Virtual Machine cannot be started after copying to USB hard disk

[Michael Podvinec]

I have also filed this as a support request, but belated realized that some of you may have valuable input on how to solve this... and this matter has some urgency to me :-|

I have copied a WinXP virtual machine from its location on the Mac's harddisk to a USB disk, as I don't use it very often. Now, the VM cannot be started anymore. I am using Parallels Desktop 5 Build 9344 on a MacBook Air (2GB RAM) running Snow Leopard.

The following happens:
- dialog box: "Registering WinXP(1)(1)" appears
- Error box appears: "Unable to change the virtual machine permissions.
Parallels Desktop cannot set the required permissions for one or more objects in the virtual machine folder. Contact the Parallels support team for assistance."
- After clicking OK, the process stops, the VM is also not listed in the list of virtual machines.

According to http://kb.parallels.com/5999 I have tried to delete .mem and .sav files, but could not find any on my machine, neither at the described locations nor with a "find / -name \*.mem" executed as root on the command line.

how can I get this VM running again?
Thanks for any hints,
-Michael

 

[joevt]

Did you remove the virtual machine from the Virtual Machine List window first so you don't get duplicate virtual machines when you re-add it from the USB disk?

In the Finder, Get Info on the USB disk. Is your USB disk formatted as Mac OS Extended? Make sure "Ignore ownership on this volume" is not selected.

Check the permissions and contents of the virtual machine:

cd /Volumes/usbdisk
ls -ld *.pvm; ls -lRA *.pvm