11.23.07

Parallels, Leopard and a Firewire drive = problems ahoy!

Posted in Home at 11:15 am by JohnB

I had one of the most frustrating days yesterday. I needed to run up on of my virtualised PCs in Parallels so that I could run some of the Microsoft eLearning software. Initially there where no problems, I started up the PC and ran through the installer and downloaded some of the courseware… then everything just stopped. The multi-coloured spinny disk sat in the middle of the screen and I could do nothing.

A reset of the Mac brought everything back to life and I shrugged and carried on. Evrything was fine right up to the point I started the PC again and pinged up IE to look for a new wallpaper (I get easily confused when I’ve got multiple desktops all looking the same.. more later!) BANG! It all stopped again.

Again a reset brought things back to life, but this time a didn’t even get through the PC boot up before things stopped. At this point the 360 was switched on, the Mac was switched off and I spent an hour on Assassins Creed venting my frustration.

This morning I got the exact same problem again.. but this time I noticed that the Firewire drive I have connected as my backup unit was spinning up and chattering away. Curious, I watched it flash and chatter for a few minutes thinking that things may spring back to life in a while. The drive stopped and then another reset was required, but an idea had formed… maybe… Hmmm.

So. Firewire drive is switched off. Mac is up and running. RDP session open to my server system running Windows 2003. Parallels PC booted up and running sweetly. Another RDP session open to a virtual PC running on the server (I said I had a lot of desktops!). Everything is working!! This is GREAT! Except I now have no Time-Machine..not so good.

So I now have to remember to power off my external drive before starting up Parallels. Not a major chore really, but not ideal either. I’m going to keep an eye out for updates or other information, but in case anyone else is having issues, this is how I worked around.

- J.

UPDATE

The problem has returned.. I’m so annoyed. Everything is fine apart from Parallels. BAH!

Permalink