No boot device found (Parallels 11, Win 7 Pro 64bit iso image)

I'm brand new to Mac and Parallels.

I have a new Mac 27 5K retina machine, running El Capitan updated to v11.11 ( I think - how do I find the current OS version?) Anyway, the latest update downloaded yesterday.

I successfully installed Parallels 11 Trial from the Parallels website, and followed the wizard to install Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, from an Upgrade edition downloaded from the Microsoft Volume Licensing centre as a 3.1GB ISO download.

i did a Custom configure to allocate 4GB of my8GB memory, set the Boot order to have DVD Rom first, and accepted all other defaults.

The VM was created, and I pointed it to the DVD/CDROM and the downloaded ISO image file in the setup process.

The VM starts, but can't find a boot device, and hangs after displaying what is shown in the attached screenshot.


I've probably misunderstood something, but I can't see what, in setup or configuration.

I've had to Stop the VM several times in order to revisit the Configuration options. But I can't see what I've set wrong.

Any help would be welcome. There a just a few Windows programs I can't get for the Mac and/or can't replace with Mac equivalents, and I really want to get this working.

I have been able in the past to do a clean install of Win 7 from a real DVD Upgrade disk on a real machine. Will it just not work on a VM from an ISO? This machine doesn't have any optical drive, though I could share one over the network from my older Windows machine.

Thanks in advance for any advice. Lots of experience over several decades on Windows, and several years using VMware on servers; just two days on Mac!

Liking it very much so far, and even more when I get round this roadblock.

John McC
PS. I think the problem is I downloaded the wrong ISO - I'm now downloading the Win 7 Pro 64 bit with SP1 install. I think on reflection that the one I downloaded originally (the Upgrade from XP) is not a bootable image.

PPS. That was indeed the problem. The new image is happily booting and installing.

Moderator, you may wish just to delete this post. Tx.