I am trying out Parallels with the free trial. I have a triple boot Leopard/Windows XP/Ubuntu Mac Pro system via ReFit working. I don't like always rebooting, so I want to also try accessing those physical partitions via virtual machines. (But I do want real partitions because I do OpenGL development so I need to do non-virtualized runs when performance is an issue.) I just tried out VMWare Fusion. After some struggling, I managed to configure VMWare to reuse the physical partitions on my disk to run Windows and Linux through VM. For comparison, I would like to do the same with Parallels to decide which I should buy. I am not happy with VMWare because it does not seem to have any OpenGL acceleration which is something I really would like. I read Parallels does support this though. But I can't figure out how to get started with Parallels to use my existing partitions. To get started, I tried to do a manual configuration with Parallels and told it to use my Boot Camp partition for Windows XP. Parallels seemed to initially accept this and took a very long time doing a first time initialization of something. Parallels then informed me it would try to boot Windows and I would need to run a setup.exe contained on the VM's CD-ROM if autorun didn't kick-in. However, Parallels never manages to boot Windows. Instead I see a black console with the message "Missing operating system". Can anybody help me get started? Are there any good tutorials on this? Is what I want to do even possible with Parallels? Thanks
Yes, it is definitely possible to boot the Boot Camp Windows in Parallels. Please refer the detailed manual of parallels Desktop Version 4 here: http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v4/docs/en/Parallels_Desktop_Users_Guide/
i have a question that i cannot seem to find the answer to that is related to this as well... after one does this (boot a boot camp created windows install in parallels) can i continue to use the original boot camp windows when i want to native boot, and use it in parallels when i want to boot the vm? i want to also be able to change between the two (native/vm) depending on what i am working on using the same boot camp created windows partition and install.
i actually found this spelled out in the link provided here... sorry for the obvious question. the answer is YES for anyone else. you can continue to use boot camp/parallels for the same boot camp created windows partition/install
Steven Guitar, Yes, you can do this. You will be able to boot into Windows Boot Camp natively and use it as Virtual Machine.
Okay, I read through the manual pointed to from this thread. It looks like I went through the same steps as the manual describes. So why am I getting the "Missing operating system" error? Thanks
same problem I am having the same issue trying to start a bootcamp installation via parallels. I have found i can still start windows from bootcamp and often will be able to start the installation via parallels for the next restart, after that though i will get the same error Missing operating system john cooper
If you have multiple windows/linux partitions on the same hard disk, then Parallels may not set the active partition correctly for the viritualized hard disk. rEFIt does this automatically when you restart the Mac and select a partition. For Parallels, you need to set the active partition first before creating the hard disk by using rEFIt to boot the partition you want to setup in Parallels, or by using fdisk in Terminal.app to set the active partition on the real hard disk, or by using fdisk on the PhysicalMbr.hds file in the .hdd package in the .pvm virtual machine configuration. For more details, see http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=95585
