Hard Drive 1 Error after iMac Hard Drive Replace not fixed by 116508

[PaulV1]

I have just done a Time Capsule based restore after a hard drive replacement, Windows does not start with the Hard Drive 1 not found error. Topic 116508 was suggested in a similar situation, but it does not appear to apply because there is only one 'Snap' in my disk descriptor.XML file. If I remove the /IMAGE information from that file as 116508 instructs then that just changes the error to "Unable to connect to Hard Drive 1".

Anyone have some helpful thoughts to restore the connection between Windows 7 and Hard Drive 1. Thanks for any help in that regard!

Here are some details: Parallel v9, latest build. Windows 7. iMac with Maverick, latest build.

The relevant part of the disk descriptor file:
<StorageData>
<Storage>
<Start>0</Start>
<End>134217728</End>
<Blocksize>2048</Blocksize>
<Image>
<GUID>{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}</GUID>
<Type>Compressed</Type>
<File>Windows 7-0.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds</File>
</Image>
</Storage>
</StorageData>
<Snapshots>
<Shot>
<GUID>{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}</GUID>
<ParentGUID>{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}</ParentGUID>
</Shot>
</Snapshots>

/rant Hard Drives fail all the time. Nirvana would be that Parallels reconnects itself after such an event. Failing that, it would be helpful to have a tool to reestablish Parallels on a restored system rather than editing configuration files. But apparently that tool does not exist. I'll bet there is a business case to make one based on reduced support costs. /end-rant

 

[PaulV1]

OK, I have been piecing together some information. Based upon advice given in the knowledge base for another problem I created a second VM with Windows 7. I then tried to attach a new disk 2 to that machine which is actually the disk 1 of the primary machine. I received the error (paraphrased) "You can only attach a disk created by Parallels" confirming that my primary VM disk has issues.

I then used the 'show package' (get the VM into Finder and right click on it) to drill down to the HDD for both the problem VM (VM1) and the good VM (VM2.) Vm2's .hdd file has one more file in it than VM1 does. It is the big one. I assume that it is the one with all the data: Windows 7-0.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds. That file shows in the package contents of VM2 but it is absent from the 'show package' of the troubled VM1.

What is it, and what options do I have to get it back? Thanks for any views you may have on this. In the meantime, I will continue to blunder around in this space and see what I can see.

 

[PaulV1]

Just to close this thread out... I used Time Machine to go back a few copies of the problematic. .pvm file that was missing the HDD file contents as mentioned above. There was a copy about a few weeks before the hard drive failure that had the missing data. I restored that version and am now back in business. My assumption is that the file was damaged by the hard drive failure and I had to go back a few versions to get one that was not corrupted. There were a few anomalies on the MAC side as well that I had to correct when I restored my system.

Tip: if you store data on the VM itself (in the Windows directories if you are running windows) then Time machine will back all those files up as one big file, the .pvm. If any part of the Windows disk (or other VM) gets corrupted by a hard drive error, then you could lose all those files contained in the VM. I was lucky by being lazy. When I migrated all my data from a native Windows system to a MAC it was all stored as Mac files. I then added Parallels and Windows under it to solve for applications that only ran under Windows. But, and here is the key, I left the data files for those apps on the Mac file system. As a result each was backed up individually. I was able to create a new VM for Windows and sill have my data, (reinstalling the Windows apps on the new VM.) Now that I have my original VM back, I am looking to see if I may have created a data file or two in the VM. If so I am moving them to the Mac file system.