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Help needed changing Windows OS on a virtual machine
Thread poster: Madeleine MacRae Klintebo
Madeleine MacRae Klintebo
Madeleine MacRae Klintebo  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:26
Swedish to English
+ ...
Mar 27, 2011

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... See more
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 with 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 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. ▲ Collapse
 
Cetacea
Cetacea  Identity Verified
Switzerland
Local time: 05:26
English to German
+ ...
Reinstall Mar 28, 2011

Madeleine MacRae Klintebo wrote:
Where do I go from here? All ideas greatly appreciated. Should I remove 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.


Removing and reinstalling is usually the best solution when messages like that start to pop up, but I understand that you hesitate to do so. Maybe your local Mac Technician or possibly a "Genius" has a better solution?
 


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Help needed changing Windows OS on a virtual machine






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