Using a Boot Camp Partition from Parallels - Are they in sync?

[jmFightSpam]

Hello,

I just bought Parallels 3.0. I already have a Boot Camp partition with Windows Vista Ultimate (basically a 50/50 hard drive split between my Mac OS X partition and WIndows Vista Ultimate).

I know you can use your Boot Camp partition as a virtual machine for Parallels.

My question is does the real Boot Camp partition and the Parallels Boot Camp VM stay in sync? In other words, if I make data changes on the Parallels Boot Camp VM, will they be reflected the next time I boot into the "real" Windows Vista from Boot Camp proper? And vice-versa?

Thanks.

P.S. The threads on this forum are worrying me a bit about using Parallels with my Boot Camp partition. I haven't taken the plunge yet because of all the negativity expressed by people. I too wonder now if I made a purchase mistake (i.e. the money spent on Parallels 3.0) because of this. I sure hope not.

 

[brkirch]

Yes, when you boot your Boot Camp partition using Parallels or directly on your computer, they remain in sync. Changes made in Parallels will also be seen on the partition when you reboot into it.

P.S. The threads on this forum are worrying me a bit about using Parallels with my Boot Camp partition. I haven't taken the plunge yet because of all the negativity expressed by people. I too wonder now if I made a purchase mistake (i.e. the money spent on Parallels 3.0) because of this. I sure hope not.

I wouldn't worry too much, this is a support forum so most of the posts are going to be from people with problems. The only concern you need to have is that you could run across the "missing or corrupted HAL.DLL" error if you don't shut down properly. Fortunately, Parallels is going to create a utility to resolve this problem. Until then, just always be sure to shut down cleanly, if possible.