Can't open Virtual Machines after "Archive and Install" of Snow Leopard OS

Hi all,
Please bear with me while I provide a bit of background info for my issue:
I just installed a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS5, during which I was actually forced to archive and install my Snow Leopard because of an installation error. So, I inserted my Snow Leopard disc and let the OS X installer do its thing. I remember, somewhere along the way, an admonishment that this process may somehow corrupt any virtual machines that may be installed, but throwing caution to the wind, I went ahead anyway.
Well, turns out it did indeed corrupt my installation of Parallels 6 somehow, and now none of my VMs work. When I open Parallels, and select File -> Open, then select whichever VM I want, a screen flashes so quickly I can't see it (I assume it says something like "Opening XYZ Virtual Machine"), and then.......nothing.
Thus far, I have tried to uninstall and reinstall Parallels 6 (using the KB article that directs you to delete a bunch of files via Terminal after running the packaged uninstaller) and I deleted my VMs and restored backup copies of them from several months ago.
I'm now at a loss - any ideas what I can do to get Parallels to function again? I don't know if somehow permissions were modified, or if there are any other particulars that the reinstall of Snow Leopard may have made to cause parallels to be unable to open my VMs.
Appreciate any advice in advance!

I think I would look at if you have the latest Parallels;
clone and backup your system and files before doing anything;
boot off 2nd hard drive and run Apple First Aid + (Disk Warrior or DG3 or TechTool Pro 5).
Always be prepared to be able to restore your system to prior point, that could even mean keeping 10.6.4 around for a month until you know 10.6.5 and 3rd party software and drivers all play nice together.
Bottom line: invest in two backup sets and methods; a copy of SuperDuper or CCC; and Disk Warrior.
I've used VBox, Fusion but not Parallels, plus Windows XP Mode, VHDs and VMs under Windows Vista/7.
I'd go back to ERASE and INSTALL and then do all your updates, then start on 3rd party with main packages first (CS5 and others). Off load, save, backup everything and anything you might need first of course.
Last but actually #1: a small 30GB OS X 10.6.5 drive volume (can take the 30GB from one of your backup drive is fine) so you can run the latest DU plus other system maintenance (DVDs get old, out of date, slow to boot, can't use Finder and other programs).

Similar Messages

Archive and Install in Snow Leopard?

I'm currently running Snow Leopard, and would like to Archive and Install. While attempting to Archive and Install, I wasn't given an option, so I quit the installer before the operation went too far.
How do I perform an Archive and Install with Snow Leopard?

You seem a little confused about all this. You said you wanted to Archive & Install 10.6 to get a "mostly clean copy" of the system. That's exactly what just running the Snow Leopard installer again will do. An Archive & Install option would do that too, but (assuming it worked like the old one) it would also create a "Previous Systems" folder, move the old system to it, & deactivate it. There is no way to reactivate this archived previous system once deactivated, if that is what you were thinking -- it is just a way to preserve items that you might need to add back to the newly installed one later on, like third party extensions or a user folder if you opted not to preserve users during the A&I.
Note that you do not need to erase anything first unless you want to clean out everything, including user preferences, system settings, & anything else that might be causing the problem. This would be true even if an Archive & Install option was provided, since it doesn't clean out those things either.

Running Time Machine after 'Archive and Install'

I had a strange problem with my iMac with finder and dock crashing on booting and not being able to open any files. It's been off to an Apple centre for repair, they've done an archive and install to replace the OS, and I apparently now need to run Time Machine to restore my system (don't have the computer back yet).
Am I right in thinking I'll just plug in Time Machine hard drive, insert my Leopard CD and then use Utilities > Restore System?
What's worrying me is I'm going to reintroduce the problem that was fixed by the Archive and Install in the first place! Any help or thoughts very much appreciated,
Andrew

AndyAsb wrote:
I had a strange problem with my iMac with finder and dock crashing on booting and not being able to open any files. It's been off to an Apple centre for repair, they've done an archive and install to replace the OS, and I apparently now need to run Time Machine to restore my system (don't have the computer back yet).
as mentioned you don't have to do that after an archive and install.
Am I right in thinking I'll just plug in Time Machine hard drive, insert my Leopard CD and then use Utilities > Restore System?
What's worrying me is I'm going to reintroduce the problem that was fixed by the Archive and Install in the first place!
that's very likely to happen if the problem was not hardware. did they do anything with the computer besides doing an archive and install? if not, you most definitely should NOT do a full system restore from TM as this would bring your problems back.
Any help or thoughts very much appreciated,
Andrew

Can I trash "Previous Systems" after Archive and Install?

For details leading up to this question, please see my previous post entitled "Not recognizing password after OS install". Basically I want to know if I can throw out the "Previous Systems" folder that was created when I did an "Archive and Install" re-install of my OS.
Thanks.

For more information about the previous system folder and what is saved, you can check out Mac OS X: About the Archive and Install feature. Probably the most important piece of information is that the Previous System Folder contains a copy of the /Users folder. If you thought that something was missing from your home folder in the new system after the upgrade, you could copy it from the /Users folder. But, if you selected the option "Preserve User and Network Settings" when you did the Archive and Install, this should not be necessary.
Personally, what I would do is to leave the Previous System Folder be for a couple of weeks. If you don't find anything missing, then it should be okay to delete it.
EMAC G4 1.0 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Archive and install help snow leopard 1.6.5

I've a macbook pro 2009 mid year model.
and i accidentally deleted this adobe air and after reinstalled..it was corrupted and my friend borrowed my mac...and he installed those cracked photoshops. and i now i want to get them off my computer.
I'm thinking about reinstalling the Mac OS? with a clean fresh one. but i don't want to lose all my iphotos, imovie, calendars, itune, music, movies and the photos in photo booth. is there anyways to keep them? I'm going on a trip really need to get it done in 9 more days.
I've read some forums about Archive and install ? but I've tried youtube for some tutor how to make a Archive and install ? but i couldn't find anything. or websites. please help me up.
my questions is pretty much. how do i make an Archive and install on my macbook, snow leopard 1.6.5 or keep every files, so i can reformat my macbook pro. (planning to update to the 1.6.6 after everything is done like reinstalled mac osx.)
cheers

Snow Leopard no longer has Archive and Install. To keep your user data, clone backup your machine at least twice, and restore only the data you need after an erase and install.
Report your "friend" to http://www.apple.com/legal if you suspect them of having put illegal software on your machine. You don't know what else they might have messed up..

Finder not responding after Archive and install

I recently encountered my first problem ever with my mac(new in '05) This is the first mac I have owned; I have worked on G3's and G4's in the past. After reading through many message boards and support pages I don't believe my problem to be similar but different to previous posts.
My problem started off with an OS problem that I was able to diagnose in the "help" book I purchased when Leopard came out. It said I should Archive and Install to remedy the problem and keep my files. I ran the archive the install (it gave me no options to preserve user or network settings). After Archive and install my computer started up alright, but I got the permanent beachball and the finder does not work. it is constantly non responsive. I can relaunch finder, but after it restarts it goes non responsive immediately once again. So I can't actually access my "previous system" folder to move anything over. I checked my dock items and finder, they opened, but my itunes asked for an update. I list of update items came up; I did the non-restart items first. they updated fine, (my itunes old itunes playlists are viewable but not playable now) then I did the items that required a restart. That is when I found out that I could not shut down or restart my computer with std. procedures.
Currently I can only access my spotlight or apple pull down menu if I am in a functioning dock program (safari or itunes, quicktime. etc.) after reading some more support pages it looked like the common thing to do was check permissions and verify disk. I did, I repaired two permissions and the disk was OK. I did look at the HD files, they were as I remembered, but unaccessible (greyed out) and the "previous system" folder was present. +It didn't look like I would expect. The HD looked same as it used to just with a previous system folder.+ After checking the permissions and verified the disk I tried a hard restart. It came back the same as before, unresponsive finder and only the few dock items worked along with spotlight. I checked permissions and disk verify again and everything was OK.
Sorry to be long winded I am trying to be thorough...In short, My finder does not work after doing an Archive and Install to fix my original problem (which has been fixed)...the remedy for an unresponsive finder is to do an archive and install. Is another archive and install really going to fix my problem? Can I archive and install OSX 10.4 and work my way back up to 10.5.6?
Secondly is there a way to restart my computer without doing another hard restart?

It won't let me add a new account. I am locked out and when I try to unlock it gives me the beachball and becomes non responsive after it tries to authenticate.
I looked at the log file, I am not sure what exactly to look for. I am no programer. I see an awful lot of negative wording. I see some errors like "error (-4956) locating menu extra but they are mostly under system preferences...I see some stuff in the loginwindow that says is not a full path... Otherwise, the only reference I see to the finder is when I have force quit the finder.
2/8/09 8:59:55 PM com.apple.launchd[114] ([0x0-0x4d04d].com.apple.finder[304]) Exited: Terminated
2/8/09 11:10:17 PM com.apple.launchd[114] ([0x0-0x57057].com.apple.finder[321]) Exited: Terminated

Where is mail stored after archive and install?

Hello All,
I need to know where my old mails are stored after archive and install. To give a bit of background... This is a work computer. Its a MacMini which came with 10.4 installed. Before I joined the company boss upgraded to Leopard and thats what I have been using all this time. Recently it blue screened and I had to do an archive and install after trying various other options.
I only had the original install discs with 10.4 in them and not the Leopard discs. Since I needed to my computer up and running, I used those discs and did an archive and install.
I have all my old documents, etc but I couldn't open mail from the previous systems folder because its a different OS.
Is it possible to retrieve my old emails without having to install Leopard again?
Any help is appreciated.

When I started the computer up, instead of the login page with the account names coming up, there was just a blue screen. There are lots of articles that gave suggestions to try but nothing worked so I had to archive and install.

Cd inserted but unrecognized after "archive and install"

After "archive and install" OS X.2 and clicking on "save settings", everything works fine, except sound cds are not recognized when inserted. iTunes works fine with the original files on hard disk, but doesnt see the cd (it did before).
I repaired permissions. I deleted the "previous systems" folder. still nothing.
I did notice that the "previous systems" folder has an "audio" file in it but the current "system" folder doesnt. I tried copying this audio file into the current "system" folder but I get the notice that it cant be changed.
I need to hear cds on this computer. Any ideas?
(It isnt a speaker problem as the itunes files play fine).
John in Vancouver

Hi John in Vancouver! And Welcome To
Discussions!
Open System Preferences > CDs & DVDs.
Adjust the appropriate setting there, and see if it
helps.
Good Luck!
ali b
Thanks, ali, but I did that early on. Didnt put it in the post. On insertion of a CD I have it set to open iTUnes.
I found a further problem which is that the midi set-up no longer locates my external keyboard. I will check the discussions under audio for this one, however. (I did check about the CD problem in the audio discussion but nothing there.)
John

Recover mail after archive and install

Hey there good mac people,
I recently archived and installed on my ibook g4. It was successful, my problem is that I forgot to backup all the mail I had in my osx mail app.
The previous system folder (library<mail<mail accounts<com.mac.mailaccounts<English.lproj< file, but I don't know if this will help restore or not?
Some of the mail is still on the server, but it is set to delete from the server once a week, and thus only a weeks worth at best is still on the server.
Does anybody have any suggestions?
In the future, what's the best way to back up mail?

Hello art-is-work.
I don't understand your problem. Archive and Install should have preserved all your data, unless you told it to do otherwise. Did you?
Mail stores most preferences and all account settings in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist. Everything else, including all your messages and mailboxes, is stored within the ~/Library/Mail/ folder.
If the problem is that you told the installer to not Preserve Users and Network Settings, then Archive and Install should still have saved a copy of your entire home folder in /Previous Systems/Previous System N/Users/, where N is a number. The old Mail folder and preferences file should be there. You can just copy them to the appropriate location of your current home folder, or follow the somewhat convoluted procedure described in the following article to safely restore them:
How to get files from a previous home directory after Archive and Install (Mac OS X)
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user's home folder.

Can I erase the boot camp partition and dual boot snow leopard and mountain lion instead

Can I erase the boot camp partition and dual boot snow leopard and mountain lion instead

Please don't double post. Look at your other thread.
If you want to get rid of Windows and the BC partition use the Boot Camp assistant program to remove the Win/BC partition. Don't do it manually with Disk Utility Use the BC A program.

Just purchased a ipad2, could not us it on my MacBook 10.4.1 - Purchased and installed OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.3 - downloaded and installed latest itunes, set up a itunes accounts and tested by purchasing an album and app, ipad does not show in devises?

I just purchased a ipad2, it would not work on my MacBook 10.4.1 I purchased and installed OSX snow leopard 10.6.3 downloaded and installed the latest itunes, set up an itunes account, purchased some music and apps. When i plug in my ipod it shows up and works, but when i plug in my new ipad the ipad screen comes up with a display of a cable and itunes but does not show in devises, i have tried all the resets and different USB ports with no success. Any ideas short of selling it on ebay or buying a new computer?

If you've already tried the usual rebooting of the computer and ports and stuff, there is only a few things left I can think of. It's possible that when you updated iTunes it didn't fully replace all the files, so I suggest just manually removing iTunes and then reinstalling it.
Try removing iTunes manually first http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1224 then download a fresh copy, make sure it is 10.3.1
It is essential that you go through Finder to remove those files it mentions. Otherwise they won't be reinstalled when you run the installer again.

After archive and install, can you go back to old system?

After some trouble with permissions, I decided to do a clean archive and install from 10.2.8. Too late I realized that the install would be 10.2.
The permission trouble did not go away, and now I have additional trouble with upgrading everything, the combo upgrade to 10.2.8 does not work, error messages etc.
Is there a way I can undo this and use my old system 10.2.8 again which is saved in a folder?
Thanks.

Hiltraut:
As ali brown has already pointed out your iMac does, indeed, have 2 Firewire ports. Depending on which optical drive you have (the computer shipped with CD-RW, DVD/CD-RW, or SuperDrive) you can install Tiger directly.
Since you have an older version of Jaguar, and since it does not seem to be very co-operative, I suggest that you seriously consider upgrading to Panther or Tiger. To install Panther your computer will need to meet the minimum system requirements for Panther. You will need to purchase the Full Retail version of Panther.
To install Tiger your computer will need to meet the minimum system requirements for Tiger. You will need to purchase the Full Retail version of Tiger.
You can purchase universal installer versions of Panther, guaranteed to install, or Tiger on CDs, from applerescue. Please note that Computer specific or upgrade versions should be avoided since they are optimized for the computer to which they are specific and will therefore, very likely, cause problems during or after installation. On the legal side, it may be a violation of the Software License Agreement which statesThis License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single computer at a time. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time...
If you decide to go that route please post back for assistance with how to proceed.
Good luck.
cornelius

How can I add users after archive and install

Hi Gang,
I had a crash on Sunday and had to do an archive and install to get this computer back up and running.
It's a PowerBook G4 and I am running 10.4.
I reinstalled from my OS X 10.4 disc. After the install, the Login screen had none of my families user names. I had to go back to the disc and create a new password for a System Administrator.
I did a software update to OS X 10.11.
I am in now and can see the "Users" folder with everyone in it, but I can't figure out how to move it back into the system.
Please help.
Thanks,
Tom

Hi Gang,
If you go to "Users" in System Preferences, and add the user with the same name, it found the user and asked me if I wanted to import the data.
It worked beautifully.
Thanks,
Tom

Can I copy newer system (10.6.8.) from previous system folder after archive and install with (10.5.4)?

Rightyho,
had trouble with extensions in 10.6.8 and had to re-install with original disks 10.5.4.
Did an archive and install.
In my (dated) Previous System Folder are Appl / Library / System / User folders.
Copied my User folder back no problem.
Can that also be done with the newer system? No info in support.
Time Machine won't migrate because of newer system and I have only a disk image of Snow Leopard and can't burn double layer DVDs.
When I tried to order SL DVD from Apple they told me it'll take 3 weeks ...

http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6

IPhoto won't open after Archive and Install

Recently, my macbook won't boot up so I had to perform and Archive and Install. Now iPhoto won't open and therefore, I have no access to iPhoto Library. Does anyone know why this is happening? I don't have iLife '08 with me and my restore CDs would have the previous version of iPhoto on it. Would it be impossible to revert to an older version of iPhoto? If I delete the Previous Systems folder, will it affect this problem more (as I have only 5 gb of free space)? (Btw, I am update to date on Tiger updates)
Thanks,
munky11
Message was edited by: munky11

My guess is that there is part of the iLife install in the Previous System Folder and you're going to need to re-install iLife 08.
Yes you can re-install v6 (or whatever is on your System Restore disks) but v6 will not open an iPhoto 08 library. You would need to create a new v6 library and that would entail losing all your edited versions, albums, books, keywords etc.
Regards
TD

Can't open Virtual Machines after "Archive and Install" of Snow Leopard OS

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