Getting Parallels 6 to recognise BootCamp partition to install Windows 7 (iMac, 2006)

Hi all,

Bear with me as I describe my ancient hardware. It's a Late 2006 iMac (with a new 500GB disk; the original disk failed half a year ago) with a broken CD/DVD player, currently running Mac OS X 10.7.5.

The Late 2006 iMacs have a problem with their firmware: they are unable to boot from anything except the hard disk and/or a DVD. Allegedly they can boot from a FireWire disk, but I don't have the appropriate cables (they're on back order for several months now). So all I can do is to mount a virtual ISO with the Windows 7 installation disk on it and tell the Mac and Parallels to use it.

This is a tricky procedure, but, after a long fight with Boot Camp, I managed to get it to boot from the virtual ISO (it requires tricking Mac OS X to think that this computer works like an Air Mac so that it can mount virtual ISOs and boot from them). It properly formatted the Boot Camp partition and put a lot of files in it. Sadly, and very likely due to the limitations of the firmware, it doesn't boot from it, not even using rEFIt. I have used all sorts of ways to try to get it to boot after the initial install, but there seems to be no way of doing so. So, since my time is not unlimited, I gave up having my iMac with dual boot.

So back to Parallels. It would be nice that Parallels would configure itself to use the Boot Camp partition and run from it. In fact, doing so might even "fix" the booting problem. At least it might finish the installation on the Boot Camp partition, and run as expected.

When launching Parallels, it correctly recognises it's a Boot Camp partition, but also "knows" it's broken somehow. So after doing all its usual tests, it starts the migration process. It asks for the DVD to boot the Windows 7 installation, and happily accepts the virtual ISO without a glitch. Windows 7 comes up and starts the installation process.

Sadly, when it comes to the point of detecting hard disks, it fails to recognise anything, and suggests to "load the appropriate drivers" instead.

Now I'm stumped.

I have put the BootCampESD files on a USB drive, and mounted them. The Windows 7 installation has absolutely no problem in opening the USB drive. However, it searches through every folder there and cannot find anything it can use. The Windows 7 installer correctly finds the Intel drivers for the SATA controller — if one bothers to point it to the correct directory (or else it will utterly fail) — and seems to install them, but that's not enough: it still utterly fails to find a valid hard disk.

Now I know this is an unusual setup. Normally people just boot from Boot Camp via a DVD and have no problems. Modern Macs, even the Air ones, have perfectly valid firmware which lets them boot from everything. I believe that the main issue with my setup is having a "limited" firmware AND a broken DVD. With either of those working, I should have no problems installing Boot Camp properly and getting Parallels to recognise it.

As it is, I have sadly to forfeit Boot Camp and just use a regular virtual machine...