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smudged

macrumors member
Original poster
May 14, 2008
30
0
I want Windows on my mac to play games. I got Parallels and now I notice I can't play any games on it. Is it possible to turn a VM into a boot camp partition? If not, what would be the best way to transfer all my date (image is what they call it? I would do a fresh restart but I installed and updated around 4 mmos and I don't want to go through that hassle again! Help please!
 
Apologies, Smudged, I don't want to hijack your thread, but I have a similar kind of question (and don't want to start a similar thread) Nothing has been done yet, as I haven't yet received my copy of Windows, and I'll be doing this with Fusion rather than Parallels, but it's essentially the same thing... making a partition with virtualisation first, then going to Bootcamp to try use the same partition.

My particular question is, can I install XP via VMWare Fusion, and then at a later date, when I upgrade to Leopard, use that partition and XP directory for Bootcamp as well? I know I can do it the other way around... having Bootcamp first, then via Fusion/Parallels. I'm thinking as well of the possible hassle with activation of XP if I had to do it all again when I get Bootcamp.

Thank you

Damo
 
No. The 'HD' that Windows via virtualization sits on is VIRTUALIZED. Not an 'actual' partition of the main HD. Short answer is no, I'm sure there are ways but it's not worth the time/effort and the issues it might have once done.
 
No, as SnowLeopard said, you cannot turn a virtualized machine into a Boot Camp partition. You can however back up all of your files on VMware or Parallels and then transfer it to your Boot Camp partition. That would be my suggestion so you don't hafta re-install everything.
 
You can go in the other direction though. Install run via bootcamp. Then either run that partition directly from Fusion or use the VMware converter to create a virtual machine from your bootcamp partition. That's what I did when I no longer wanted all that space hogged up on my MBP. Converted it to a vmware image and put it on an external drive.

Now I can run it in windows VMware player too!
 
No, as SnowLeopard said, you cannot turn a virtualized machine into a Boot Camp partition. You can however back up all of your files on VMware or Parallels and then transfer it to your Boot Camp partition. That would be my suggestion so you don't hafta re-install everything.

SHADO, thank you for this idea, could you please let us know which backup method to choose in order to achieve this? (Parallels help shows 3 different methods: a) using third-party backup utilities, b) cloning the virtual machine and c) copying the virtual machine files).

On the other hand, once the backup is done, how could I transfer the backup files to my Boot Camp partition to avoid re-installing everything?
Thanks again.
 
a) using third-party backup utilities, b) cloning the virtual machine and c) copying the virtual machine files).

Most likely (a) Most cloning utilities (Ghost, Acronis, ...) that would work for (b) have trouble restoring to a Boot Camp partition because of the Mac's use of EFI and GPT.

(c) won't work as it assumes you want to restore he backup to a VM.

B
 
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