DSKCHK in Fusion?

[OSX-XP]

I have Fusion 1.1.1. I had a strange glitch happen (power surge?), and now I am having lots of disk errors.

Is is possible to run DSKCHK in Fusion? Will that limit itself to just my Windows partition?

This error pops up repeatedly:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\wuauclt.exe

The NTVDM has encountered an illegal instruction.

CS:0546 IP:ec8c OP:0f 04 00 00 00 Choose 'Close' to terminate the application.

It won't close... it just keeps poppong up.

Any ideas on how to do a disk repair on this?

Thanks.

[OSX-XP]

OK, I went ahead and ran chkdsk. It found several problems and repaired them.

However, I am still getting that error message, that won't go away. (The header says, "16 bit MS-DOS Subsystem")

Also, strange behavior, like WordPad won't open any files any more, etc.

Any ideas? Should I just reinstall Fusion? I have a lot of files to back up first.

Thanks.

[mudaltsov]

Are you using Fusion with the Boot Camp partition, or a separate virtual machine? A non-Boot Camp virtual machine keeps the Windows disk in a "vmdk" file (part of the virtual machine bundle) on your Mac hard drive, while Boot Camp uses a separate partition. If you're not using Boot Camp, there's a possiblity that the vmdk file was corrupted as well.

You should run a disk check on your Mac hard drive - this is available as the "Verify Disk" option in Disk Utility.

Chkdsk only fixes errors with the Windows disk. Even though it says it fixed the errors, the files could have corrupted beyond chkdsk's ability to repair. You may need to reinstall Windows to fix them. I suggest making a backup of any important data before doing that. However, you should be able to do a "repair" installation over the existing one, to just reinstall all the system files, and keep your user data.

Reinstalling Fusion won't do much, since the Windows data (for Boot Camp or a virtual machine) is separate from the Fusion application.

[OSX-XP]

Thanks for the reply Mudaltsov. Here is an update.

1) Tried to run System Restore, but it crashes, and won't let me get there.

2) Trying to restart, I get stuck at the blue "Windows is shutting down screen. Have to Force-Quit Fusion and restart my Mac to get Windows to restart.

3) I altered the VMX file to start in BIOS and change the startup order (How else can I get it to start from CD?)

4) Starting from my Windows XP Pro CD, when I try a repair install, it says it cannot find any hard drive on my computer.

5) I think it is a separate partition. I don't have BootCamp, just Fusion.

Any ideas on how to do a Repair Windows install, or do I have to do a fresh install? (Hate to do that, as I'd have to reinstall a lot of items.)

Thanks again.

[mudaltsov · Accepted solution]

1) Tried to run System Restore, but it crashes, and won't let me get there.

2) Trying to restart, I get stuck at the blue "Windows is shutting down screen. Have to Force-Quit Fusion and restart my Mac to get Windows to restart.

In general, you can hard power off the virtual machine by holding down Alt/Option, and choosing the menu Virtual Machine -> Power Off. This will bypass the regular Windows shut down procedure, and just stop the VM (similar to unplugging a physical computer).

3) I altered the VMX file to start in BIOS and change the startup order (How else can I get it to start from CD?)

You can also press F2 at the very first booting screen, but the VM window has to have "grabbed" the keyboard focus, and the screen goes by very quick, so the VMX option may be easier.

4) Starting from my Windows XP Pro CD, when I try a repair install, it says it cannot find any hard drive on my computer.

5) I think it is a separate partition. I don't have BootCamp, just Fusion.

Any ideas on how to do a Repair Windows install, or do I have to do a fresh install? (Hate to do that, as I'd have to reinstall a lot of items.)

Alright, so it sounds like you have just a regular non-Boot Camp virtual machine. It should be located in /Users/(username)/Documents/Virtual Machines/(VM name).vmwarevm. You can back it up by just copying the entire .vmwarevm bundle to another location. You can also use the snapshot feature to take a snapshot of the current state (however, if you already have a snapshot, taking a new one will remove the previous one). Once it's backed up, you can proceed with the repair installation.

The reason it can't find the hard drive is because the VM uses a SCSI disk, that the Windows CD doesn't have a driver for. You will need to download a floppy disk image with the driver here: http://www.vmware.com/download/ws/drivers_tools.html (scroll down to the SCSI Disk Drivers, right-click on Download, and choose Download Linked File). In my case, Safari decided to name it vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.txt, and the .txt extention needs to be removed. This can be done in the File Info window (Command+I with the file selected). The file should be named just vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.

You will then need to add a floppy drive to the virtual machine. This can only be done when it's turned off. Go to settings, click on the + button, and choose "Add Floppy". Then pick the vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp file as the floppy image. The settings should look just like the attached floppy.png.

Then boot up the VM from the Windows CD. At the start of the installation, there will be a message "Press F6 if you need to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver", so press F6. A short time later, it will ask you to provide the driver disk. Press S, choose "VMware SCSI Controller", and hit Enter. The screen should look like the attached driver.png (with the VMware SCSI Controller loaded). Then hit Enter to continue loading the installation.

It should then present you with the choice to either install Windows or use the Recovery Console. You will need to choose Install (Enter), agree to the EULA (F8), and then pick the Repair option (R) to do the repair installation. See the attached repair.png for that screen.

Hope that helps,

Michael

[OSX-XP]

Incredible answer, Michael!

Thank you for the detailed, step-by-step walkthrough, with links. And thank you for taking the time to make the screenshots.

I am now in the middle of a repair.

Also, this same question has been posted on this forum before, but not answered. If you want more points for providing the best answer, you can reply to those, too. I only regret I have but 10 points to give you. That was a great answer! You are a gentleman and a scholar!

[admin]

FYI, I deleted your thead about how to run a repair install because it's answered in this one.