Parallels 6 - Windows 7 - system crash

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WarrenW

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I am looking for any final suggestions on how to fix my system after it became unstable and crashed, before being forced to reinstall Parallels 6 for Mac, plus Windows 7 virtual image, and the plethora of software installed and configured onto my VM.

When I 'click to start' Windows 7 inside Parallels 6, the start-up sequence fails on the black screen, with message 'A disk read error occurred, press CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart'. Sending the CTRL-ALT-DEL key combination restarts the VM but it gets stuck on the same screen, and same place.

The crash was instigated by some (typically) unstable Microsoft software that forced a hard reset/reboot of my brand new MacBook Pro. Everything else on my laptop works fine - it is just Parallels 6 and Windows 7 VM that do not work.

Clues? Suggestions?
 
Parallels - Win7 VM Crash

I got almost the same problem, it happened under 2 kinds of conditions after my many time test and reinstallation:

1st kind of condition is -->
When I use Parallels Desktop 6 to OPEN a "Windows 7 VM" file created by Parallels Desktop 5:
Under this condition, the running Windows 7 VM(x32 or x64 both I tested) will suddenly stop(crash) and the VM window disappears immediately. This problem happens often.

2nd kind of condition is -->
When after I use Parallels Desktop 6 to change configuration of a "Windows 7 VM" file's hdd from "IDE 0:1" to "SATA 0:1", especially the Win7-VM is made by Parallels Desktop 5:
Under this condition, when I startup the win7-VM, the VM window go into Blue Screen immediately. This situation happens 100%.

After I reinstall my Snow Leopard 10.6.4, and Parallels Desktop 6 (build 6.0.11822.604190), and then re-create a Windows 7 VM, The 1st condition still happen often.

The above problems are definitely an serious bug of Parallels Desktop 6 (build 6.0.11822.604190).


My solution/suggestion: Go back to Parallels Desktop 5 first, then, wait for Parallels Desktop 6 fix the bug.

Ps. Be careful, if you want to try to install a whole new Snow Leopard, Parallels 6 and create an new Win7-VM. Please remember to configure the VM's HDD as SATA(If your physical HDD is SATA, not IDE interfaced). or you will face the above troubles again)
 
Windows 7 crash

I've been using Parallels 6 with Windows 7 64 bit on my MacBook Pro for the last 6 weeks without any major problems (except for getting the mouse to work well). The last several days Windows 7 has been crashing without warning. I can open Windows from BootCamp without any trouble. When opening in Parallels, Windows will boot up, I can log in, drivers load and then --- blank screen and an error message from Parallels prompting me to send in a crash report.

I've been trying to open in safe mode (through Parallels) but it taking 30 + minutes to boot. Any suggestions?
 
Disc read error

OSX crashed while I had Windows 7 VM running in Parallels 6. And now Windows 7 won't boot, saying "A disc read error occurred, please ctrl + alt + del to reboot", and the disc read repeats. I'm about to delete the VM, and start over, which is a major pain, but what else is there to do?
 
Quit Parallels Desktop. Right Click the virtual machine file in the Finder (.pvm), and select "Open With..." -> "Parallels Mounter". Is the virtual machine's virtual hard disk properly visible in the Finder now and can you see the Windows files on the virtual hard disk?
 
Crash Problems too with XP

I agree. I know very little about windows and crashes, but it's the build number 11822 problem. It launches, stays open for about 60 seconds, then crashes and keeps restarting unless I force quit it all (and I have no strange software on my mac and have never downloaded anything suspicious -- I'm using a brand new "sterile" macbook pro) Even my auto-updated downloaded an update, and stopped short, saying "One or more files necessary to update the software are missing. Contact Parallels support team for assistance." and now won't let me update it anymore. (Unless anyone has a link to a location in Parallels where I can try to download the update manually?? I can't find it anywhere). I wrote to their technical support team and maybe someone will help. I bout version 5in April, used it twice, then upgraded to 6 in September and it's totally useless.
 
I have had similar issues. After a huge issue loading the Tools for the just previous build, including several hours on the phone with tech support, I first discovered that the latest build seemed to cure all of the problems. Then, I began to find file system errors. Notably, chkdsk would consistently report an index error at $I30. Likewise, various applications and system DLLs became non-functional. Adobe Acrobat Distiller could no longer find its ICC profiles. The system resource functions reported that EXE files were not valid Windows system files, and so on.

I then went back to a previous HDD image that I'd retained from last September. I updated it and apparently had success. However, as this machine went through the expected process of installing various Windows updates, it got to the set of the most recent 8 or so. At this point, during the install on the guest OS (Windows 7), the machine completely crashed, not just the guest OS but the host Mac OS (10.6.5). After the whole machine rebooted, the guest OS went into an unrepairable state. I had had a similar experience with the previous install of the previous build.

Here is my current speculation: there is some faulty interaction between one of these recent Windows 7 security updates and the last two Parallels builds. My guess is that in the first process I followed, my Windows 7 guest machine had this (yet unidentified) Windows update already installed and the failure occurred at the time I updated Parallels. In the second process I followed, I updated Parallels to the latest build and then encountered the problem when I went through the Windows update procedure. Either way destroys the guest machine and can crash the host.

I am lucky enough to have a workable backup HDD and a compromised but updated HDD that I have been able to recover all of my Documents from. I believe that this is a Priority 1 bug, and that the good folks at Parallels here have an onus to repair since they are the ones who claim that their s/w will run Win7. That has to include Win7 with any and all updates.

Right now, I am tempted to build a new Win7 machine from scratch with the latest Parallels build and see at what point the Windows updates kill it. Unfortunately, I don't have the personal time to invest in fixing this issue.

I think that is Parallel's job.
 
Sporadic blue screens with Parallels 6 and Windows 7 64

I'm running Parallels 6 (latest available build) on a MacPro running Snow Leopard with all system updates from Apple installed. I have a VM with Windows 7 64.

Ever since I installed, I started getting frequent blue screens (about 2-3 times a day). I traced some of them to Symantec's antivirus, and by replacing it with Eset Nod32, and later Microsoft Security Essentials I was able to drastically reduce the number of blue screens. However, I was still having about one BSOD per day.

After reading posts here and other places, I found a suggestion to reduce the number of processors allocated to the VM to 1. Doing that has ended the BSOD problem, but at the expense of a significant performance drop.

It would be great if Parallels could take ownership of this problem, which seems to be obviously theirs and released a fix for it. In the meantime, people on this thread can try doing the fix and see if their crashes end with the change.
 
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