My Windows virtual disk no longer mounts on my Mac OS X desktop

After starting Windows in Parallels 4.0, the virtual Windows hard drive would mount on my Mac OS X desktop. This is no longer the case. I am running Build 4.0.3810.

Even though I have checked "Mount virtual disks to Mac OS X desktop" under Shared Folders of the Configuration panel the Windows HD will not mount on the Mac desktop.

What should I do to get the drive back onto the Mac desktop?

 

I lost this feature upgrading from Parallels 3 to 4...it is a major nuisance not having it. I too would be very interested in a solution for recovering this capability.

 

I think I may have found the solution. The solution is in the Finder. Click on Preferences/General. Check connected servers.

In my case, that puts the Windows virtual disk back on the desktop.

 

No, I already have Connected Servers checked in my my Finder Prefs, it doesn't work. Also, in my Virtual Machine Shared Folders configuration I have checked both "Share all Windows disks with Mac OS X" and "Mount virtual disks to Mac OS X desktop."

I am using Boot Camp partition as my virtual machine...maybe that is making a differences?

 

I have a feeling that this does in fact make the difference. I chose not to use Bootcamp, because I want the ability to drag and drop files between the two OS's.

When you are running Windows in Bootcamp, OS X is not running. And when you are booting into OS X, Windows is not running, so obviously there is no virtual disk to mount on the Mac OS X desktop.

I may be wrong about this, since there may be a way to access the Windows Bootcamp partition on the Mac hard drive.

 

I found a solution. Turns out that the VM drive does appear in the finder, but only at the root computer level. If Parallels is running, you can access it from a finder window using CMD-UP ARROW to get to the top level.

Or, you can set Finder Prefs > General > New Finder windows open > Computer. From that point on all new Finder windows will open at the root level, showing both OS X hard drive and the Boot Camp C: drive (as long as Parallels is running).

In the displayed Windows partition, you can read, write, and delete files from OS X. At least, I can on my system. If anyone else cares to try this and report back I'm sure it would be helpful to others.

Philip

 

Philip, it might very well be that you are using the bootcamp partition on your computer, but I can not say that for sure. I have not fully installed any version of windows on my Mac with bootcamp yet, though I do plan to in the near future. I have however already setup a partition for the purpose of this, and by default, it appears on my desktop by itself. As the bootcamp partition is just another partition on the hard drive, it makes perfect sense to locate it on the desktop, just the same you would any other hard drive, disk, image file, and the such.

It seems to me that PD would have to either eject the partition from Mac OS to utilize, or it might just leave the partition mounted. In the event that the partition stays mounted in Mac OS, I would just utilize MacFuse along with NTFS-3G to deal with interfacing with it from Mac OS. On the other hand, if it does eject the partition from, then it would make sense it should work the same as if running from a virtual disk.

In either event, utilizing abrasha's info, I found a way to force PD4 to update the Finder changes as well, and would appear to me as a possible option for you to attempt, just to verify there is no communication issues from PD4 to Finder about the setting. Since I came across a newer thread relating to the non-mounting virtual disk that had response from the Parallels Team already, I decided to use that thread instead. You can find the information here.