Can i save this? parallels had an attack and ruined my XP VM

[otispunkmeyer]

basically, upon waking my macbook pro from sleep, parallels went a bit screwy and the VM i was running at the time became non responsive and just crashed. then when i asked parallels to stop the VM that crashed too.

i had to force quit everything

upon re loading the VM all that happens is you get the boot screen, then the menu asking if you like to start XP in safe mode because it wasnt shut down proper and then the XP splash screen comes on for about 1 second before it BSOD's and reboots.

for some reason parallels wont boot from CD, even though i asked it too, so trying to repair windows from the disc seems out of the question

am i out of luck here then? will i just have to start a fresh? (good thing i can still access the files n stuff with the VM explorer), guess i should make use of the snap shot button in future.

 

[Eidorian]

I'd try reinstalling the same version of Parallels again.

 

[sirgeekalot]

Use the Parallels Snapshot feature

I'd try reinstalling the same version of Parallels again.

Yes, I agree you'll want to reinstall the Windows XP virtual machine. After you have it setup and working again, create a "snapshot" in parallels. This will allow you to create a complete backup of the virtual machine at it's current state, that way you'll have a backup in case something goes kaput, like in your case, Windows refusing to boot normally.

Info about Parallels Snapshots

 

[Eidorian]

Well, I'd reinstall Parallels to try to get the optical drive working in it again. I'd also try booting Windows into Safe Mode within the virtual machine as well and take a look at the logs to see what's crashing it.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Well, I'd reinstall Parallels to try to get the optical drive working in it again. I'd also try booting Windows into Safe Mode within the virtual machine as well and take a look at the logs to see what's crashing it.

the cd drive isnt enabled at the start.. jst discovered that lol, which is my faul coz i turned it off a few months ago (sick of it stealing the drive away from osx)

i cant boot into any windows mode, all of them, even safe mode just BSOD as soon as the splash screen starts.

what im gonna do is just the my documents folder (with all my stuff in it) , reinstall XP, then move the folder back, install some of my programs and updates, then do a back up.

cheers guys

 

[Eidorian]

Good luck!

 

[Hawkeye411]

the cd drive isnt enabled at the start.. jst discovered that lol, which is my faul coz i turned it off a few months ago (sick of it stealing the drive away from osx)

i cant boot into any windows mode, all of them, even safe mode just BSOD as soon as the splash screen starts.

what im gonna do is just the my documents folder (with all my stuff in it) , reinstall XP, then move the folder back, install some of my programs and updates, then do a back up.

cheers guys

I don't think you can do that can you? Parallels makes a single file that represents the whole XP operating system and your files and programs. You would have to be able to start up XP before you could back up your XP documents.

When I installed Parallels on my new iMac, I then simply copied the single XP file that was located somewhere in my Documents folder on my old OS X machine to the same location on the new machine. Then, when I started up XP (in Parallels), it was exactly the same as it was previously.