I have a client that I setup on a MacBook Pro C2D running 10.4.8 with 2GB RAM, 120GB HD. She had Parallels 1970 and WinXP SP2 running fine since about Jan 2007. Last week she had an issue where suddenly Parallels wouldn't start up. As soon as Parallels fires up, it normally shows the config page then you can hit the Play button. This shows the config page w/ 256MB RAM allocated (correct) then just hangs. Doesn't show the drive or any other info. Never gets to loading Windows. It just shows the Spinning Beach Ball of Death (SBBOD). You can not Quit or Force Quit Parallels and must kill the power of the MBP to regain control. If I dump the pvs file and pretend I'm making a new Custom setup... when I get to the part to attach an existing drive image... as soon as I select it, it returns to the SBBOD, never shows it as selected and will spin all night (I let it go for about 9 hours). Also tried adding it as a 2nd HD to a working VM but as soon as I select it I get the SBBOD. It's as if the file is corrupt and won't even read. I copied her Primary hdd file to my Mac Pro (which has Parallels 3188 on it) and it wouldn't run. Then I ran Transporter to "import" her Primary file and now it fires up fine on the Mac Pro. So I was able to copy some critical files off. But then I tried copying the "fixed" Primary file back to her MBP and it does the same SBBOD. I tried "import" in place the file, same result. I also updated her Parallels to 3188 (also tried copying my Parallels application folder to her machine) with the same result. I've uninstalled, reinstalled, updated and tried a 2nd new admin user (no help). I also tried moving the Mac Pros fixed file to my MBP (also running 3188) and it won't start up either. But on her MBP, I restored a Dec 2006 zip (Backup file) I made of her .hdd file and it runs just fine (but is way too old and small- I had expanded it to 30GB using GPartEd back in Jan 2007 and it was fine). So it seems the Parallels 3188 install might be OK.... or not.... So bottom line- Primary hdd file will not run on her MBP, runs fine on my Mac Pro Backup hdd file will run fine on her MBP but can't be expanded from 8GB to 30GB (and thus is not useful- too small) Can not copy working Primary hdd from Mac Pro to MBP (won't run) Can't get anything useful to run on her MBP right now Thanks for your help!
Firstly, all night = 9 hours... Are you sure that isn't two nights... Joking aside... Have you tried re-indexing the directory tree on the HD with something like DiskWarrior and then running optimization scripts like Onyx? What is the size of your drive on your Mac Pro and what is the size of her drive? How about re-installing OS X? Have you tried backing the image up, changing it to the .iso file extension and then mounting it?
I have run DiskWarrior, Drive Genius, Cocktail... etc. I did not run Onyx (but a full suite in Cocktail). The OSX side works great, as does the "old" 8GB Backup VM. My Mac Pro obviously has way bigger drives (250GB) than the MBP (120GB- of which only about half is filled). I was hesitant to reinstall OSX since it is working fine but that might be the next step to see if it clobbers some corrupt setting. When you say backup the hdd file up, how would I do that? I can't mount it. I can make a copy of it... just change the extension of the copy to .iso? Thanks!
One point- I thought it was 10.4.8 but obviously she had let it auto-update to 10.4.9. I just reinstalled the Combo 10.4.9 updater to see if that helps and it doesn't. I still get the SBBOD when I try to even touch the Primary hdd file. My Mac Pro (where the Primary runs OK) is still 10.4.8. Thanks!
Fixed it... I ended up going back to 10.4.8 and also reinstalled Parallels 3188 (again) and now it seems to work fine. Not sure if there's a problem with 10.4.9 or just doing a full Archive & Install fixed it. Whew....
Hmm... I bet it was the re-install that fixed it... I run a bunch of computers on OS 10.4.9 and 3188 with no hitch. Glad it works though.
