This is a "spin-off" of a so-far-unsuccessful search for a solution to "Low sound on VM problem". Symptoms: 1. Unable to connect Hard Disk 1 2. The Windows Applications folder is being removed from the Doc 3. There is no operating system installed in this virtual machine. Please 4. No boot device is available At this point I used to stop the virtual machine, quit Parallels Desktop and start the VM again. The second attempt to start My Boot Camp VM was always successful. I think I know why but it's irrelevant now. System hardware: Model Name: iMac 27 (late 2009) Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz Number Of Processors: 1 Total Number Of Cores: 2 L2 Cache: 3 MB Memory: 4 GB System software: Mac OS X 10.6.5 (10H574) Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit installed on Bootcamp partition Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac build 5.0.9376 My Boot Camp VM automatically generated by Parallels Desktop 5 After an extensive search on different forums and some empirical results I can say that: 1. Yes, it is probably true that another application is blocking access to Windows on Bootcamp. 2. No, it is not true that Parallels fixed the problem as stated by wonder_mice of the Parallels Team who, on Dec 7, 2009, in reply to "Parallels 5 keeps restarting my dock", wrote: "We have fixed the problem. Yes, fix will be available in Parallels Desktop for Mac 5 update." My Parallels Desktop has been set for automatic updates since August 2010. If the fix has been included in one of the updates it does not work for me. What works or so far seems to work for me is the following: if you have Mac Spaces enabled (as I do) assign Parallels Desktop to a space (dedicated to Parallels Desktop ONLY - a safer choice but not yet verified) and your problems should be over. If Parallels Desktop is not assigned to Spaces then you might run into a problem. Having Spaces enabled means that one of them is always active (in my case one of 9). When you are starting your VM (I do it from an alias on my Desktop) Parallels Desktop might go (not always) to the active space occupied by a Mac application (assigned or not to Spaces). If this happens there seems to be no access to Windows on Bootcamp as the Mac application is using Mac OS X on Macintosh HD. Forgive me if some of my conclusions are wrong or not clearly stated - I am NOT a computer expert and English is NOT my mother tongue. Let me know if it works for you.
