Parallels not finding Boot Camp partition

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dwinsemius

Junior Member
Can you offer advice about how to get Parallels 3.0 to recognize the 32 GB partition that already has an activated copy of WinXP/pro//sp2. Using the Installation Assistant consistently brings me to a place where it is asking for me to insert the disk...presumably to do a fresh install. I have tried first the "express", then the "custom" and finally the "typical" options but I never see any indication that Parallels is seeing the Boot Camp partition. Does it need to be renamed something special? At the moment it has the default "NO NAME" and is visible on the Desktop, but it could be renamed if that would draw the right kind of attention from Parallels.

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David Winsemius
 
The article appears to suggest that there is a Documents folder at the root, which there is not. If it is referring to the the folder in my tree, ~/Documents/Parallels/, than that folder is empty. Remember that I never got to the point of completing a virtual machine. So how do I complete the Installation process in a manner that does not require installing a new copy of Windows?

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David Winsemius
 
Not getting any reply, I did proceed through the process of installing WinXP/pro/sp2 on a new virtual machine. It required that I enter an administrator pwd and establish user accounts. It did indicate that networking was not configured for devices ext2 and ext 3 and I "OK"ed over that message. It also said that the activation key had too many attempts and that I needed to do a manual activation. (There should be a 30 day grace period.)

Now it boots WinXP, but it will not log me on the the user account, nor will it log me on when using Safe Mode to the administrator account. It now asks for a pwd and them gives this error box.
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The system cannot log you on due to the following error:

The specified domain does not exist or could not be contacted.

Please try again or contact your system administrator.

<OK>
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The version that was installed via Boot Camp still exist and is still functional.

Trying to change the line in the pvs file to "Disk 0:0 image = Boot Camp;disk1s1" fails with an error message saying cannot find a disk image in:
/Users/davidwinsemius/Documents/Parallels/Microsoft\ Windows\

I have almost 30 years of experience with both Mac's (starting with a 512K and proceeding through System 7, Panther and Leopard) and PCs (MS-DOS in multiple iterations before and after Windows. I have installed multiple copies of Windows on multiple machines, some of them home-built. I am not a neophyte. This process it looking like it may be just broken. Misleading documentation ... blaming the user ... tangential advice that appears to be guesswork. Has Parallels given up on the Mac OS in favor of the bigger corporate markets?

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Davd Winsemius
 
I suppose you installed new Virtual Machine, and added it to domain, otherwise you will be able to login.
as for Boot Camp
what is output from
diskutil list
 
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *298.1 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 297.8 Gi disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *465.8 Gi disk1
1: Windows_FAT_32 NO NAME 32.0 Gi disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS 2nd-bay HD 433.8 Gi disk1s2
 
Let me describe situation:
Parallels Desktop recognize Windows when it is installed in GPT formatted disk in version 3, the another disk is formatted as MBR
Feature to recognize raw disks, and MBR formatted , will be added in Parallels Desktop version 4, (and in Parallels Server 3.01 in August update)
For now I can suggest to use winclone http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/ I suggest g4l http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l , or other software to backup Windows partition and reformat disk as GPT and restore backup to Windows Partition
 
To me "MBR" means Master Boot Record, and it is not a format type but rather the contents of a small portion of the partition. FAT32 would be the format type for disk1s1.

What do you mean when you use the abbreviations MBR and GBT to refer to format types?

The g4l link takes me to a page that says g4l version 0.26 is a Linux program and depends on a Curses/NCurses interface. Do you have documentation that demonstrates g4l to be functional and safe in a Mac OSX environment?

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David Winsemius
 
No one is saying you aren't a knowledgeable person, but there's more you should know.

Notice the 'GUID_partition_scheme' (aka GPT) and the 'FDisk_partition_scheme' (aka MBR) that appear on the output of diskutil?
One thing are file systems (HFS,NTFS,FAT,EXT3,XFS...) another are partition schemes, Modern Macs use GPT, that's why you need to run Boot Camp Assistant.app which encapsulates fdisk partition scheme (adds a small partition for MBR), because Windows requires an MBR to boot, inside a GPT partition.

G4L is live cd (.iso), it's a cd image that boots directly.

I believe by the description of the problem that this Windows installation was not made using Boot Camp Assistant, quite possibly it's a disk from another machine, if it is, you should've described this from the start.
So, technically, this is not even a Boot Camp partition.

I'm sorry if this post isn't helpful but I only have about 25 years of experience with computers (BASIC, Assembler for 8086, MSDOS, Windows 3.11 to Vista, QNX, BeOS, OpenVMS, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X).
 
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- Option one is
Reformat drive as GPT through Mac OS disk Utilities and reinstall Windows
-Option 2
Use NT backup to backup System state and all data
Reinstall Windows and restore backup
- Option 3
use any software to backup Windows partition, and restore after reformat using it.
Personally I am using g4l (open source and easy to use) to restore entire MB, and or Windows backup
 
Come on guys. I can see that the partition schemes are different. If you tell me that "MBR" is common lingo in some groups for a particular partition scheme, I guess I will need to accept it, but I sure did not see such when I did a Google search. My understanding is that partitioning utilities (Fdisk being one) can install (or not) an MBR. If it's installed, the disk becomes bootable.

Disk Utility.app offers only a choice about the number of partitions. It does not offer a choice of partition table structure. I do not see John's option 1 as making sense given the lack of options in the Partition Tab of Disk Utility.app.

Option 2 ; Why would re-installing Windows change the partition problem?

Option 3: I am still waiting to see a link to documentation that using g4l on a Mac OSX system is safe.

Specimen: That disk was partitioned and formatted via Disk Utility and the WinXP installation was not from another disk, but straight from a purchased CD with all of its flashy holograms, out of a shrink wrapped package, and done using Boot Camp Assistant. I do not see where my description suggested otherwise.

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David Winsemius
 
There are now two installations of WinXP in my machine. The one in the second bay installed via Boot Camp Assistant works.

The one on the first bay HDD installed via Parallels does not work, ... or rather it boots to the point of a logon screen that will not accept any user password. Maybe we should just be trying to get the non-working image working, rather than mucking up a functioning installation. If I had a working copy on the first bay HDD, I would feel a lot safer in erasing the installation on the second bay drive.
 
That is a three year-old press piece. You appear to be engaging in "helpdesk speculation":
Winternals Administrator pack was acquired by Microsoft 2 years ago and is no longer being sold or distributed:

"Microsoft Acquires Winternals (July 17, 2006)"
<http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/winternals.mspx>

The MS alternative they suggest is only available through Volume licensing to corporate clients.

Is there a secod tier support person you can refer this to?
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David Winsemius
 
Yes, this is what I referred to , i is only known and recommended by Microsoft, therefore I mentioned it, may be there are third party open source solution but I do not know ,
May be googling can help
 
BTW, why not contact Microsoft support, they have too many tools, and maybe they can provide some advices?
Please not that this problem is exactly not related to Parallels Desktop
Your post seems to be demand
This is out good will we are trying to help each other.
Yes, users help us to find problems in our software and identify problems, and Parallels team also tries to help people to resolve problems more faster, than by official support system way
 
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