Call for more details - Build 3036 and Boot Camp

[itsdapead]

Its great that Parallels are letting us have free upgrades with cool new features and early access to "Betas" - but sometimes the information is a bit sketchy and that is causing lots of repeated questions here. A particular case in point is the "Boot from boot camp" feature:

1. Looks like it only supports "straight" boot-camp installation assistant installs - no custom partitioning - what about windows installed (using boot camp) on a second drive?
2. Does it even purport to solve the XP product activation issue, or will it require re-activation every time you switch between VM and BC? Looking at this forum, people's mileage seems to vary, and its hard to tell whether they are using retail, OEM, activation-free corporate copies or (tut, tut!) legally suspect copies of XP.
3. Wireless keyboards may be an issue - since you need to select the profile on start-up before bluetooth has woken up.

While some of the other new features are fine to experiment with on a suck-it-and-see basis, playing with the boot camp feature is potentially "expensive" (if only in terms of time spent re-partitioning, re-installing, phoning MS to fix activation) and harder to reverse.

Some more guidance on what is meant to work would be welcome.

 

[Erich]

Its great that Parallels are letting us have free upgrades with cool new features and early access to "Betas" - but sometimes the information is a bit sketchy and that is causing lots of repeated questions here. A particular case in point is the "Boot from boot camp" feature:

I second this. I spent the morning reinstalling XP, and am not happy about it. I would add to the list the question of whether Parallels Tools for Boot Camp and MacDrive can play well together. It looks like the answer is no, at least with this build.

 

[bjk.qaz]

macdrive doesn't work any longer

I'm using the latest beta parallels and macdrive 6.1.5. When I boot into parallels using the boot camp disk OR when I boot directly into the xp partition, macdrive 6 no longer works. I cannot see the osx partition or an external disk (when formated to mac native).

 

[MikeMulligan]

Yeah I'm having that problem too, and the MacDrive knowledgebase confirms this.

After installing the new beta yesterday, having something (not necessarily it, but who knows) corrupt my mac partition so it won't boot, reformatting everything and reinstalling OSX and XP and everything else, I was finally able to get boot camp to load in paralells, and was deliriously happy. And then I installed mac drive and realised I would no longer have access to you know, my files, anymore, rendering all of this totally, totally useless. I love the new beta, but I think telling Boot Camp users (probably most of whom use macdrive) that it wouldn't work anymore, might have been nice.

Also, I'm on a MacBook Pro, and the keyboard doesn't work until after XP boots. Which means I have no way to navigate those hardware profile menus unless I plug in an external keyboard. Great.