Windows XP Home and Intel Mac problems...

[dreamawake]

I first installed Vmware Fusion on my Intel Mac with no problems. Installed Windows XP Home and it ran beautifully for about a month with not even one problem. Then one day I closed the lid on my Mac and put it to sleep. After that Windows XP would not boot, it would freeze, it wouldn't come out of suspend mode and then locked in the Windows startup screen that said "Windows did not start correctly"....

After searching the forums I found what I thought to be an answer and followed the instructions for removing the mem file from the Virtual Machines folder. It was no longer locked in that startup mode but when it finally loaded, it gave me an error message :

OPERATION ON FILE "/users/user_name/Documents/Virtual Machines/Windows XP Home Edition.vmwarevm/Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk" FAILED (INPUT/OUTPUT ERROR)

When I choose to ABORT, it then says :

VMWare Fusion cannot sync with disk before abort. Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk may be inconsistent

Then it finally shuts down.

I thought that maybe if I deleted the virtual machines folder, uninstalled VMware Fusio and reinstalled everything this problem would be corrected. And everything installed correctly even Windows XP Home. But as soon as I tried to install printers into XP, the same error messages as above started to appear and Windows XP Home won't boot anymore.

I'm really at a loss...what happened? Or if I do need to uninstall everything again, did I miss something that I should have deleted to make sure this doesn't happen again?

There aren't any problems with the hard drive...the SMART status is fine and there are no permission problems.

Please help.

Thank you.

[BP9906]

Any chance you could check file permissions on that VMDK? I think your problem is either related to permissions or the VMDK got corrupted somehow.

You can simply go to your Documents folder, Virtual Machines Folder, right click your XP vmwarevm package and click Show Package contents. Then you'll be able to see the VMDK file. Simply right click, Get Info and you should see read/write permissions for it.

If permissions is fine, I can suggest creating a new XP VM, and attaching the existing "bad" vmdk as a second hard drive to the new VM to see if you can read any data from it.

[dreamawake]

Ok thanks...but here's a question...creating another XP VM - installing XP again ? And then how would I attach the file as a hard drive to it? I'm not exactly sure on how to do that....any help would really help.

Thanks.

[WoodyZ]

Ok thanks...but here's a question...creating another XP VM - installing XP again ? And then how would I attach the file as a hard drive to it? I'm not exactly sure on how to do that....any help would really help.

By default Virtual Machines are created in the "~/Documents/Virtual Machines" folder.

~ Is your Home Folder

They are placed in a Folder with an extension of ".vmwarevm" which by default the extension is not visible in Finder.

Example: "~/Documents/Virtual Machines/Windows XP Home Edition 2.vmwarevm" would in Finder just look like an icon named "Windows XP Home Edition 2"

You can view the Package Contents of the "Windows XP Home Edition 2.vmwarevm" folder by right-click (or Ctrl+Click) the "Windows XP Home Edition 2" icon and select Show Package Contents.

Within this folder you will have several files and the list below is of a Default Fusion VM Build, with a second Hard Drive added, that has not been run yet.

Windows XP Home Edition 2.vmx

Windows XP Home Edition 2.vmsd

Windows XP Home Edition 2.vmdk

Windows XP Home Edition 2-IDE_0-1.vmdk

The Windows XP Home Edition 2.vmx file is the Virtual Machines Configuration File.

The Windows XP Home Edition 2.vmdk file is the Primary Virtual Hard Disk.

The Windows XP Home Edition 2-IDE_0-1.vmdk file is the added second Virtual Hard Disk.

You would need to edit the .vmx file’s entry for the second disk to point to the location of the actual disk you trying to access or delete the new second disk and replace it with the disk your trying to access and change the entry accordingly to reflect the correct name.

The .vmx entry you want in the case of this example is as follows:

ide0:1.fileName = "Windows XP Home Edition 2-IDE_0-1.vmdk"

Would be changed to:

ide0:1.fileName = "/Users/$/Documents/Virtual Machines/Windows XP Home Edition.vmwarevm/Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk"

Or if you copied or moved the Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk file to the folder of the new VM it would be:

ide0:1.fileName = "Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk"

If you do not know how to add a second disk, or other hardware, etc., to the VM it is though Settings button on the Virtual Machine Library window after selecting the target VM in the list. Then in the lower left corner of the Settings window there is a +-, you click the + and select Add Hard Disk... etc. (Do this while the VM is shutdown.)

[BP9906]

Great instructions Woodyz

[rcardona2k]

IMO, rather than editing the .vmx file, it's easier to create a temporary, named secondary virtual disk through Virtual Machine > Settings > + > Add virtual hard drive, then move the disk you want into recover into a VM bundle throwaway the placeholder and rename the recovery disk to the name of the created disk. This works for ide and scsi VMs and keeps users out of the .vmx file.

Thanks

[WoodyZ]

IMO, rather than editing the .vmx file, it's easier to create a temporary, named secondary virtual disk through Virtual Machine > Settings > + > Add virtual hard drive, then move the disk you want into recover into a VM bundle throwaway the placeholder and rename the recovery disk to the name of the created disk. This works for ide and scsi VMs and keeps users out of the .vmx file.

I'm just curious did your opinion, which of course you’re entitled to, change in the last week? What you wrote a week ago in http://communities.vmware.com/message/793141 is no different than the jest of what I wrote here!

Without trying to say anything bad about VMware, as I think they are the best in the industry, however when they make statements like "VMware Fusion launched on August 6th, 2007, bringing nearly a decade of virtualization development and experience to the Mac world." it's really sad that even in a version 1 product you would think one would not have to go outside of the Settings window at all to do something as simple as adding a existing disk after the fact. Oh well after a little bit more development it won’t be that way.

I never modify any important file without backing it up first. That aside the .vmx file is a plain text file and even if one messed it up it wouldn't be that hard to recreate.

IMO it’s harder to get to the .vmx file than it is to edit it!

[rcardona2k]

I'm just curious did your opinion, which of course you’re entitled to, change in the last week? What you wrote a week ago in http://communities.vmware.com/message/793141 is no different than the jest of what I wrote here! ... it's really sad that even in a version 1 product you would think one would not have to go outside of the Settings window at all to do something as simple as adding a existing disk after the fact.

WoodyZ - I think we're on the same page here. I sure there was a tradeoff discussion sometime about adding the ability to browse for an existing VMDK when adding a secondary hard drive. The reason being is the main wizard workflow obviously offers this option. I would like to know the rationale behind only providing a new disk, but it's likely the age-old battle against only "so many hours available" to build the product.

As to my opinion, no I've been consistent - here's my exact beef or nit on the editing the .vmx file: using the combination of Firefox 2.0 and TextEdit, if you copy and paste any multi-line .vmx file templates from the forums into TextEdit you will inherit the classic Mac end-of-line character (CR), creating a mixed end-of-line configuration file containing Unix (LF) and Mac EOL characters. VMware does not like this kind of .vmx file. What's worse is that TextEdit shows no difference visually like no block characters at the end of the line which is misleading. Professional text editors like TextWrangler and BBEdit (basically any code-level editor), addresses the problem by sanitizing the clipboard before inserting the text into the document, keeping a consistent EOL.

As a developer, I'm very comfortable being very technical but my "consumer-facing hat" also tells me to simplify, simplify, simplify. Wherever possible I try offer answers that avoid Terminal, editing the .vmx in favor of using the Finder (especially Go > Go to folder), Get Info (Permissions), and the VMware UI (Settings). I feel my suggestions have add a positive impact on the product as well as being helpful to the developers, writers, support folks, and I have received good feedback. Thanks for asking about my opinion, I'm always welcome to new ones too!