Having some Serious trouble with Parallels

I don't use parallels but in VMware fusion and Oracles Virtualbox I don't think there is support for firewire. VMs support USB but since firewire is basically a dead technolgy they don't bother writing it into the virtual machine software. I could be wrong.

Ok but you need to turn on Windows (SMB) sharing on OS X and then share that drive and give your username full read/write permissions. On Windows you have to setup a Workgroup, not the Win 7 Homegroup. On OS X go into the network settings select the ethernet connection and click the advanced button then go to the WINS tab and input the same workgroup name you used on windows. Then in OS X open a finder window and select Go from the menu and Go to server and type in the IP address of the Windows VM (SMB//ipaddress). Also the VM must be setup to Bridge the network connection so it is on the same LAN as OS X. If you have it set to NAT you will never get to that share on OS X.

Sorry I am not familar with parallels at all. If it jwas Fusion or Virtualbox I could give you some suggestions.

Does parallels have some type of software that get installed after you install Windows in a VM? In Fusion it is called VMware Tools. Also check the settings for the VM specifically the network settings.

Save the virtual machine files, the ones that actually make up the Windows install (Not sure if you can with parallels but you can when using other virtual machine programs. It is one or a set of files) and uninstall parallels then reinstall and then import that virtual machine and check all it's settings..

Parallels created a set or one file that contains all of the Windows install along with all the program install in windows and all the files you have saved using windows on the Mac OS X hard drive. Normal VM files end with .vmdk for Virtual Machine Disk or .vdi for virtual disk image. Parallels might use it own file extension and I have no idea what that is. You have to understand you installed and are running windows in a "Virtual Machine". It is software that mimics physical hardware, it is Virtual. So the VM program creates a file or a set of files on the mac hard drive that stores all the mimiced hardware and all the software you install into that virtual machine.

Yes, exactly. Do a google search for "Extension used by Parallels virtual machine". Then get a program called easyfind and search your hard drive for *.parallelsExtension.

bfwebb wrote:

So you're saying that I could find these files and use them to replicat my VM on a new install of Parallels?

bfwebb wrote:

Yes, It does, and that is called Parallels Tools. Only problem is that I can't access it on my VM, which means that either it was not installed, or never became functional for some reason. And now, without a connection to my Mac, I cannot install Parallels Tools Manually.

You don't access Parallels Tools from within your VM, you access the Install Parallels Tools command from the menu of Parallels when you run your VM. See this knowledgebase article.