Symptoms

• Your Windows virtual machine (or another OS) no longer boots, and you cannot start it.
• You get an error message when you try to start your virtual machine.
• You get a critical error message or the virtual machine does not boot because of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

Cause

• Windows OS installed in this virtual machine is corrupted.
• A Mac OS X-related issue (lack of free disk space, wrong permissions on Parallels Desktop files).
• A Parallels Desktop issue.

Resolution

Before trying solutions described here, we recommend that you search for a solution with the error message you get when you start your virtual machine: kb.parallels.com

Parallels Desktop gives me an error message when I start my virtual machine, or nothing happens.

• You cannot start your virtual machine because of the error message “hdd file is missing, corrupted, or used by other application” appears on virtual machine startup. See KB 4680.

• You cannot start your virtual machine because of this error: ”Your virtual machine may run slow because virtualization support is disabled on your Mac.” See KB 111693.

• You cannot start your virtual machine because of permissions issues, and you see the error message: “Access denied: you do not have enough rights to use this virtual machine.” See KB 5796.

• After you upgrade Parallels Desktop for Mac, your virtual machine fails to start in Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard with the following error message: “Critical error when starting virtual machine on Mac OS X.” See KB 9231.

• You cannot start the virtual machine because the Mac hard drive has errors. An error occurred while accessing the hard disk: PRL_ERR_DISK_READ_FAILED(820021029),errno=5 (input/output error). See KB 112140.

• You cannot start your virtual machine because its hard disk is locked by Parallels Mounter. The error message “There is no operating system installed" appears when you start the virtual machine that was just ejected from Finder. See KB 113617.

My Windows does not boot - it is stuck but I do not get an error message dialogue

• Your Windows virtual machine is stuck at this stage: “A disk read error occurred when starting Virtual Machine.” See KB 112869.

• Windows is stuck at “Trying to boot from SATA drive...” See KB 113342.

Windows boots with a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

Such errors are hardware- or driver-related, causing the virtual machine to stop responding in order to prevent damage to the hardware or data. Contact Microsoft for assistance: support.microsoft.com/kb/129845.