Help! Panic! Urgent! VM is dead!

[transco]

When I triedt to bring up my XP VM, all I got was the original installation screen; i.e. the VM was gone. I looked in the directory:
user/library/parallels/winxp/ and discovered it was empty. The VM was gone. Fortunately I had a SuperDuper disk image and found the missing files (winxp.hdd and winxp.pvs) there and moved them over to the internal boot drive. I then rebooted to the internal drive and tried to bring up the VM and still no go... I was still getting the installation screen. Now what? Yes, I could simply rebuild the internal drive from the image, but I would loose many files that were acquired after th backup was taken. Bottom line... I would only do that as a last resort since it would take a long time to identify and copy these files to another drive prior to rebuildfing the drive . My question is... is there any pieces on the backup that I could bring over to get the Parallels going again; i.e. other than the files mentioned, are there any other files that should be restored from the backup drive? I'd appreciate any help you can provide.

 

[dkp]

I'd appreciate any help you can provide.

Open a Finder window, go into the folder where the pvs file is, and double click on it. Hopefully it will start.

 

[joem]

If you move the files back to exactly where they were, double clicking the .pvs file will work. If you put them somewhere else, after Parallels starts, you will have to edit the configuration to point disk1 to the new .hdd location.

Then it's probably time to try to figure out how it happened in the first place.

 

[dkp]

If you move the files back to exactly where they were, double clicking the .pvs file will work. If you put them somewhere else, after Parallels starts, you will have to edit the configuration to point disk1 to the new .hdd location.

Then it's probably time to try to figure out how it happened in the first place.

I've not tried this, but do you know if the Parallels import function (Transporter) will import a backup VM from CD? There's just not time to try everything

 

[transco]

I
Then it's probably time to try to figure out how it happened in the first place.

Yes, I agree I've got to get to the bottom of this, but have no idea how to go about it short of scrapping the entire installation and rebuild it. As mentioned earlier this currently isn't possible (or at least isn't practical). Anyway, when I tried to bring up the VM this morning I seem to have a new problem...

Yesterday, after getting your Email, everything was working perfectly. I shut down Win XP and closed the VM and brought it up again and it worked OK. Unfortunately, this morning I have a new problem. When I try bring up the VM (either by double-clicking the application or WinXP.pvs) A window pops up "Select a virtual machine" and the one option which is "Microsoft Windows XP" (which is correct). When I select this option, a second window pops up: "Virtual machine Microsoft Windows XP cannot be opened since it is already used in another Parallels Desktop window."

I have not idea how this happened since the VM closed normally the last time I used it. Any idea how I can fix this problem?

 

[dkp]

You have a lock file in the VM's startup folder that Parallels did not clean up. Use a command line terminal and cd into Library/Parallels/vmname and type:

ls -la

If you see a file named .vmname.pvs.lock and Parallels is not running you may have found the problem. Rename it or delete it.

In the example paths above, vmname is the name of your Virtual Machine.

 

[joem]

I've not tried this, but do you know if the Parallels import function (Transporter) will import a backup VM from CD? There's just not time to try everything

This is probably deeper than I'm reading it, but I "import" backup VMs using the Finder. Just copy them back to the hard disk. It you copy them back to the same place they were backed up from, they will run fine. This is the way I recover from those times when I discover I'm not perfect after all.

If you restore to a different place, Parallels won't be able to find the .hdd file when you start the VM so you will have to use the Parallels console to point the VM to the new location. After that it should run fine.

OK, what did I miss?

 

[dkp]

This is probably deeper than I'm reading it, but I "import" backup VMs using the Finder. Just copy them back to the hard disk. It you copy them back to the same place they were backed up from, they will run fine. This is the way I recover from those times when I discover I'm not perfect after all.

If you restore to a different place, Parallels won't be able to find the .hdd file when you start the VM so you will have to use the Parallels console to point the VM to the new location. After that it should run fine.

OK, what did I miss?

Bringing a VM in that was created on another machine, one possibly running a different version of Parallels, or with different hardware. The one time I just copied the files from one machine to another was a failure. Never got around to seeing if the Transporter solved what ever the problem was.

 

[transco]

Bringing a VM in that was created on another machine, one possibly running a different version of Parallels, or with different hardware. The one time I just copied the files from one machine to another was a failure. Never got around to seeing if the Transporter solved what ever the problem was.

Well I always have an image of the boot drive available. Forgive a stupid question, but how do I know where all the bits and pieces of the VM are? Is there just the two locations: in the applications folder and in Library/Parallels/xpwin (my vm name); i.e. if I just copy those two folders will that do it? Can I assume that copying the library folder will also copy the hidden files (or whatever they are called in OSX)? As you can tell, I'm new to the Mac world and am still learning my way around.

 

[dkp]

Well I always have an image of the boot drive available. Forgive a stupid question, but how do I know where all the bits and pieces of the VM are? Is there just the two locations: in the applications folder and in Library/Parallels/xpwin (my vm name); i.e. if I just copy those two folders will that do it? Can I assume that copying the library folder will also copy the hidden files (or whatever they are called in OSX)? As you can tell, I'm new to the Mac world and am still learning my way around.

Your defined virtual machines are in a directory in your account: Library/Parallels. Depending on the version of Parallels and whether you have a VM suspended or not there may be only two or perhaps more files there. A properly shut down VM is contained in two files with extensions of .hdd and .pvs. If a shutdown did not go well or your Mac crashed there may be more files, but those two are all you need.

The Parallels product installs parts of itself in /Library/Parallels and /Applications/Parallels. The parts you create when you define a new vm are in your home directory, so don't add or remove anything from /Library/Parallels or from /Applications/Parallels. Limit yourself to your /Users/yourname/Library/Parallels folder. Don't move, rename, or otherwise muck with any files if Parallels is running.

 

[joem]

Bringing a VM in that was created on another machine, one possibly running a different version of Parallels, or with different hardware. The one time I just copied the files from one machine to another was a failure. Never got around to seeing if the Transporter solved what ever the problem was.

AFAIK, all Parallels VMs will run in all Parallels environments. the only difference is the tools version so once you start the VM you may have to update tools (or remove and reinstall). The hardware presented to the virtual OS is the same across environments (so far anyway). This is one of the attractions of the product (IMHO).