same problem here
I have exactly the same problem here, using Parallels 5/Windows 7. Parallels KB suggesting it would be a hardware problem, i tried the following:
• Ran a full hardware check using TechTool, including the surface scan, which came up with a 'fail', found 5 errors
• Did a full clean install for Mac OS X Snow Leopard, including zeroing out all data, then ran Software Update
• Booted from my Snow Leopard installer disk, then did a permissions repair
• Rebooted and ran the full hardware check again, this time the surface scan came up with a 'pass', zero errors
• Booting from installer disk again, restored a recent Time Machine backup
• Ran the hardware test again, 'pass', zero errors
• Using Time Machine, i restored a fairly 'old' backup of Windows 7.pvm, from when I recently installed Windows 7, and the virtual machine should have been in more or less pristine condition
• Fired up the virtual Machine, it seemed to work fine
• Installed the necessary Microsoft Updates using Windows Update and Microsoft Security Essentials, and relaunched as part of the updating routine, and reinstalled Parallels Tools when prompted, all still seemed to work fine, so i shut the machine down
• When i first needed the virtual machine again, it seemed to start up okay, asking for my password, loading the desktop, etc. When i tried to launch Internet Explorer (I think it was), things went pear shaped again: Unable to access hard disk 1, etc.
• After showing a black screen for quite a while, the virtual machine comes up with System Recovery Options, which to me appear somewhat useless for a virtual machine (correct me if I'm wrong)
I'm lost here. Would any of the more recent Microsoft updates be causing the problem, I would expect my MacBook Pro to be affected as well, but the problem only seems to occur on my late 2007 iMac 7,1.
Any clue, anyone, please? Thanks in advance.