03-27-2011, 12:10 PM

I’m trying to change the OS on my bootcamp partition (using VMware) from Windows XP to Windows 7. After having to re-format the disk from FAT32 to NTFS, I at last thought it would work. Only, I continued getting warnings about there not being enough free space (total almost 32GB with around 7GB free). I was silly enough to think this would be inconsequential as I was doing a clean install which logically would release all the space used by XP and any installed programs. But no, I had to remove a large number of programs from the old OS to free up 16GB for Windows 7.

Eventually everything appeared to work and Windows 7 was installed and opened up. Then I closed VMware down and tried to open it again only to get a message about it being unable to open the disk and the reason given as: ”The partition table on the physical disk has changed since the disk was created. Remove the physical drive from the virtual machine, then add it again.”

A bit confusing as there isn’t actually a ”physical” disk, but I right-clicked the disk, named ”Windows”, on my desktop and selected to eject it. Didn’t work even though I restarted the laptop. Instead I now have a disk image on my desktop named ”Untitled”.

Where do I go from here? All ideas greatly appreciated. Should I remove/uninstall VMware and reinstall it before, again, installing Windows 7? I’m always a bit uncomfortable with removing programs when I haven’t got a CD to use for reinstallation. I have, of course, made a note of the serial number.

03-27-2011, 12:19 PM

I'm dreadfully confused here. Why are you trying to install Windows using VMWare? You should be installing it using your Windows 7 installation disc.

03-27-2011, 12:29 PM

Meant to say that I have VMware Fusion on my MBP. I've also got a Windows 7 disc that I used for the installation.

Everything appeared to work fine eventually. Had to reformat FAT32 to NTFS and uninstall a number of Windows programs in order to get 16GB free that Windows 7 demands.

Then I closed down VMware Fusion and now I get the error message when trying to open it.

03-27-2011, 12:51 PM

I still don't understand why you are using VMWare to install Windows 7 to a BootCamp partition. You need to insert the Windows 7 disc into your DVD drive and boot off that, then install like normal.

03-27-2011, 09:43 PM

Were you using your Boot Camp partition with XP on it as a virtual machine from within VMWare Fusion? (That's what is sounds like you were doing.)

If the above is true, you can not update XP to Windows 7 by using VMWare Fusion. As lifeisabeach stated, you must do the update with the Windows 7 DVD. And when that is finished, you'll need to get back into Fusion, remove the XP VM and create a new one for Win 7 by once more using the Boot Camp partition as a VM.

What you're attempting to do will lead to the destruction of both your XP VM and the BC installation.