winxp.hdd is corrupt

I have a Windows XP VM running with Parallels 3.0 in Mac OS 10.4.6 on an Intel iMac. I'm aware this is an old installation but the machine in question cannot currently be connected to the internet and I can't justify the expense of buying new software anyway, if I can help it.

Anyway, the other day Windows crashed on shutdown (not news). The next time I fired up the VM I got the error message:

'Virtual machine cannot be started because of the following problem:

Parallels Desktop is unable to access the virtual hard disk image file [location]/winxp.hdd. The file is used by other application."

I found some help on this site that told me to remove a lock file. I did this and rebooted the Mac. This time on firing up Parallels I got the same message but ending with:

" ... The file is corrupted."

Searching for that phrase led me to this help page. I've tried to follow this, but despite changing the boot order to CD ROM first, when I fire it up it still gives me the same error message and doesn't give me the option of repairing Windows.

What am I doing wrong?

Alternatively, I'm aware that this is an old installation and it's been flaky for some time. I can probably live with simply abandoning this ancient version of Parallels on this non-networked machine and buying a new version for a newer computer when I can afford it. In that case, all I need is to get the user data (not applications) off the old Windows HDD. Any advice on how to do this? When I double-click on the winxp.hdd icon in Documents/Parallels I get the same error message.

Thanks for any advice.

 

Are you sure you didn't delete the .hdd file instead of the lock file?
If the hdd file is corrupted, using the Windows CD for repair won't help it since the file is rendered unreadable.
Do you have a backup of this file?

You can create a new VM with XP from scratch in PDM 3, you don't need to upgrade.

Also, I have XP on PDM and never did Windows crashed on shutdown, I know it's considered popular/'normal' for Windows to crash, but really, a VM is a controlled environment in terms of hardware, there's not much that can cause a crash.

 

Yes, I definitely deleted the lock file.

I have a backup but it is several weeks old. It would be a pain, but not a go-outside-and-run-under-a-tram scenario, if I couldn't resurrect the actual data.

I got the impression from the page I linked to that mentioned the message 'winxp.hdd is corrupted' that it was possible to repair it by booting from the CD, but I can't figure out how to make it do that.

I realise I can create a new VM but that won't presumably help in getting the data out of the old one.

 

That repair procedure requires that the .hdd file can be read, but apparently it can't. The problem is not on the Windows side anymore.

Navigate to the .pvm file, press 'show package contents', find the .hdd file, right click and open with Parallels Mounter, that will mount the drive in your OSX desktop, if it can read it, it will at least allow you to get the files you need out of it.

Also, do you have snapshots? Either delete them or merge them if they are valuable.

 

I've tried mounting the hdd on the Mac desktop. Should it do this pretty quickly? It's been saying 'Mounting...' for several minutes now. Just wondered whether I should stop it or whether I'm being impatient!

As to snapshots, no, I haven't. I thought I'd backed up the important files more recently than I had, hence my problem! I realise I've only myself to blame -- thanks for the suggestions so far.

 

If it's taking more than 5 minutes, stop it, there's something definitely wrong with the file.

How big is the .hdd file?

Note: I see you got to that article via: http://kb.parallels.com/en/4680 , but if you can't implement that solution the problem is deeper than what the article tries to accomplish. I'm sorry to say this, but I think, The .hdd file was permanently damaged, can you explain/link the process you used to remove the lock file?

 

Here's an article that you may also try: http://kb.parallels.com/en/112469

 

I dealt with the lock file by following this advice, which worked in the sense that it stopped it thinking it was in use by another application, but this was followed by the 'corrupt' error message.

The hdd file is ~31 GB.

I'll give the other page you suggest a go when I've got several spare hours available (IIRC installing Windows isn't a quick process).