Converting a Parallels Disk to a Bootcamp one

C

Cralex

Junior Member
Hey there. I have a MacBook running Leopard 10.5.4 and a Parallels (5608.0) VM running XP Service Pack 3. I'm wondering if it would be possible to convert my XP virtural disk into a new BootCamp disk somehow. My reasons for asking this are as follows:

I originally installed XP with parallels only in order to minimize the hassle. However, I recently found out that I am one of the poor souls that recently got the game Spore, yet has GMA 950 in my Mac. For those who don't know, GMA 950 is not compatible with Spore when running Spore on a Mac (or Windows running on a Parallels VM), although I hear that it works just fine on a PC... or a Mac running Windows under BootCamp. So far, there aren't any workarounds for this issue. Since I'm low on cash right now, I figured that this would be a more economically viable option instead of buying a PC or a more advanced Mac. I only have one Windows XP Install disc, so it would be nice if I could pull this off without having to buy another one or pestering Microsoft for another activation key... I doubt they take too kindly to parallels users.
Thanks in advance for any advice you have!
 
It is hard but it is possible:
Steps in General are following:
1. Full windows NT backup of VM
2. Install Boot Camp Windows
3. Restore NT backup
4. Perform Windows repair
 
Thanks. I've been looking around, and I stumbled on some old instructions on how to do it, especially from way back when Parallels first aded bootcamp support. The one I'm looking at right now is from here: http://http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?p=123174#post123174
1. Use a USB disk drive and format/partition it with an MBR partition using Apple's Disk Utility. [See partition's OPTION button]
2. Launch Parallels and assign the USB disk drive to it.
3. Use any PC imaging/backup/partition cloning application (in this case Acronis tools). Clone the system (C) drive onto the USB disk creating a new MBR based NTFS partition on it from the Parallels C drive.
4. Eject (on the PC) the USB drive and release the USB drive back to the MacOS via parallels device menu.
5. Now the drive exists as an MBR NTFS partition visible to the MacOS. Use WinClone [free on the web at http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/] to image it to a backup file.
6. Prep an appropriately sized BootCamp partition using Boot Camp Assistant. Note that there are other tools and means to create a BootCamp partition - I just used that which comes with Leopard/Tiger. WinClone can do this directly but I chose to avoid that.
7. Using WinClone restore [to the bootcamp partition created in step 4] the NTFS image of the USB based C drive partition created in step 5.
Click to expand...

Now, I have not gotten around to doing this yet, but it looks promising. My XP virtual disk looks too big for my USB drive, but I should be able to find a way around that. Now I need to figure out what kind of software I would use for the initial backup that WinClone will read from. (Naturally, just mounting the HDD file won't cut it.) Does anyone know of a good freeware program that could do this? Also, I've heard of Microsoft's System Preparation Utility: Sysprep. I'm wondering if I'll have to bother with it to avoid reactivating XP or not... Once again, the Bootcamp will be on the same computer that Parallels is running on.
 
@John@Parallels: I saw your post in fbx's topic. Thanks for the advice. When I have time, I'll try out your method.
 
I'm facing the same situation and would really like to know if this works and if it is the preferred way of going from VM to VM and Boot Camp Partition
 
Hi,

Has anyone done this yet, i.e. can anyone confirm this works?

I have tried something similar; a) creating an image of the Vista installation in Parallels (using DriveImage XML), b) creating a bootcamp partition using the process in Leo, c) booting using PE (w. DriveImage XML program), and d) restore before created image onto new bootcamp partition.

It failed for me twice, as I couldn't get the restore image step working right. Perhaps this was due to the SW I was using, or the PE disc functionality. Hence, if anyone has a solution in details which works, GREAT.

BTW - In your step 6, how does that exactly work?

KB
 
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Hey guys. If anyone was watching this, I just wanted to let you know that I did it... kinda. It wound up to be more like half new installation and half my old one, but my stuff is there and it works, so I'm settling for that. Yes, it's extremely tough to try and pull this kind of thing off. I must have run into technical issues every step of the way. If anyone wants details, then I'll post my adventure or something. I'm just glad that it's over and especially glad that I don't have to do it again.

For now though, I have one last problem. Booting into my new boot camp partition using parallels causes no problems whatsoever. However, whenever I boot using boot camp, windows tells me that I have no audio devices, and thus no sound. I've looked all over the place for new drivers, installed the boot camp ones (the upgrade included), headphones, and even a blue tooth headset. Still, everything remains silent. None of the drivers that I have installed report any problems in particular, and attempting to update them does nothing. Once again, I am running a white macbook. As far as I can tell, I have an Intel High Definition Audio card, unless I'm looking in the wrong place. If anyone has any more possible solutions for me, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thanks in advance.
 
Hmm... I guess something went wrong the first time I tried that, since it all worked fine after I manually installed the audio driver from the DVD. Oh well, thanks.
 
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