Can I boot from a physical hard drive I removed from my Windows desktop? (Parallels 11)

CarderW · Jul 22, 2016

My Windows desktop PC has stopped working (bad connection somewhere internally). I have removed the hard drive and have attached it to my mac via an HDD dock. Is it possible to boot from this hard drive in parallels?

Sasti@Parallels · Jul 22, 2016

CarderW said:
My Windows desktop PC has stopped working (bad connection somewhere internally). I have removed the hard drive and have attached it to my mac via an HDD dock. Is it possible to boot from this hard drive in parallels?

Hello @CarderW,
You might not be able to use the Windows hardisk as a virtual machine. The only method would be to migrate the working PC as a virtual machine.

CarderW · Jul 22, 2016

Sasti@Parallels said:
Hello @CarderW,
You might not be able to use the Windows hardisk as a virtual machine. The only method would be to migrate the working PC as a virtual machine.

Shoot

Alright, I'll give this a shot when I get home. Thanks!

Can I host the VM on the external HDD if I partition? Or does it have to live on my Mac?

CarderW · Jul 22, 2016

Sasti@Parallels said:
Hello @CarderW,
You might not be able to use the Windows hardisk as a virtual machine. The only method would be to migrate the working PC as a virtual machine.

I was just watching a video tutorial on this and it looks like I have to run the Transporter Agent from the PC I want to migrate... Since I can't do that, is it possible to apply the Transport to a hard drive? Thanks again!

Sasti@Parallels · Jul 23, 2016

CarderW said:
I was just watching a video tutorial on this and it looks like I have to run the Transporter Agent from the PC I want to migrate... Since I can't do that, is it possible to apply the Transport to a hard drive? Thanks again!

I understand your requirement. Please note that a virtual machine can be created only by any one of the following methods,
1. Create a virtual machine directly on the Mac using Parallels Desktop.
2. Using boot camp partition of the Mac.
3. Migrate a Windows PC. This requires the usage of Parallels Transporter agent.
The migration can only be done with the Windows hardisk connected to a working PC. This means that if you could connect your existing hardisk to a working PC, you could try installing the transporter agent to that PC and perform the migration.
Let us know if you have more questions.