Parallels desktop 5 virtualizing a non-boot camp Windoze partition?

[Iyerit]

My question is as the title says. Is this possible? It does detect a partition with Windoze 7 on it and all. However, I have a feeling it might fail (or worse, corrupt my Win7 partition) if I try and go ahead with this. I know it's definitely possible if you set it up through Boot Camp.

[Iyerit]

Just to update: it does work, although it was pretty fidgety getting it to actually, well, work.

 

The first time I tried making the VM, it would always try to configure it (which took forever) every time it (re)booted, and would boot into Windoze with an insta-BSOD, then restart and then configure itself again, rinse and repeat. Also, since I use GRUB as my bootloader, I had to make a new CD device in the VM with a boot-132 iso mounted in it so I could even begin to boot to Windoze, since GRUB doesn't much like Parallels. After a bunch of failed boots, I deleted the VM file, physically rebooted into Windoze, and installed Parallels Tools from there. Then, back in OS X, I remade the VM (curiously it had absolutely no "configuring..." process this time, not even when it was first made), and lo and behold, it boots up without incident! Except for the fact that it didn't recognize the fact that Parallels Tools were installed. Running Parallels Tools setup again and choosing "repair" fixed it, then I was good to go. I just can't set the HDD to be SCSI or else I get a BSOD on startup, and setting processors > 1 is hit-or-miss. Using Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Windows 7 Professional x64.

 

Unfortunately, with my setup, the Windoze VM is pretty useless since, in Windoze, I have all my non-OS data on a fakeraid (Intel Matrix), and OS X can't access fakeraids. (Anyone want to try porting ataraid (the FreeBSD version of dmraid)? )

 

Also, if you have Paragon NTFS installed, you'll need to turn it off or else it will get in a fight with Parallels mounting/unmounting your Windoze partition.

 

Edit: Ok, I did get 2 CPUs to work. Which then made Windoze treat me like a criminal and accused me of stealing it since there was an "unauthorized hardware change". :/ Rebooting into real Windoze and clicking the reactivate button fixed it easily, though I haven't tried booting it in the VM again yet. Also, at least with an ATA DVD drive on a JMicron controller, if you set one of the virtual CD/DVD devices to use a real DVD drive, get ready for a kernel panic as soon as Windoze loads.

 

Edit 2: As a side note, I did have MacDrive 8 installed on my Windows partition, if it makes any difference.

 

Edit 3: Natit seems to conflict with the Parallels, and will cause you to either get a garbled or blank blue screen. If that happens with your setup, you'll need to switch to Chameleon GraphicsEnabler or EFI string injection.

 

Edit 4: After a little messing around I got SCSI to work properly. You need to add another device (could just be a CD/DVD device or whatever, just as long as it isn't the HDD that has the windoze installation you're booting to) that's set to be SCSI. Then start the VM. Let Windoze automatically install the "Parallels SCSI Host Adapter". Once it's done doing that, restart, and set your HDD (the one with windoze you're booting from) to be SCSI. Start up into Windoze again, and notice it doesn't BSOD this time! If the first device you made SCSI wasn't a hard drive, then it needs to auto install another driver though for the virtual SCSI HDD to fully work; restart again once it's done, and there you have it.