Can this VM be saved?

[admin]

We had a P2V'd Win7 VM on Fusion 3. Cat dumped water on MacBookPro. Apple Store mirrored the disk while it is rebuilding the laptop, and I pulled over the .vmwarevm package via a regular copy to a second MBP. No idea if the data was affected.

Trying to run the VM on a second MBP and it doesn't boot -- no errors, no Windows booting messages, Fusion just thinks for a while and gives up. I get the following log (attached). Fusion 3 did ask me if I wanted to upgrade the VM and I said yes. I also erased .vmem, .vmss files just as I was poking around.

Can this VM be saved?

[dariusd]

Hi JohnTroyer,

The only error I see in the logs is related to the sound device, which for some reason (not disclosed) failed to initialize.  Can you try removing the sound device from your VM Settings and make another attempt at booting it?  You may be able to add the sound device back again later if you want it.

I don't see any other signs of problems with that VM, so there's a good chance it's saveable.  Fingers crossed!

Cheers,

--

Darius

[wila]

Hello John,

Cats are lovely animals, but the combination of jugs with water, cats and laptops.. is not the best

There are a few things I see in your log:

> Log for VMware Fusion pid=19060 version=3.1.2

If you are running OS X Lion then that should be at least version 3.1.3

You mentioned you removed the vmss file, so I take it that you tried a full reboot as well? (Aka making sure Windows did shut down and not suspend)

Dec 09 13:11:27.359: vmx| USB: Initializing 'Virtual CCID' backend
Dec 09 13:11:27.409: vmx| USB-CCID:  dlopened /System/Library/Frameworks/PCSC.framework/PCSC.
Dec 09 13:11:27.409: vmx| USB-CCID: Could not establish resource manager context for card ops: SCARD_E_NO_SERVICE(0x8010001d).

Sound card issue mentioned elsewhere

Dec 09 13:11:27.409: vmx| USB: Unable to initialize 'Virtual CCID' backend
Dec 09 13:11:27.423: vmx| USBGM: Failed to retrieve drive type for volume:(/dev/disk0s2)
Dec 09 13:11:27.425: vmx| USBGM: Failed to retrieve drive type for volume:(/dev/disk0s2)
Dec 09 13:11:27.428: vmx| USBGM: Failed to retrieve drive type for volume:(/dev/disk0s2)
Dec 09 13:11:27.430: vmx| USBGM: Failed to retrieve drive type for volume:(/dev/disk0s2)

Looks like a USB disk is offered to your VM, but not recognized.

One thing you can try is... removing that external disk and if you don't have an external disk (aka it's an internal usb device) then try to remove the USB connectivity in your virtual hardware.

There are no complaints about the virtual disk itself, so my first thought would be that it should run fine.

I would start by upgrading to Fusion 3.1.3, make sure that the VM gets a fresh boot, and only then remove some features from the virtual hardware like sound/usb etc..

You do have a backup already right?

hope this helps,

--

Wil

[continuum]

Hi John
to me this more looks like a problem with the Windows boot partition ...
Do you have a LiveCD ... Knoppix or something like that to inspect if the partitions are still there ?
Maybe only the bootable flag is missing ....