My problem with vmware fusion / parallels, my boot camp partition, system reserved, and windows?

[willpower101]

My windows disk is in the drive bay and has THREE partitions on it from the factory:

1. System Reserved
2. unkown (29gb factory restore partition)
3. Windows

I don't want to reinstall right now to one partition because I have too much going on in windows that I need to preserve.

So this is what happens when I try to boot each in chimera:

1. Glitchy screen, see below
2. Boots windows fine
3. BOOTMGR MISSING

When I try to create a bootcamp machine in any vmware software in OSX, it only sees the system reserved and never the actual bootable partition.

How in the world do I get this thing to boot into parallels or vmware fusion with my current windows partition or some scheme of it, without reinstalling the universe?

 

[RehabMan]

My windows disk is in the drive bay and has THREE partitions on it from the factory:

1. System Reserved
2. unkown (29gb factory restore partition)
3. Windows

I don't want to reinstall right now to one partition because I have too much going on in windows that I need to preserve.

So this is what happens when I try to boot each in chimera:

1. Glitchy screen, see below
2. Boots windows fine
3. BOOTMGR MISSING

When I try to create a bootcamp machine in any vmware software in OSX, it only sees the system reserved and never the actual bootable partition.

How in the world do I get this thing to boot into parallels or vmware fusion with my current windows partition or some scheme of it, without reinstalling the universe?

BootCamp is not applicable on hacks...

You should be booting 'System Reserved' as that is where the Windows boot files are. It seems as if your Windows disk is corrupt somehow.

 

[willpower101]

When I've ran vmware fusion in the past the correct way to set it up was "boot camp partition" even though boot camp doesn't natively work on hacks.

Basically it just saw the bootable windows partition and snagged it, so that both vmware fusion or booting natively booted off the same partition.

When I try to do this now, It can't see the windows partition (part 3) because it's not bootable.
It can't see the recovery partition 2, despite that being the one that works in chameleon. That one works fine for booting the system natively or through chameleon.

And when I tell vmware to look at partition 1, it says it can't boot it or gives some error.

Am I basically stuck doing a startup repair with the windows recovery cd on partition 3 to get it with the proper boot files?

 

[RehabMan]

When I've ran vmware fusion in the past the correct way to set it up was "boot camp partition" even though boot camp doesn't natively work on hacks.

Basically it just saw the bootable windows partition and snagged it, so that both vmware fusion or booting natively booted off the same partition.

When I try to do this now, It can't see the windows partition (part 3) because it's not bootable.
It can't see the recovery partition 2, despite that being the one that works in chameleon. That one works fine for booting the system natively or through chameleon.

And when I tell vmware to look at partition 1, it says it can't boot it or gives some error.

Am I basically stuck doing a startup repair with the windows recovery cd on partition 3 to get it with the proper boot files?

Partition 3 should not expected to be bootable. For Windows installs with "System Reserved" all boot files are on "System Reserved" not the main partition.

I don't understand why your Recovery partition (part 2) is booting Windows. It should not. Something is corrupt.

 

[willpower101]

THe recovery partition still isn't working but here's how I fixed.

Copied all the system reserved bootmgr and bcd info to the c drive from the d drive.

Used easybcd to open / create the c:/boot/bcd file and make several custom entries testing what worked when rebooting.
Windows booted, but vmware fusion still hated it and wanted the system reserved partition.

Used easybcd again to delete the entries on the D:\system reserved drive and advanced options to change boot drive. I did this with the current windows bcd loaded.

It copied the current bcd over to the system partition drive.

Flagged it as active and attempted to boot. All is fine. Basically this partition just redirects to C:\windows. It's stupid and pointless but whatever. It works.

Vmware fusion complained but created the bootcamp anyway.

Works flawlessly.