HDD file corrupted and DiskDescriptor.xml file is blank!

Hi Stacey,
Yes, the .hds files were in the package "winxp.hdd" which is the one that doesn't load.

I tried to open a virtual machine running from that hard drive and I get a ".hdd file is corrupted" msg.

I believe that happened because the discdescriptor.xml file, which seemed to have some arbitrary, repetitive bit pattern, made no sense and certainly didn't follow any .xml guidelines. I assumed that was the corrupted part so I copied a working discdescriptor.xml file and changed the appropriate parts.

If the discdescriptor.xml file refers to the .hds file (that I'm trying to recover) as IDE HDD Primary Master (the one I boot from), I still get the corrupted msg.

Also, if I copy the .hds file (that I want to recover) out of the package and have it converted by choosing it as an .hdd file for that virtual machine, it converts and then warns that the file is corrupted.

Added to that, when I try to browse the file (tried after both of the above procedures) in Parallels Explorer, I get a msg along the lines of "Unable to browse the file. Make sure it is not in use or corrupted".

All of those attempts have led me to assume that there may be something wrong with the .hds file itself. It still takes up ~9GB of space in my physical drive, so I'm hoping there's some way to retrieve information off it.

What's next?
Thanks for your patience!
 
Hello,

was there any specific software installed shortly before the crash? Did you use the antivirus software or something?

Best regards,
Stacey
 
Same problem, no solution yet.

I have the same problem with parallels since yesterday:
empty xml-File, 2 hds files and a message that my filesystem is corrupted.

I tried several things, but had no chance to find my files on this filesystem. I can only access files from my old snapshot that are stored in one of the 2 hds files with the method that is described in the knowledge base.

I cannot find a way to merge the new hds file with the old one to get to my files. Is there a way to get this done. Any help would be appretiated. I need to backup some of the files in this harddisk file. Thanks for your help.
 
Hello,

did you try to merge the Snapshots that you have?
To do it please go 'Actions' -> 'Run Snapshot Manager' and there delete all Snapshots that you have.

Best regards,
Stacey
 
Yes, I already tried it. Parallels cannot delete the snapshot and it returns an error code with a tiny description that the disks cannot be accessed. After showing me the error code the SnapshotManager asked me for deleting the snapshot athough the disks cannot be accessed. Unfortunately, after doing this several times, i agreed to delete the snapshot. The SnapshotManager deleted the files inside the Snapshot folder and deleted the snapshot information in the snapshot xml-file. The XML-file inside the virtual HDD-package was not changed and the two hds-files still exist.

Is there still a way to merge the two hds-files to access the filesystem on the virtual harddisk?
 
Please go Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Parallels -> Parallels Image Tool.
Than use Image Tool to merge your Snapshots.

Best regards,
Stacey
 
Yippeh! My disk is still alive. The system is now running again.

That is how it worked:
Backup the hds-files, take the oldest hds-file and rename it to xxx.hdd, convert the disk to get a package, copied the older hds-files into the hdd-package, edit the DiskDescripotor xml-file:

-In section <Image>: listed all hds-files that the hdd-package contains
-In section <Snapshot>: listed all snapshots with the hds-files, starting with the oldest snapshot (parent GUID is {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}) and followed by all GUID-Snapshots that have the parentGUID of the earlier one.


I tried this before, but always forgot to list the parent snapshot in the Snapshot-Section. This listing helped to get the Virtual Disk back to life. Now, I will try to merge the disk to get a smaller disksize.

Stacey, thank you for your help and I hope that this thread will help others with this problem.
 
Same problem with multifile HDD

Hi everybody,

Today while I was shutting down Parallels after a day of hard ork without any problem with the software, the application (Parallels) crashed while completing the operations.
As a result I have a locked/corrupted hdd file with the xml descriptor missing some tags at the end (I don't know exactly how much is missing of such file).
If I try to launch parallels it says that can't access the hdd because it is corrupted.
I have also the lock file but moving it outside the disk package doesn't help.
People from Parallels (or anybosy) please give me any hint, solution, whatever to fix that. I can't lose all my job of last week!!
I'm a software developer on both the platforms and I'm available to any operation to recover my data.
I'm using Parallels 5582.
Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

Luca Severini

P.S.
I think this problem with hdd corruption under certain conditions should be fixed asap.
 
Same problem with multifile HDD: FIXED

Hi everybody,

I've been able to fix the problem rebuilding by hand the content on DiskDescriptor file.
Thankfully its structure is straightforward at least for who has some experience in IT.
Anyway I think Parallels' team should fix this behaviour to avoid inexperienced users to risk to lose their data.

Luca Severini
 
Stacey M said:
Hello,

kms_md, thank you for your feedback.

rmoorthy, there is another way to overcome such a problem and it may help you. But this solution is difficult to perform and it can appear destructive for inexperienced users. That is why I will send you this solution via PM.

Best regards,
Stacey
Click to expand...

I would like to try this solution also see if you can PM it to me also. Had this same problem with corrupted .xml file occured last december. never had time to spend on trying to fix it. I had recovered the best part of it then. now I need to recover one file that is probably on the snapshot hds . I do have a backup copy of the original hdd that failed.
regards

fab54
 
Here is example DiskDescriptor.xml file

<Parallels_disk_image Version="1.0" >
<Disk_Parameters>
<Disk_size>65536128</Disk_size>
<Cylinders>65016</Cylinders>
<Heads>16</Heads>
<Sectors>63</Sectors>
<Miscellaneous>
<ChangeState>0</ChangeState>
<SuspendState>0</SuspendState>
</Miscellaneous>
</Disk_Parameters>
<StorageData>
<Storage>
<Start>0</Start>
<End>65536128</End>
<Blocksize>63</Blocksize>
<Image>
<GUID>{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}</GUID>
<Type>Compressed</Type>
<Flags/>
<File>winxp.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds</File>
</Image>
<Image>
<GUID>{962dc183-cb6d-4d32-9ab8-c252971dcde0}</GUID>
<Type>Compressed</Type>
<Flags/>
<File>winxp.hdd.0.{962dc183-cb6d-4d32-9ab8-c252971dcde0}.hds</File>
</Image>
</Storage>
</StorageData>
<Snapshots>
<Shot>
<GUID>{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}</GUID>
<ParentGUID>{962dc183-cb6d-4d32-9ab8-c252971dcde0}</ParentGUID>
</Shot>
<Shot>
<GUID>{962dc183-cb6d-4d32-9ab8-c252971dcde0}</GUID>
<ParentGUID>{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}</ParentGUID>
</Shot>
</Snapshots>
</Parallels_disk_image>
 
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