MacBook Pro running OS 10.9, running Parallels 9. I've got the Snow Leopard Server disc in the drive, and Paralles finds it, but when I click OK to install, it starts to run and then gets stuck on the grey screen with the dark grey Apple in the centre. What should I do differently? Many thanks!
Based on the information I found on another thread http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?208202-Snow-Leopard-Server-as-guest-on-Parallels-7-YMMV-HOWTO, I have successfully installed into Parallels 9 running under Mavericks. I had a little trouble, and don't guarantee that you won't have to try it more than once. Here' s how I managed to do it: I started with an boxed install of Snow Leopard Server 10.6.3 Unlimited Clients edition. That is, I used the actual DVD. I did make a .dmg, but this failed, possibly because I didn't do step X below before I managed it with the DVD. 1) Click the + and New… in the Parallels Virtual Machines window. In the New Virtual Machine window, choose "Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file". Click "Continue". 2) In the Choose Installation window, it will show "Operating systems found". Select the Mac OS X Server Install Disk. Click "Continue". 3) In the Name and Location window, click "Customize settings before installation". Click "Continue". 4) Set the amount of RAM you want. Don' t bother with hard disk 1, it is crooked. I never managed to install in it. You have to create a SECOND hard disk. Give it the file size you want. DON' T remove hard disk 1 yet. 5) In the Virtual Machine Configuration window, a Preferences dialogue will pop up. I left the memory alone in the General tab. Click on the Hardware tab. First, click the plus and select a new Hard Disk in the popup menu. Apparently the first Hard Disk (Hard Disk 1, listed at Location SATA 0:1 when you select it) is dodgy, so you're going to install into Hard Disk 2 (listed at Location SATA 0:3 when I created mine). (NOTE: UNFORTUNATELY one cannot name these at this time; the first is called Mac OS X -0.hdd, and the second Mac OS X-1.hdd, and that's what you'll see in your Parallels folder on your Mac, but when you boot into Snow Leopard Server both are "helpfully" named "Macintosh HD".) Still in the same Preference dialogue, go to the top and click Boot Order. Select CD/DVD and use the arrows to the side to push it to the top of the list. I didn't do anything to the other elements. Also, make sure you clock "Select boot device on startup". Then close the VM configuration Preferences dialogue. 6) Next, you will click "Continue" in the Virtual Machine Configuration pane, but BEFORE YOU DO, read step 7 below carefully. Once you have, then click "Continue" and then when you do, click on the boot screen right away to give keyboard focus to the VM as quickly as possible. Get your mouse ready and your finger near the ESC key. 7) PAY ATTENTION to the BIOS POST-like screen. It will tell you to press ESC to select boot options. Press ESC right away. 8) It will display several boot options. I see 1) SATA drive 1, 2) SATA drive 3, 3) SATA optical drive 2, and 4) Networking. Apparently option 3 (the DVD option) won't work. Try the second drive first. If it does'nt work, try the first drive. Anyway it tells you to press a letter, but only numbers are available; in this case, choose "2" for SATA drive 3 (the second drive). 9) You will see a dark screen, blueish-purple, with an Apple logo, a progress bar depleting (hilarious, eh?), indication the timeout until boot, and a message indication to "press any key for boot options". Press a key. (NOTE: Apparently under Parallels 7 you could see arrows. When you did, apparently you were to click on the left arrow. You would see the configured boot disks and the DVD install media. You would select the installer and press enter. Note of this happened for me.) 10) If it has worked, you will see the grey screen with the dark grey apple, and the spinning progress wheel below the apple. (If it doesn't work, you won't see the progress wheel—which is what I got when I tried installing direct from the DVD without creating the second hard disk.) If successful, you'll proceed with the regular installation via the installer, asking you first to choose the language of the installation. It will show you two identical disks to install onto, called "Macintosh HD". At this point I quit the Installer by opening Disk Utility (in the Utilities menu of the Installer) and I erased and re-named the disk named "Mac OS X-1.hdd". On re-entering the Installer, I selected the newly re-named disk, and began the installation. 11) Once installation is finished, you can turn off the machine, go to the VM configuration Preference dialogue again, and remove the primary disk (Mac OS X-0.hdd), leaving only the installed one. You can also move the hard disk to the first boot device and optionally uncheck the "select boot device" option. 12) Install Parallels Tools and have fun. This is how I did it, based on how Brazilian Joe did it under Parallels 7.
