No bootable disk found for Boot Camp Windows 7 partition

[bozzograo]

Hi,

I'm struggling with this problem since two days ago, when I upgraded from VMware fusion 2 to VMware fusion 3.

I cannot load my Windows 7 partition. It loads at boot, but I cannot make it boot in VMware fusion 3.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled, erased the virtual machines, plist files, followed all the suggestions I could find in the forum, but nothing worked 😞

Any idea?

Thanks in advance,

Francesco

[WoodyZ]

You need to delete and recreate the Boot Camp Virtual Machine.

Have a look at: Preventing Boot Camp from appearing in Fusion's Virtual Machine Library

[bozzograo]

Well, it is exactly what I did ...

I've done it again just to double check and I still get the same error.

Anything else that could go wrong?

[bozzograo]

Just to reply to myself ...

The problem with the Windows 7 partition not booting was related to the fact that I also have a Linux partition:

$ vmware-rawdiskCreator print /dev/disk0

Nr      Start       Size Type Id Sytem                  

-- ---------- ---------- ---- -- ------------------------

1          1     409639 BIOS EE Unknown

2     409640  488281256 BIOS AF HFS+

3  488953040   97656256 BIOS 83 Linux

4  586872832  194548829 BIOS  7 HPFS/NTFS

After a bit of research in the forums, I solved the problem by creating a new custom virtual machine

and adding the windows partition using vmware-rawdiskCreator:

$ ./vmware-rawdiskCreator create /dev/disk0 4 /Users/francesco/Documents/Virtual\ Machines.localized/Windoze.vmwarevm/windoze_partition ide

and then editing the Windoze.vmx file to add the rawdisk:

ide0:0.deviceType = "disk"

ide0:0.autodetect = "FALSE"

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"

ide0:0.fileName = "windoze_partition.vmdk"

Then I added the supergrubdisk2 (http://www.supergrubdisk.org/super-grub2-disk/) iso image as a CD

and changed the VMware bios to boot the CD image first.

Supergrubdisk detects the windows partition and then starts.

I also did a similar thing for the Linux partition.

Happy boy now ... the money spent on VMware has been money well spent. 🙂

Maybe VMware could integrate a boot loader like supergrubdisk for automatic partition recognition in the next release?

I hope this info is useful to the other Linux/MacOSX/WIndoze users.

Ciao,

Francesco

[bozzograo]

The solution is to use vmware-rawdiskCreator and an automatic boot loader like supergrubdisk.

[WoodyZ]

bozzograo wrote:

Just to reply to myself ...

The problem with the Windows 7 partition not booting was related to the fact that I also have a Linux partition:

It would have helped had you provided this information in the first place!  In your OP you never mentioned using an Apple unsupported customized configuration.  Apple and in turn VMware only support the use of Windows XP/Vista/7 running from Boot Camp and does not support your current configuration however not supported and can it be made to work are obviously two different things and had you made it clear in the beginning I would have continued to investigate the issue beyond just providing the link and leaving it at that.

I'm glad you resolved your issue and the primary reason, beyond stating the obvious, that I'm even replying to this is so others reading this realize they need to provide adequate information if they expect to get comprehensive help.

[bozzograo]

Hi WoodyZ,

I found a lot of info in the forums already, so I didn't feel like adding more to my question and started experimenting on my own.

Maybe some sort of Linux/MacOSX/Windows FAQ could emerge, or a new Linux friendly feature in the next VMware Fusion release.

In any case, thanks a lot to VMware! You've made life a lot easier to poor chaps like me who spend their time bouncing between OSs!

Ciao,

Francesco