I have been running Parallels Desktop 6 on my MacBook Pro since it first came out. Yesterday, I forgot to plug in my power cord and while away from my desk, my Mac shut down by itself. When I returned to the computer I had to do a hard restart to unfreeze the keyboard - could not type in my password. When I restarted, and tried to start Parallels, Parallels asked me for my activation key. When I typed in the key for Ver 6, it asked me for my original key. When I put that in, the keys were accepted and Parallels started, however, I no longer had a virtual machine and Parallels was instructing me to insert my Windows disk to create a new virtual machine. I tried restoring using Time Machine, but apparently that does not backup the VM. So do I have any alternative but to go through the entire Windows installation again?
I just had a remote user call me and he is having the same issue. The Win XP image is gone and Parallels is asking for the activation key again. Any leads?
Not sure if it would work for your situation but it might have--not so sure now that you have done hard reset. Before doing something drastic like that you might have tried plugging it in & leaving it off & go do something else for awhile. I've been having mac crashes (still trying to get that solved, but several have suggested that running Windows on it is messing up the mac). Applecare told me to reset Safari (which is the main program crashing) & to empty the Safari caches & the other caches. When I then tried to start up Parallels I forget whether it wouldn't come up or was just messed up somehow. So then I shut down & booted into bootcamp which I use as my VM. It was messed up also. So I remembered the old, if all else fails shut down. & sometimes messed up stuff seems to stay in the volatile memory for several minutes (not sure just how long, but a restart or ever a shut down & immediate reboot doesn't always fix it). So I went & took a shower, etc. Came back, booted into bootcamp & then opened Outlook, etc worked fine. Shut down then booted Mac then opened Parallels & it was working fine. So worth a try when stuff is stuck or whatever. leave it off for awhile, go do something else & then come back & try booting. Leaving the volatile memory (RAM) without power a little bit longer may just get rid of messed up stuff so that it will work again. & maybe the VM needed a little more power than maybe it was getting (not sure about this) when the power had drained.
