems in above post continue--hopefully someone browsing the thread/forum can assist. I went ahead and blew away my Boot Camp XP w/ a clean install of Windows 7 yesterday, so there's not turning back :) [yes, I did back up first]... New Boot Camp Windows 7 install seems solid, but I need my Parallels XP 'Plan B' to be solid/dependable too.

Issue 1: Persistent mounting of virtual 'Parallels Tools' install CD that occasionally launches the installer upon VM launch, even though the tools are already installed. Checked the original Boot Camp XP prior to blowing it away w/ Win 7, and the virtual install CD was NOT present there. Is it safe to do an 'eject' of that disc in the VM, and will that work to make the install attempt go bye-bye?

Issue 2: Seems every time I launch off the boot Boot Camp partition, then reboot to Mac OS and come back to the VM, I'll get the drive error dialogue: "The Boot Camp partition: 'dev/diskOs2' used by Hard Disk 2 is not supported. Please open the virtual machine configuration and select a supported Boot Camp partition in the Hard Disk 2 settings."
The workaround so far of just picking the other IDE ID# offered in the pulldown, saving config and relaunching works...but feels like something that should be fixed, right? Anyone?
 
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