Transporting XP to Mac, where System Folder is not WINDOWS or WINNT

[mmischke]

Yeah Ive been on the phone with M$ more times than I'd like playing THAT game... LOL

So let me just get one small detail into my head...

ATI makes hdd images? Its not like PM or PL which make exact copies for booting on normal PCs?

And lastly, THIS is the kinda thing the PT should test and let us know or work in a tool for it... there are dozens of image/back up/ghosting aps, so the code is all well known and would show that they actually THOUGHT about the process a little...

I gotta say I am FAST transmorphing from Fangirl to HATER...

No, ATI makes exact sector-by-sector copies of your hard drive. It doesn't make .hdd images, so ATI images can't be used with Transporter (maybe someday, tho...). Since your setup isn't a candidate for Trasporter migration, your options seem to be: 1) follow the rather arcane hack which worked for Babelfishka (this would involve first freeing up a bunch of disk space and converting to NTFS), or 2) find another way (ATI, fresh install, etc.).

Keep in mind that Transformer, a free tool, is meant to assist customers with standard migration needs (same as the migration tools provided by VMWare & Virtual PC). Personally, I think it should rank among the last of items that Parallels should be expending effort on, given their ambitious goals for the main product line.

The current state of virtualization is not yet mature, and that goes for Parallels, VMWare, Virtual PC and any of the open source alternatives. Many of us find virtualization so useful that it's easy to overlook the warts. If you find it frustrating, you do retain the option of waiting a few years until the state of the art reaches your required level of product maturity.

 

[Rachel Faith]

I did that Hack.

I cloned the drive on to a USB 40GB (its a 20) and used Partition Magic to expand then convert it to NTFS.

I used Juction Magic (cause the info on M$ web sucked) and made 2 different points like babble did and it worked and I am now cleaning up the hacked mess on it running right now.

I need to convert it from expanding to fixed and undo the junctions, et al.

But truly, you'd think that any serious company who had serious competition wouldnt let little things like this sit UNANSWERED for days.

Isnt that everyone's complaint? Not that there ARE issues, but that it seems Parallels doesnt give flying frak about even replying to posts. I guess I will pay them the $29 for tech support after version 3 comes out just in case. Truly the product is cheap in price... too bad it has to seem even cheaper in service... thats gonna come back and kick them where it hurts... it always does.

Thanks for your help !

 

[mmischke]

I did that Hack.

I cloned the drive on to a USB 40GB (its a 20) and used Partition Magic to expand then convert it to NTFS.

I used Juction Magic (cause the info on M$ web sucked) and made 2 different points like babble did and it worked and I am now cleaning up the hacked mess on it running right now.

I need to convert it from expanding to fixed and undo the junctions, et al.

But truly, you'd think that any serious company who had serious competition wouldnt let little things like this sit UNANSWERED for days.

Isnt that everyone's complaint? Not that there ARE issues, but that it seems Parallels doesnt give flying frak about even replying to posts. I guess I will pay them the $29 for tech support after version 3 comes out just in case. Truly the product is cheap in price... too bad it has to seem even cheaper in service... thats gonna come back and kick them where it hurts... it always does.

Thanks for your help !

Ah, so you did try the junction thing. I can't speak to Junction Magic, as I've never used it. The tools on the MS site are from the ex-sysinternals guys (Russinovich/Coggswell). They've been reverse-engineering Windows since the NT 4.0 days and many consider them the best in the biz. They're Carnegie-Mellon Ph.Ds who've earned their rep clarifying many undocumented aspects of the NT line and cranking out a steady stream of tools along the way that are considered invaluable to many a sysadmin and developer. They've run afoul of MS once or thrice and were recently (effectively) acquired by them (doh!).

FWIW, I'd try the hack again using the junction tool. It's really not that bad to use. No GUI, of course; just a little syntax at the command line. After the NTFS conversion, were you able to boot up OK (assuming your machine supports booting from a USB drive)?

I guess I have to agree with you on the issue of Parallels ignoring questions. While I appluad their recently increased presence here, it'd look much better if they acknowledged the validity of each 'unanswerable' problem and let us know that it was at least being logged somewhere.

As for the additional Transporter source formats (our previous msgs), here lies an opportunity for the enterprising developer. If I weren't currently engaged in another project myself, I might jump on this one. As Rachel correctly points out, many imaging products have open APIs which allow third parties to embrace their formats. There is a real need for an app which can accept a wide variety of source formats (Parallels, VMWare, Virtual PC, native Windows (etc.), Ghost, Acronis...) and export common virtualization formats.

 

[whytyger]

...And lastly, THIS is the kinda thing the PT should test and let us know or work in a tool for it... there are dozens of image/back up/ghosting aps, so the code is all well known and would show that they actually THOUGHT about the process a little...

I gotta say I am FAST transmorphing from Fangirl to HATER...

Watch out. Next thing you know you'll be calling yourself the "Next Eleanor Roosevelt."

 

[Helen@Parallels]

Migrating Windows OS to Mac, where System Folder is not Windows or WinNT, will be supported in next update of Parallels Transporter.

Best Regards,
Helen.