The Virtual Machine goes crazy over and over again.

[Heidi SitaraF]

I am about to give up on Parallels now. I do not have any idea of how many times the Windows installation on my Mac has turned into a mess of "needs to repair", Errors, all apps dissapeared when starting the virtual machine. One day everything works perfectly, the nest time I start, it does not work. It is such a hassle.

Like this: I had a perfectly running windows vm running. For weeks. Suddenly one day when starting up, it just went into a loop of repairing, restarting, repairing, missing boot-files etc.
So I restored a copy from Times Machine, this one worked for a week, then ALLE apps where gone from windows 8.1. It seemed to have deleted the old user and recreated a new one. May be it is Windows which suddenly decides to scrap my old user and make it new. With the same name, but whit all apps gone.
So, I try to reinstall the latest working version of the vm from Time Machine again, but this time ir will not work at all. So, the same version that just worked the last time I restored it, will not work at all, only blue screen.

Must also say: before the "perfectly running windows vm", I have had lots of trouble, even a parallels support person had to help, and struggled with reinstallation's etc.

The strange thing is, one day it works, and the next day is does not work.

For example, one time I did the "space reclaim", but should not have done that. The vm went crazy and I had to reinstall.

Now I am tired and fed up with parallels!

When writing this, my windows screen is dark blue, and nothing works.

 

[mavidal]

Heidi, how old are your hard disks? It sound as if you have a bad spot where the virtual hard drive for the vm lives, and it is corrupting the system. You may want to try a disk repair.

Mike V.

 

[Heidi SitaraF]

Hi!
Thanks for answering!
My iMac is a late 2012, the latest model at the time being I beleive.
It has a 3TB Fusion disk.
i7, 32GB memory

I have performed several disk repairs during the time I have had Parallels.

Will i help to move the Parallels file somewhere else?

 

[Heidi SitaraF]

So, today it happened again!

I started with a fresh copy of the latest working Windows-virtual machine.
I did a "reclaim space", it kept on asking me, and I wanted to try it out again
I startet, and worked with a word document
In the middle of the work, suddenly a message from windows came up about a tmp-file that could not be processed (I do not remember the exact message)
I smelled a new "disk crash"
I shut down my vm
And when I restarted it started with "Prepare to repair"... and here we go again

Why is it so difficult to get some help from Parallels?
I am a simple user, it should just work!

Could this have something to do with Time Machine running while working ??

Please help!

 

[Parallels User]

You said you have performed several disk repairs, what are the results of these?

You should run both the basic and extended tests of the Apple Hardware Test (AHT): http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509

You can submit a Problem Report if AHT doesn't find a problem with your hardware: http://kb.parallels.com/en/9058

If AHT does find a problem, take note of the error code, you can use Google to find what the code means, but you should take your Mac to an Apple Certified Technician and show them the error code.

 

[Heidi SitaraF]

I cannot see that this is a hardware problem. The issue only occurs inside of Paralells, never in my Mac environment. It is the virtual "Windows disk" in Parallels that suffers from this.
So, the "disk repair" must a Parallels tools procedure, not a Mac OS procedure.

Also, my Mac works wonderfully in OS X Mavericks, I run into problems only with my Parallels windows virtual disk. So, there fore I consider this to be either a Parallels SW-problem or a Windows 8.1 problem.

I have attached a few snapshot in the same sequence as they appear.





May be the last image is important, could it be that something happened with the read/write access on the Parallels virtual disk?

I am open to ideas...

 

[Parallels User]

Could you please follow the instructions and answer my questions I posted, trust me, I'm experienced enough to know this can be an hardware problem, I'm not saying it is, but it has to be ruled out, might indeed be a problem with your RAM or disk, the reason it only happens in Parallels is likely because it's the only app you have that uses such big amounts of memory and moves so much data in and out of the disk. So, please answer my questions, follow the links and execute the tests, and if it's determined THEN that it's not an hardware issue you follow the last link which is how to send a problem report.

The disk repair I referenced was that of OS X Disk Utility.app, the windows virtual machine disk is one large file that resides in the OS X file system, so disk utility will check the consistency of this file and the whole file system, it will also report hardware related problems.

 

[Heidi SitaraF]

You said you have performed several disk repairs, what are the results of these?

You should run both the basic and extended tests of the Apple Hardware Test (AHT): http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509

You can submit a Problem Report if AHT doesn't find a problem with your hardware: http://kb.parallels.com/en/9058

If AHT does find a problem, take note of the error code, you can use Google to find what the code means, but you should take your Mac to an Apple Certified Technician and show them the error code.

I have postet snap shots of what happens after disk repair, it is exactly as you see it there. After disk repair, the "Choose you keyboard layout" pops up.
After choosing Norwegian keyboard, the next screen comes "Choose an option", "Troubleshoot" or "Turn off you PC". Turn off is of no use, since I come back to the same screen after turning on again. So I choose "Troubleshoot"
Then comes the last screen "Refresh you PC".
And then I do not know what to do.
It says "The drive where windows is stored, is locked, Unlock the disk and try".

This is where it stops...

I must add: I have done so many reinstalls og windows now; i do not know how many, but it does not resolve the problem.

I have deleted the virtual machine, and restored the last backup which worked. This is a copy of the vm that crashed the other day, and where the images in my post is from.

So I will try to run the Apple hardware test as you advised.

 

[Parallels User]

I have postet snap shots of what happens after disk repair, it is exactly as you see it there. After disk repair, the "Choose you keyboard layout" pops up.
After choosing Norwegian keyboard, the next screen comes "Choose an option", "Troubleshoot" or "Turn off you PC". Turn off is of no use, since I come back to the same screen after turning on again. So I choose "Troubleshoot"
Then comes the last screen "Refresh you PC".
And then I do not know what to do.
It says "The drive where windows is stored, is locked, Unlock the disk and try".

This is where it stops...

I must add: I have done so many reinstalls og windows now; i do not know how many, but it does not resolve the problem.

I have deleted the virtual machine, and restored the last backup which worked. This is a copy of the vm that crashed the other day, and where the images in my post is from.

So I will try to run the Apple hardware test as you advised.

I'm sorry, the screenshots offer no useful information, it's what happens before and why that I would be curious to know. When you decide to actually follow my advice then I may be able to help you, until then, good luck!

 

[mavidal]

Heidi:

Do as Specimien has suggested, and if you wish to test for yourself, you can copy the vm file to another location and then try to test it again. Just because the Mac side runs fine, as stated, when you run a vm you consume a higher amount of system resources. As for the bad spot on the drive, that can happen and I do not believe that disk utility will map it out.

Mike V

 

[Heidi SitaraF]

Well, now I have done all that you advised:
I have run the AHT, I have been in contact with apple and their senior technicians, I have had my iMac to an apple autorized repair shop, they have run evry single hardware test diagnosing system sofware available, and there is (as I expected) nothing wrong with my iMac or the hard disk.

According to the technichians at the apple repair, there have been problems related to fusion disk and parallels before. They are supposed to have been fixed in version 8 (his statement), but the problem might still be there.
I asked him if there is any point in moving the vm to another place on the hd, but according to him, the problem comes when data is moved back and forth to the fusion disk by OS X during execution.

So, what is your next advise? What to do?

//Heidi Sitara

 

[Parallels User]

I'm sorry, I had already said what would be the next step if it was found not to be an hardware issue.

You said you have performed several disk repairs, what are the results of these?

You should run both the basic and extended tests of the Apple Hardware Test (AHT): http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509

You can submit a Problem Report if AHT doesn't find a problem with your hardware: http://kb.parallels.com/en/9058

If AHT does find a problem, take note of the error code, you can use Google to find what the code means, but you should take your Mac to an Apple Certified Technician and show them the error code.