Backup VM not working

I recently cloned my startup drive which had Parallels on the first partition and my Windows XP VM on the second. The cloned drive is now my main startup drive and is identical to the first except the names of the drive partitions are different. Parallels itself runs fine but when I try to start Windows I'm getting 2 error messages:

1st: Floppy image file /Volumes/B/VMs/Microsoft Windows XP/unattended.fdd could not be found.

2nd: Parallels Desktop failed to allocate the specified amount of memory.
Please restart Parallels Desktop and try again.
To avoid this problem in the future choose from the menu: Parallels Desktop > Preferences. On the Memory tab select the "Enable virtual memory preallocation" option.

I've enabled virtual memory preallocation but it doesn't help. And "unattended.fdd" is right where it should be. I've also tried reconfiguring the VM, as well as Opening from the file menu, but nothing seems to work. I don't mind reinstalling but I'm hoping there's another way to get my old VM going, which was running fine.

Any suggestions?

 

Hello Yonidass,

Please open Configuration Editor and remove Floppy device.

Could you please specify what PD build you are using and what is your Host OS?
If you are on Mac OS X 10.5.2 and build 5584, then you have encountered a problem caused by the last major Apple security update. Right now the only way to overcome the issue is to downgrade Mac OS X 10.5.2 to 10.5. Have a look at this article.

Best regards,
Xenos

 

I'm using build 5584 running 10.5.1 on a new Mac Pro (standard config), and I haven't installed any updates since getting the computer two weeks ago. Everything is the same as when I first installed Parallels before cloning my drive, when everything worked fine.

I removed the floppy from the configuration but I still get the memory allocation error.

 

Hello Yonidass,

Will you get the error if you start Parallels when no other applications are running?
What is your Mac RAM and how much RAM is allocated to Parallels? You can check this in Parallels Desktop Preferences -> Memory. What is your VM RAM?

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Problem solved

I solved the problem. I had increased the RAM for Windows at the same time I cloned my drive and after that it wouldn't start. I set the RAM back to 512 and now it works fine (should have tried that to begin with). The problem is I need more RAM to run the programs I use under Windows and I can't seem to increase it beyond 512. With even a small increase I get the error and I have 6GBs to spare. I'll keep working on it. Thanks for the replies.

 

Yonidass, here is what you can try:

1. Reboot your Mac;
2. Browse the Applications folder. Open Utilities and launch Disk Utility;
3. Select Macintosh HD on the left tab and click the Repair Disk Permissions button;
4. Reboot your Mac again;
5. Launch Parallels before you start any other application;
6. Increase VM RAM and try launching the Guest OS.

If you get the error message once more, check if you have Login items in Mac System Preferences -> Accounts -> Your account. Delete these items and try launching Guest OS again.

Best regards,
Xenos

 

I also had the "Parallels Desktop failed to allocate the specified amount of memory" problem, running OSX 10.5.2, PD 3.0 build 5584, and it turned out to be a permissions problem. I somehow lost permissions on my account to the "Microsoft Windows XP.mem" file, causing this problem. Once I reset the permissions, so that my account had "Read & Write" access to that file my PD started working again.

George

 

Thanks for all the replies. Everything is running fine now but I still haven't been able to increase the RAM allotted to XP. The partition with my VM is not journaled (OS Extended only) so I haven't been able to repair permissions. Could that be part of the problem? I've repaired permission on my startup drive with the Parallels app only.