No boot device is available

I had similar problems but nothing suggested worked. In the end, I reverted to a 6 month old snapshot. Not a major issue as it's not a critical application for me.
 
Hi, I am having the issue of
Previously working Windows virtual machine now shows "No boot device is available"

Problem is that it won't let me change the setting because the virtual machine is running, and if I close the virtual machine I can't access the settings. So I'm stuck in a loop ...
Please help
 
MelissaS2 said:
Hi, I am having the issue of
Previously working Windows virtual machine now shows "No boot device is available"

Problem is that it won't let me change the setting because the virtual machine is running, and if I close the virtual machine I can't access the settings. So I'm stuck in a loop ...
Please help
Click to expand...
Hi, did you try this KB article?
And also please provide us with the details of "can't get VM settings" issue.
 
I'm also getting a 'No boot device is available' error. Everything was working fine until trying to use Windows to transfer files between external hard drives that aren't formatted for Mac. The process stopped for a long time and Windows wasn't responding, so I force closed it and tried to restart with the result pictured below. Tried to follow the solution in https://kb.parallels.com/123150, but it requires shutting down the VM which it won't do unless I click the red X on the window. If I do that the Configuration page says "To be able to change the settings on this page, resume the virtual machine and then shut it down," but as I said before, the shut down command doesn't do anything.
Parallels problem.png
Parallels problem 2.png
Parallels problem 3.png
 
We've received your reply: Up the top in the menu there is an option to press stop. Do that. I spent 3 hours on Apple support and worked that out myself and it stopped the virtual machine and allowed to me solve the issue
Thanks for sharing the results.
 
Success! Thank you! I could swear I tried the Stop function 20 times already and it wouldn't do anything. Maybe a complete host machine shutdown and restart helped that situation.

I would add for people attempting to follow the resolution in https://kb.parallels.com/123150 that after successfully disconnecting the hdd in the Configuration dialog box, upon restart of Parallels Desktop I did not click Resume inside the VM window. Then when back in the Configure dialog box and searching for the Windows xxx hdd I could not find it. The resolution states that it's "in the pvm bundle". Mmmkay. I could find the Windows10.pvm file, but nothing with an hdd extension. As a last resort I double-clicked the pvm file to see what would happen. That was another missing ingredient which made available something else named hdd, which when double-clicked opened yet something else named hdd which was apparently what Parallels was looking for. Now back to normal and just in time. Thank you!
 
Just as a quick update on this issue from someone using Parallels 13:

After having used "force quit" several times in a row (after VM was frozen) , my virtual machine finally crashed as well. I spent several hours doing all the steps in this general trouble shooting article (https://kb.parallels.com/en/113964), which did no help. Then I consulted this forum, and combined with the info from the aforementioned articles, I found a solution.

After spending so much time, I thought it was a good idea to show my trouble shooting process. Hopefully this might help somebody, if the same problem arises. My suggestion: First, try the solution described at the end of this post. If this not works, start at the first bullet point, and see, what can help. So here we go:
  • The problem was, that I apparently used "force quit" on my Mac too often and crashed my VM. "Shutting down" the VM was no longer possible, only "Stopping" it through the "Controll Center" under "Actions", and of course by restarting my Mac all along.
  • First, the virtual machine loaded with some EFI Shell commands, as described in this article: https://kb.parallels.com/en/122735.
  • After going through all the steps in the aforementioned article (so using EFI-Boot mode with "vm.bios.efi=0" typed under "boot flags" in "advanced settings", "boot order"), the situation got worse and the VM showed me, that "No boot device is available" as described in this article https://kb.parallels.com/123150.
  • However, after restarting my Mac and before starting Parallels at all, I was still able to get access to the relevant Windows .hdd-file within the corresponding .pvm-file with "Parallels Mounter". The procedure (independent from the question-title in the article) ist described for trouble shooting in this article: https://kb.parallels.com/5796. After opening the hdd.file using "Parallels Mounter", four VM hard disks turned up in finder after some seconds (named somehow starting A, B, C, D, as shown in the article). As I could search through these VM hard disks, I somehow knew that not all the data on my VM was lost, corrupted or not retrievable.
  • Also, using "Paralles Mounter" generally as a method for restoring data when a "disk read error occurred when starting virtual machine" as described in this article (https://kb.parallels.com/112869), might help somebody.
    • The article first suggests to restore a .pvm-file from Time Machine. Although I luckily had an older version, I was not able to back it up, as my disk space on my mac was too little for having an older (and therefore second) .pvm-file on my mac.
    • The alternative option, using "Parallels Mounter" did not help neither. Although I was able to mount my old .pvm-file (see above), I did not find the .hds-file, so that renaming this file to .hdd and so on was not possible.
    • The third option, using Windows recovery guidance sounded to complicated, so that I did not follow this option through.
Finally, the following procedure worked for me:
  • First, I wanted to go back from the "No boot device available" status (described here https://kb.parallels.com/123150) to the "EFI Shell commands" status (described here https://kb.parallels.com/en/122735).
  • I do not remember exactly, which one the following two procedures did the trick.
    • First possible solution: Shut down parallels and Mac. Restart mac without opening parallels. Before opening Parallels at all, I opened the pvm.-file using "Parallels Mounter" (as described here https://kb.parallels.com/112869). Four different VM hard disks popped up in Finder which I then ejected.
    • Second alternative solution: Maybe following the steps in this article (https://kb.parallels.com/123150) also did the trick from getting to the "EFI Shell commands" situation from the worse "No boot device available" situation.
  • In any case, if you are back at the "EFI shell commands" situation, follow this article (https://kb.parallels.com/en/122735) NOT writing " vm.bios.efi=0 " in "boot flags" under "the advanced settings", BUT INSTEAD "vm.bios.efi=64" as described in this forum post (https://forum.parallels.com/threads/troubleshooting-installation-boot-skipped-efi-hard-drive.345391/). Using " vm.bios.efi=0 " seems to be outdated or wrong for Parallels 13 users?
  • After that, I started parallels, the Windows window came up showing, that windows was repairing itself. After this process, Windows runs again smoothly. No problems so far.
Hopefully this will help!
 
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