magic needed to detect bootcamp?

W

WalterR7

Member
I used to have Parallels and bootcamp operating happily together, sharing drive space on my Mac.
Then I used the Mac tools to resize my bootcamp partition (larger) (I backed up first Just In Case.)
Unfortunately in doing so I seem to have erased some magic in the partition structure that permitted bootcamp to be detected by Parallels, and now I cannot run the virtual machine; the old VM instance gives a boot failure, and Parallels does not find bootcamp to permit me to build another.

So... what magic needs to be present on in the partition tables for parallels to know that a partition is bootcamp ?
I would really rather not have to back up all of my partitions on the drive and scrub the drive and go through the complete Mac re-installation procedure so that I can get a properly blessed bootcamp partition!
I know that the Windows bootcamp partition itself boots fine -- but the existing VM that talked to the bootcamp partition before I resized the bootcamp partition doesn't like it anymore.

To be honest, I have been letting this sit for something like 18 months, vaguely hoping that a new Parallels version would just happen to magically solve it. But back then when the problem happened I did work on it; my memory is telling me that one issue was the partition number involved -- but my memory is also telling me that I was able to get my bootcamp into the correct partition number, but that Parallels was still not able to boot or detect that partition.
 
WalterR7 said:
I used to have Parallels and bootcamp operating happily together, sharing drive space on my Mac.
Then I used the Mac tools to resize my bootcamp partition (larger) (I backed up first Just In Case.)
Unfortunately in doing so I seem to have erased some magic in the partition structure that permitted bootcamp to be detected by Parallels, and now I cannot run the virtual machine; the old VM instance gives a boot failure, and Parallels does not find bootcamp to permit me to build another.

So... what magic needs to be present on in the partition tables for parallels to know that a partition is bootcamp ?
I would really rather not have to back up all of my partitions on the drive and scrub the drive and go through the complete Mac re-installation procedure so that I can get a properly blessed bootcamp partition!
I know that the Windows bootcamp partition itself boots fine -- but the existing VM that talked to the bootcamp partition before I resized the bootcamp partition doesn't like it anymore.

To be honest, I have been letting this sit for something like 18 months, vaguely hoping that a new Parallels version would just happen to magically solve it. But back then when the problem happened I did work on it; my memory is telling me that one issue was the partition number involved -- but my memory is also telling me that I was able to get my bootcamp into the correct partition number, but that Parallels was still not able to boot or detect that partition.
Click to expand...
Hi WalterR7. Delete the existing BootCamp VM file from the Mac, restart your Mac and check whether you get the option to create a new VM based on the BootCamp partition.
 
I found all the bootcamp partitions I had stored everywhere on my drives, and removed them. Bootcamp was then offered as a possibility under New. Furthermore, the Hard Drive configuration under the Hardware configuration section specifically offers a Partition choice, so I can be sure that I am selecting the correct partition.
However.. the VM that is created only gets as far as announcing the Parallels VGA-Compatible BIOS version, and then sits indefinitely. :-(
This is not the same behavior as Parallels gives when it cannot find an operating system on a VM (it gives some kind of EMFI shell for that case.)
 
I just replaced the content of Bootcamp with the May 2020 Feature Update version of Windows 10. Immediately after that, without having installed even one program, I told Parallels to create a Bootcamp machine. It too got stuck immediately after the message announcing the Parallels VGA-Compatible BIOS version. As the operating system and drivers have all been freshly and completely replaced, we know that the difficulty is not originating in the Windows content itself.

The Bootcamp Assistant that I used was the latest version -- I booted into Catalina to create it, and downloaded the latest available Windows 10 Pro as of this morning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top