Hi all — I've got to get a PC program up and running this weekend, but I'm having trouble even getting parallels to work. Can anyone help? I'm on a brand-spankin'-new macbook pro. I've got Parallels installed and activated, and I think have a VM saved. Now I'm trying to install windows. The quick-start guide says I should start parallels desktop. I assume that means make sure the program is running, which it is. Then the book says to do various things to make sure it's recognizing the correct CD drive, that it's enabled and connects at startup, etc., done, saved. Here's the problem: The next step is to go to the devices menu and select "default CD/DVD-ROM", but 1) it's not there and 2) nothing under that menu is active. I tried just sticking in the Windows disc. Nothing happened. I tried clicking on the play button on the side of the window, but that just tells me to restart my machine, but I can't do anything but press the power button which just shuts down the computer. Can anyone help me?
Stop your VM and edit its configuration. It doesn't sound like you have added any CD drives to the config, so seach for a CD drive in your config and make sure you have installed a virtual drive on your VM. You have two IDE channels that both can have two drives attached to them. You need to at least have the Hard drive, which it sounds like you do, and one CD drive set up on the VM before you'll be able to install Windows.
that's what I'm trying to do. In the configuration window it looks like it's all set to default. There are four choices (IDE 0:0, 0:1, etc.) The first is my hard drive. None of the others seem to attach to anything, so I selected 0:1, clicked OK, saved. But there's still no CD drive listed under the devices menu.
I presume you're running an older version of Parallels. Before clicking the Play button, check for updates from the Parallels Help menu. The version of Parallels you have isn't compatible with your Mac.
palter wrote: "I presume you're running an older version of Parallels. Before clicking the Play button, check for updates from the Parallels Help menu. The version of Parallels you have isn't compatible with your Mac." === How did you know this? It's like you pulled it out of heaven! Dang...
He has a new MacBook Pro so it's a Core 2 Duo. His machine kernel panics whenever he clicks on the Play button of his VM. (See the last paragraph of his message.) That's the classic sign of running an old release of Parallels. (My guess would be that he bought a boxed copy at the same time he bought the MBP.)
If you follow the advice to start Parallels and tell it to check for updates, an on line update is exactly what you will get. you need to be running at least build number 1970 of Parallels for it to work on your machine. Let it download the update, install the update, reboot your Mac, and go ahead and install a VM.
