Parallels and bootcamp

[Hustle]

Can i use the XP i have installed in Parallels for bootcamp without formatting etc.

 

[Lisa]

nope - you need to install XP directly onto your bootcamp partition. You cannot use your parallels installation. You CAN, however, do it the other way around - install XP on bootcamp then create a parallels VM that pulls from it.

 

[ToddG]

For reasons I can't even remember, I installed my Boot Camp XP on an NTFS partition; can Parallels still use that installation? If so, I'm going to wipe my Parallels "machine" and start fresh to save a few GB of HDD space.

 

[Lisa]

Todd, you can use a boot bamp NTFS partition with parallels - you just won't be able to share files between the windows and the mac.

 

[ToddG]

Lisa -- thanks for the quick response. Well, that's a no-go for me. Either I'll suck it up and re-install Boot Camp to use FAT32, or I'll just leave it as is and not worry about the wasted space.

Thanks again!

 

[Smell The Glove]

Ok, so you don't need two XP installs any more? I seem to recall that not that long ago you needed two XP licenses to use Boot Camp AND Parallels. I thought it had changed since then, but wasn't sure.

I have an external drive and might be interested in partitioning it. Any chance I could go FAT 32 on a Windows partition and partition the other half of it for the Mac (all on the same drive?).

 

[ToddG]

You never needed to licenses. When you go to install the second time (say, Parallels after you've already used the disk for Boot Camp) you just have to call the 800#, speak to someone in India/Pakistan/whatever for ten minutes, and they'll give you the key to unlock it again.

I flat out told them that I was installing it as both a virtual machine in Mac OS X and to dual-boot on the same computer, and they gave me the code straight away.

 

[Smell The Glove]

Ok, I must have misunderstood it earlier then. Good to know that calling and dealing with the code issue is a simple process.