Transfer Windows 7 64bit GPT/UEFI boot to parallels

A

AntonI

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[Solved] Transfer Windows 7 64bit GPT/UEFI boot to parallels

Hi Everyone,

Tried to use Transporter Agent to do this, but it says it cannot find the OS and suggests to simply transfer hard drive with its partitions.

Is there a way to actually do this? I'm thinking about migrating to Windows 8 as it looks like in Win8 mode there is EFI boot option available. If I do this, will Transporter Agent recognize OS fine? I have newly installed Windows 8 running with Parallels now, so I already tried just swapping the hard disk with my Windows 7 hard disk inside .pvm file, but it couldn't boot.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Edit 1: See next post for solution
 
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Here is how I managed to do this:

1. (I think its optional) Upgrade your real Windows 7 to Windows 8
2. Install Parallels on Mac
3. Create new Windows 8 VM from Mac. It must be installed by booting Windows 8 install CD in UEFI mode. GPT partition scheme will be used as well then.
3a. Here I recommend setting the virtual hard disk size to the size of your Windows 7 install + 6/7 Gbs for temporary Windows 8 partition.
4. Stop VM.
5. Extend current virtual drive size if you haven't prepared it properly first.
6. Add your hard drive with Windows you want to move as Bootcamp partition to VM
7. Start VM
8. Install partition clone tool that you have or like (I used EASEUS Partition Manager), but it must support GPT disks.
9. Copy GPT partition from your original drive to unallocated space on virtual hard disk.
10. Download and install some bcdedit ui (such as EasyBCD or something like that).
11. Add Windows boot option to load your drive and make it default.
12. Restart and after several restarts you should see that everything worked!!!
12a. Remove temp "Win 8" boot option -> go to Drive management and remove temp "Win 8" volume and reclaim its space by extending yours.

P.S. It could have been so much simpler if Parallels could start "Bootcamp" disk from external drive in EFI mode (I don't know why, but it shows up as RAW in EFI Shell.. in OS partition cloner recognized it as NTFS/Fat32 property). Another way it would have been seamless -> in case Transporter supported EFI/GPT...
 
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I was transferring OS from my Dell laptop and didn't see that as an option. I guess it applies only if OS is on Mac's Bootcamp. Is it?
 
Also, even though I have now 64-bit Win 8 and allocated 4Gb to VM -> it uses only 2.75Gb and shows 1.2Gb as hardware reserved. Don't know why that happens yet.
 
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