Virtual Machine from BootCamp won't work

I have the nMP, created a BootCamp partition, installed Win8.1, and cloned this to an external SSD. Following that I blew away the BootCamp Partition. I now am able to boot from the external SSD into Win8.1 just fine, and it all works.

However, now I want to create a Virtual Machine in Parallels 8, using that Win8.1 installation on my external SSD, and thinking I can do this as I would from a Bootcamp installation, I find it doesn't work. Why not??? And, if this is some stupid limitation, how do I go about creating a Virtual Machine from that Win8.1 installation?

Thanks in advance!

 

Try adding the SSD as a boot camp image to your VM list, that is what I did with a windows hard drive I put in my Mac pro and it brought it right up.

 

I tried following the directions on the Parallels support site, and it totally screwed up the Windows installation. It kind of finished, and then when I tried to boot into bootcamp, it was missing system files, and I had to restore from WinClone. I guess it is not meant to be...

 

I just tried again and get errors:

1) Upgrading “virtual machine”. - Preparing to configure your virtual machine
2) Goes into command and says
No boot device is available, press Enter to continue
Trying to boot from SATA drive 1

There is no operating system installed in this virtual machine

Then I stop. The Windows installation is on SATA1:0, and it should work. It sees it, but alas...

 

Set your drive type in the vm to ide, not stata.

 

I get the same error when selecting IDE...

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0
CLIENT MAC ADDR: XX XX XX XX XX XX GUID: XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX
PXE-E53: No boot filename received

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

No noot device is available, press Enter to continue

 

PXE-MOF is a boot error trying to boot from the lan interface. IT seems as if your system does not see the physical hard drive. Only thing that I can think of, and sorry but I don't have the answer is that maybe you need to use some sort of boot flag setting in the hard drive configuration of the vm.

 

I have the exact same issue on a nMP with Boot Camp installed on an external LaCie Thunderbolt SSD. Windows 8.1 is installed and works fine via Boot Camp, however I cannot make Parallels boot off the same Boot Camp partition. Even after the failed migration the Windows 8.1 install still works fine (I can boot into it as per a normal Boot Camp installation).

Any thoughts?

 

So no one has gotten Parallels to work with a Boot Camp external drive? Should this be submitted as a bug?

 

Abuliasavant,

Please check your private messages

 

Marat sent me some instructions for compiling data to look at this issue. As part of the instructions was setting up a custom VM with EFI enabled versus having Parallels auto-detect. Creating the VM this way worked! Offhand I'm not sure what the difference is between my other attempts, but if I had to guess it was the EFI setting on the Boot Order menu. It's somewhat hidden; there's a good chance I missed that before.

In any case, the VM works in OS X and I can still boot directly into the drive under Boot Camp.

Here are the specific instructions provided: