Cannot use Boot Camp within a OS X 10.7 Guest OS?

If I try to use Boot Camp from within a OS X 10.7 Guest OS I get the following error message:



This suggests that Parallel's simulated boot ROM is not compatible with Boot Camp. Is this correct or is there some other way to use Boot Camp within an OS X guest?

(I have Parallels 8 Desktop for Mac.)

 

I am running Boot Camp Assistant from within the guest OS, not the host OS. I am attempting to create a Boot Camp partition from within a OS X VM to create a hybrid OS X and Windows 7 VM.

There are no EFI updates available either for my host OS or my guest OS.

 

I deleted the message because only afterwards I noticed you were talking about an OS X Guest.

Wouldn't it be simpler to have a separate Windows VM?

You are running into all sort of problems, the first is that VMs are per OS type optimized, so a dual booting VM is only optimized for one OS. When you configure a VM you select the OS type, Booting Windows with OS X as the OS type will probably not even work, so this is not just a boot ROM problem.

 

Also, the advantage of having separate VMs is the possibility of running the 2 at the same time.
Copying between the two would also be easier, I just can't see a case where it would be better to have a dual booting VM. It's just more modular otherwise. You only dual boot a computer because having two computers is not what everybody wants, but in this case it's in the same machine anyways.

 

I realize that running Boot Camp fully inside a VM is rather convoluted. The reason I am doing it is to test out various procedures for setting up Boot Camp with multiple partitions, which is a configuration not normally supported by Apple.

The main disk for my host OS currently has 4 partitions and I want to setup Boot Camp on it to create a 5th Windows partition that can be booted into natively. There is more than enough space for this procedure, but since Boot Camp Assistant does not understand >1 "normal" partitions, I have to jump through hoops.

For these kinds of tests I prefer to do them in a VM instead of on physical hardware since I have a lot less physical hardware than VM space.

 

Ok, I understand what you're trying to do there, the problem is, you won't be able to reproduce the same lower level environment of the physical hardware, the EFI isn't equivalent. AFAIK, the virtual environment and the real environments are not very similar at this level.

You *might* try to do what Bootcamp Assistant does, but manually. But probably the first problem you'll encounter is that you won't be able to run Windows installation media, as the VM is optimized for OS X and it will likely fail to run Windows (or any other OS). As an experiment, try changing your OS in the Lion VM type to Windows (backup first), and you'll see how it runs, or more likely, doesn't.

Also, in a real life scenario if it already has 4 partitions it won't be able to boot Windows, Windows has to be in one of the first four partitions to be bootable, AFAIK.

My suggestion, do this on an external drive, Thunderbolt or Firewire depending on your Mac model, OS X can boot from an external drive, just be careful not to pick your internal drive when running Bootcamp assistant.


Btw, if you have all those partitions because you want to create a FAT partition for both OSs to write to, don't forget that Bootcamp drivers install an HFS driver on Windows, so you'll be able to access your OS X partition (read-only) while in Windows, likewise OS X can read NTFS.

 

I'll try my experiment on a spare hard drive. No point in fighting the VM when I'm doing tricky things if it isn't doing a perfect machine simulation.

> Also, in a real life scenario if it already has 4 partitions it won't be able to boot Windows, Windows has to be in one of the first four partitions to be bootable, AFAIK.

I was planning on creating the Windows partition as partition #4, inserting it between my existing partitions. This is not too difficult because my current partitions are already spaced out. Now I have read that Boot Camp Assistant (or maybe the drivers?) doesn't comprehend Windows in any partition except the last one, so this strategy might not work anyway. Hence my testing.

 

Apparently Boot Camp Assistant will refuse to partition an external drive. Therefore if you boot from an external drive and try to partition it with Boot Camp Assistant, it won't work.

Time to continue my experiment on a spare computer...