Yosemite (10.10.3) Guest on a Yosemite Host Problem

[mikecc1560]

Hello,

I have a Mac Pro (early 2009) that I want to use to run some guest Mac workstations.

I have VMWare Fusion 7.1

The Mac Pro is running 10.10.3

I have a OS 10.10.3 image dmg file that I select to create a new guest machine and the install appears to go fine but when the VM boots it gets halfway through then stops and the display shows the circular "stop" symbol (circle with a line through diagonally).

I used the same image to boot from so the image appears fine.

I found one reference to needing to add the line smc.present="TRUE" to the vmx file but when I opened the file the line was already there.

Any tips or ideas?

[dariusd]

From where did you obtain the .dmg file?  Usually Mac OS X is distributed as an application bundle (Install OS X Yosemite.app), and that's what Fusion expects to install the OS from.

The circle-with-slash generally means that the OS was unable to boot, which most often is a problem with partitioning or with the contents or means of attachment of the partitioned disk.

Do you know if your .dmg contains the installer or a pre-installed OS?  If it's an installer, you'll need to obtain the .app.  If it's a pre-installed OS, you'll need to do a bit of work to convert that .dmg file to a VMware virtual hard disk before you can power it on... Most likely Fusion is attaching it as a virtual CD/DVD image, which won't work because the OS expects to boot from a writeable hard disk, not a read-only CD/DVD image.

Thanks,

--

Darius

[iiToby]

Hi Mikecc1560,

Installing from DMG is problematic, it was difficult during the beta.

Now with Fusion 7.1 you can install from the recovery partition, this would be much easier way if it is possible.

Cheers

@iiToby

[mikecc1560]

Hi,

Thank you.  The recovery partition option seemed to be getting me somewhere but it comes up in Disk Recovery and asks if I want to "Restore from a Time Machine Vault" or "Install a new OSX"

I choose Install new but when it asks where I want to install the only option it gives me is the physical hard drive of the host I don't see an option to install to the VM image.

[mikecc1560]

This was helpful thank you, it got me pointed in the right direction.