BSOD - how to recover files?

Hi guys,

Well, Parallels crashed on me tonight and all I'm getting is a blue screen on reboot (even in safe mode). Any suggestions?

At the very least, I need to recover files from the Windows VM. Would really appreciate it if somebody could direct me how to do this.

-Mark

 

Hello Mark,

All your Guest OS information is stored in the .hdd file - virtual hard drive. You should create a new VM and use the existing .hdd for it. Please have a look at Parallels Desktop for Mac User Guide, p. 67. On the step 4 choose "Use an existing hard disk image" and browse to the .hdd file.

Could you let us see the crash log and the BSOD screenshot for we could analyze the issue?

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Hi Xenos,

Thanks for your reply. I tried what you said and I'm getting the same BSOD. I suspect there's corruption in the actual hdd file itself.

I've attached a screen of the BSOD. Where can I find the crash log?

Thanks!
Mark

 

Hello Mark,

Thank you for the screenshot. Have a look at the article on the error Stop 0x00000024.

You will find the crash log here: ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Parallels.crash.log.

Try to restore your virtual hard disk the way proposed in this article.

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Thanks Xenos. I tried the steps in the second link you suggested but now the VM doesn't boot at all. It just stops at: Boot from hard drive...

Any suggestion how to get past this? If not, can you please tell me how to reverse the steps that caused it?

I've also attached the original crash log file (last 2 records). Thanks!

 

Hi Xenos,

Any idea on this? I really just need to get access to the files on that .hdd file now. Before I could at least see them using the Parallels Explorer. Now it says 'unable to access the virtual volume'.

Cheers,
Mark

 

Hello Mark,

Let's return the .hds back to the .hdd package.
Right click the windows.hdd file you created and open package contents. Drag the .hds file back to your first .hdd package. Check if you can see the Windows files using the Parallels Explorer.

Make backup of the .hdd file (you can just make a copy of it).

Repair Windows installation.

If repairing Windows installation will not help, you can create a new VM and mount your old .hdd as the second drive in VM Configuration (click "Add" button, choose Hard Disk, browse to the .hdd). This way you will be able to access the files from Guest OS in the new VM.

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Hi Xenos,

So I 'showed package contents' of the windows.hdd file. I tried drag/droping the contained hds file in to the original winxp.hdd file but I didn't work. So I dragged to the folder first, then opened the winxp.hdd file and dragged it in.

In Parallels Explorer I 'm still getting the same error message.

Any ideas?
-Mark

 

Mark, could you run in Terminal and let me see the output of the following command:

ls -la ~/Documents/Parallels/<Your VM folder>/winxp.hdd/

Please attach the DiskDescriptor.xml file to your next post (you will have to put it into zip archive).

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Output of command is below. xml file is attached

marks-computer:~/Documents/Parallels/Microsoft Windows XP mark$ ls -la winxp.hdd/
total 44284352
drwxr-xr-x 5 mark mark 170 Mar 14 11:58 .
drwxr-xr-x 13 mark mark 442 Mar 14 11:58 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 mark mark 1437 Mar 14 12:05 DiskDescriptor.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 mark mark 19423821824 Mar 11 13:33 windows.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds
-rw-r--r-- 1 mark mark 3249760256 Sep 21 12:38 winxp.hdd.0.{67a229d7-f7a3-4b5d-90ca-c7eeb42b37d7}.hds

 

Mark, please try to use Parallels Image Tool to restore the virtual hard disk format.
In the Finder, go to Applications -> Parallels.
In the Parallels folder double-click the Parallels Image Tool icon and follow the wizard instructions.

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Hi Xenos,

I've just gone ahead and installed a new Windows VM for now. I don't have time for troubleshooting this now, but there's still data I want to eventually recover.

Thanks for your help and I don't need any more assistance in the mean time.

Cheers,
Mark

 

As you have already located your files from
~/Documents/Parallels/<Your VM folder>/winxp.hdd/
Now to recover files from your winxp.hdd, you can take help of this utility http://www.bitrecover.com/parallels-hdd-recovery/
This is a Windows based utility, so you need to take help of a Windows computer to restore your data.
Copy your winxp.hdd file to a Windows machine and then use above tool. It will allow you to recover and extract your data from winxp.hdd file.

 

Also, try to mount the hard disk using Parallels mounter as per http://kb.parallels.com/118738 to access all the data from the virtual machine's hard disk

 

run windows start display error and close windows not run what i do my data in windows plz help me