Importer repeated failures

[japer]

I've got VM Fusion 1.1 and Parallels 3.0 on a new Intel-based Mac. When I run the Importer, it gets through the entire conversion process, but then has this error message: Virtual Machine may not have shut down cleanly. Shut down the virtual machine and try again.

Off course I've tried again. I've read this forum, I've googled it. I've run chkdsk /f on the virtual XP machine. Nothing works. Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks,

Tom

[mudaltsov]

This error usually happens when the virtual machine was not shut down correctly in Parallels, and left the Windows partition in a "dirty" state.

Normally, it should not happen if you run the VM in Parallels and shut down using the Start Menu (not the Parallels toolbar buttons or menus) before importing the VM.

If the problem still happens after shutting down correctly, there may be another issue with the Windows partition.

You mentioned that you tried chkdsk /f already - did it ask you the following?

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another

process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be

checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)

If it did, you would need to type Y, and then restart the virtual machine to let it run chkdsk when Windows starts up.

If your are shutting down correctly, chkdsk doesn't find anything, and the problem still happens, I'm not sure what else could be wrong. Maybe there's some software preventing Windows from shutting down cleanly... I would suggest checking the Event Viewer for hints of any problems.

[Japercaper]

I am now shutting down correctly in Parallels (thanks for that). The import process does NOT get the 'improper shutdown' message anymore, but it now gets 'VMWare is unable to prepare this..." (Not exact verbiage).

Anyway, I've gotten success with using the older Converter app where you create images to a Parallels shared drive. I am now up and running so I'm not worried about why the new (beat) Importer down't work.

Thanks!

[Janiak]

Hi,

Same problem here: trying to import a parallels 3.0 build 5584 VM with VMware Importer 1.0b2 on MacBook Coreduo 2.2 Ghz, with 2GB Ram under OSX 10.5.2. The guest OS is WinXP SP2, transported from an OEM install on a HP Laptop, and was fully functional both in hardware and in Parallels.

Directly after dropping the parallels VM directory onto the converter (and choosing the name to save the new machine), importer states it can't import because the VM is paused or running.

Tried to restart guest and host to no avail.

Tried the chkdsk /f routine and indeed it does report that it can't lock the drive because it is in use. After answering Y and scanning on restart, the scan works but after (proper) shut down, Importer still refuses for the same reason. When running chkdsk /f again, it again reports that the system is still in use by another user and proposes to repeat the process.

Tried the workaround of creating a new Prallels VM attached to the same virtual drive, as proposed on thread http://communities.vmware.com/thread/127318?tstart=60 also to no avail.

s'up?

[jim_gill]

There are two different messages Importer can put up.

"Paused or running" can occur because you have Parallels open to this VM, even if it isn't actually "running". The fact that the Parallels application has a lock on the VM so the settings can be tweaked, is enough to block Fusion's Importer. Admittedly, the message should be improved, and if this is your problem, thanks for the beta feedback. (The simplest workaround here is to close Parallels.)

"The virtual machine was no shut down cleanly" is a different matter. It was meant to say what it does say, but we've had feedback that it can also occur on systems where the Importer thinks you have a FAT32 disk when it's actually NTFS, or vice versa. It reads that info from the disk's partition table but the partition table can be incorrect and your VM still works under Parallels. I have no workaround for this at this time, but Converter would likely be able to import the VM as described elsewhere on these forums.

Which message are you getting? Perhaps I can be a little more help...

[Janiak]

Hi Jim, and thanks for the quick reply.

The message I get is the "paused or running" one, as best I can tell from my localized french version. (the disk format is correcly reported as NTFS so I don't think the second possiblity you mention is the issue here).

So I Guess you need to explain how one can definitely quit parallels... In my case, it involved closing the windws XP VM (from windows' own Start menu, not through the paralels Stop command). Parallels normally quits at this stage; I did check that it wasn't running anymore, and didn t see anything like it in the events observer. As I said, I also tried performing the import after rebooting the mac, and it still didn't work. If that doesn't kill parallels, what will?

All the best,

Jan

PS: as a workaround, would it work to hot-clone the VM from within parallels using VMWare converter?

[Silvervale]

Just wanted to chime in that I'm in the exact same boat. I've done everything I can think of to ensure that Parallels really thinks it's done with the image, but VMWare Importer ALWAYS comes back with "The virtual machine is running or paused."

[admin]

PS: as a workaround, would it work to hot-clone the VM from within parallels using VMWare converter?

Yes

[nightzeus]

Hi-

I just wanted to pass this along. I was having a very similar problem

with my Parallels, and trying to convert it over to Fusion. It kept

giving me the same "virtual machine is suspended or still running"

error.

It appears (at least for me) when I had originally installed/setup

my Parallels I set my disk to increase in size when space was needed. I

went back (after about a month of trying different things) and ran the

Disk Image tool within parallels. I converted my existing expanding XP

virtual drive to a plain/fixed one. As soon as I did that, the

conversion process worked.

[Barclad]

If I can give my contribution to this problem this is what I've done today to solve it.

I had two Virtual machine under parallel and I made several attempt to convert it to Fusion.

First of all I recommend to uninstall Parallel Tools before converting otherwise it will not be possible to uninstall it under Fusion.

Second I noticed that the importer refused to convert the virtual machine I used last in Parallel saying that the virtual machine was suspend or still in use.

It was necessary to start Parallel select a different virtual machine from the one being converted. If you do not have other virtual machine simply start the process to create a new one and the drop it.

I hope this help.

Claudio

[gkantz]

Claudio,

Thanks for the advice - I have had this problem for weeks but just got back to addressing it today. I am now converting my Parallels disk as a result.

gk

[peterg2]

I am still having problems. I am not sure how to start a second virtual machine and then abort it though. I would hope that VMware would come in here somewhere. I do not think letting users flail about can be considered "support."

[jim_gill]

We've recently found that Parallels will sometimes leave the lock files around after it quits, and this confuses the importer. We've fixed it for the next beta.

In the meantime, anyone with the problem can delete the lock files themselves. Doing so will not affect Parallels in any way, as long as you do it while Parallels is not running.

Open a Terminal window (Finder | Applications | Utilities | Terminal), change to the folder containing your Parallels virtual machine, and remove the file that ends with .pvs.lock. Then import the VM into Fusion.

For example,

cd "Documents/Parallels/Windows XP Professional" (note quotes because this filename has spaces in it)

rm *.pvs.lock

[boingolover]

I was running Parallels 3.0 on Leopard with a Windows XP guest VM. When I upgraded to Snow Leopard Parallels no longer worked, so rather than upgrade to Parallels 4 I decided to go with Fusion. I was able to migrate an OpenBSD vm no problem using the importer tool, but Windows XP is a no go. Apparently the Windows XP VM was in a suspended state, and now I keep getting error messages at the end of the import saying "The virtual machine may not have shut down cleanly. Shut down the virtual machine and try again". Not terribly helpful considering I don't have the option to shut down the guest since Parallels 3 refuses to start on Snow Leopard. I have looked for lock files and found none, though I'm using Fusion 2.0.6 so that shouldn't be an issue anyway. I have renamed the .mem file, which stopped it from complaining initially about the suspended VM and asking if I want to continue anyway, but it still fails at the very end with the same message. I'm kind of at my wit's end here. Anyone have any suggestions?

[sydneyshan]

I managed to get around this issue by right-clicking on the .pvm Parallels Desktop virtual machine and choosing 'Show Package Contents', then moving the .mem and .mem.sh files out of the directory temporarily. The import process then worked fine.