Parallels Unable to Access Drive?

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phenixdragon

Bit poster
I am new to Macs and new to Parallels. I just bought a MacBook Pro and I have 3 partitions setup. 1 for OS X, 1 for Windows 7 and 1 for data, such as Music, Photos, etc...I installed Parallels and it works great but an issue I am having is when I load Windows 7 via Parallels, it will not allow me to access the OS X partition or more importantly, the data partition through Windows 7. However, if I use Boot Camp to boot into Windows 7 I can access the drives just fine. Parallels says that I need to format the drives to view them.

Is there something I am missing? How can I view the drives via Parallels?
 
Parallels is a virtual machine, and uses "virtual drives" - essentially these are very large files themselves. In order to access files and folders that sit outside the virtual machine, ie on your Mac, you need to install the Parallels Tools which will allow you to access those files via the Parallels Shared Folders feature. There is thus no need for you to set up three partitions on your drive. In particular, Parallels will not be able by itself to access files that sit on non-HFS partitions (e.g. partitions formatted as NTFS), unless you first mount them on the Mac using e.g. MacFuse.
 
I have exaclty the same problem.
When you're also using Bootcamp there are serveral reasons to set up threee partitions (eg write data when loading windows natively without any HFS+ drivers like Macdrive).

When I use each OS separately, I can access my data partition without any problems (in my case FAT32, in Windows drive letter D: is assigned)
When I start Parallels, I cannot access this partition anymore and win explorer sais that this partiton need to be formatted. With the following changes the drive is available in Parallels (setup/hardware/harddisk1, select your data partition). Now it completely works linke in windows natively (as drive letter D:)...But at the same time it is no longer available in MacOS.
I'm not completely sure if that will work in general (Harddisk mountet by two OS could cause bad karma and so on...), but my idea was to access (and write) data from all three configurations (MacOS only, Win only, MacOS with parallels).

One workaround is to set up a shared folder in parallels setup where you can choose this partition. Then the unaccessible partition still exists, but paralles integrates a shared folder like Y: with the same content.

I have still two problems with this workaround:
(1) the data partition is no longer availabe under drive letter D: ,so that links, dropbox etc. is no longer working (and it also shoud work when running Win natively). I did not find a way to tell Parallel to use drive letter D: for the shared folder, before the not usable data partition will catch the drive letter (what's ok when win is running natively).
(2) it's slow like my grandfather's grandma (only the shared folder, when setting up that's only available in win, like described above, it's really fast.

Any ideas?
Thanks a lot and best regards
 
sorry to bump old thread but I read the help thread and said to search first, so I did

I am new hello everyone,

Parallels works GREAT but one huge show stopper for me.

I just purchased Parallels today and I have this problem above exactly.

My question is where is my "D:\" drive (NTFS)

I may be doing something wrong here but I have tried all combinations of sharing options in Parallels including Isolate.

My files are all installed on D:\ drive (320 GB, NTFS, that is where Program Files folder installed) and the drive does not show up in Parallels
But I can clearly see the D:\ drive in OS X. I can navigate all the D:\ drive folders in OS X no problem and I'm looking at it right now. But it will not mount in the Parallels.

There are no errors on the D:\ drive, I thought that could be the issue.

This is version Parallels 6.0.11994 on '08 Mac Pro Octo 3.2GHz / 8GB RAM / OS X 10.6.7 (32 bit)

Please help, and thank you.
 
sorry I forgot to add Parallels is using Boot Camp partition on Drive C:\ , guest is Windows 7/64 SP1, but I cant edit post

everything works great with no other problems whatsoever but I am trying to access my D:\ (my installed Program Files folder) and it does not show in Parallels
 
Hi CarltonH,

So if I understand you correctly you have two partitions in your Boot Camp and only one is visible in Parallels Desktop virtual machine? Yes, that is the way it works, but you can easily add your second partition as a second hard drive. Please try the following steps:

1) Start Parallels Desktop but do not start your virtual machine yet;
2) Locate the virtual machine in Parallels virtual machines list and right click on it -> Configure (or simply go to Parallels Desktop dropdown menu -> Virtual amchine -> Configure);
3) In configuration window switch to Hardware tab and use "+" sign to add Hard disk. The Hard disk 2 will appear in the list of hardware;
4) Click on the new disk -> choose source and point it to your second partition (D:\) -> click OK to confirm.

Now you can start the virtual machine and check. Hope it helps.
 
Hey JuliaU I followed your instructions to the letter and the drive did not show in Explorer, so I went to assign it a drive letter D:\ in Windows Disk Management, but its a minor thing and may not be typical. You are awesome. Thank you so much, everything works perfectly now and I can access all my installed software in D:\Program Files. Happy customer here thanks to you. Thanks again
 
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