Unable to create and start a Boot Camp partition in VMware Fusion due to the error: resource busy

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

While attempting to start your Boot Camp partition for the first time in VMware Fusion, you see one or more of these errors:

• Boot Camp partition preprocessing failed. You may not be able to boot your Boot Camp partition as a virtual machine.
• Could not create the virtual disk for your Boot Camp virtual machine.
• Cannot open the disk '/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Vmware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: Resource busy.
  
  Note: If you see this error without Reason: Resource busy at the end, this article does not apply to you. For more information, see A Boot Camp virtual machine fails to power on with a disk error (1003483)

Environment

VMware Fusion 4.x
VMware Fusion Pro 10.x
VMware Fusion 3.x
VMware Fusion 11.x
VMware Fusion 6.x
VMware Fusion 8.x
VMware Fusion Pro 8.x
VMware Fusion 5.x
VMware Fusion Pro 11.x
VMware Fusion 10.x
VMware Fusion 2.x
VMware Fusion 7.x

Resolution

Note: This information does not apply if you have used your Boot Camp partition in Fusion before. If this is not the first time you are trying to use your Boot Camp partition in Fusion, see A Boot Camp virtual machine fails to power on with a disk error (1003483)

This issue occurs when the partition created by Boot Camp Assistant is deleted and a new partition is created and formatted in its place (usually during the Windows installation process). The partition created by Boot Camp Assistant must not be deleted as that changes the partition table, making it impossible for Fusion to read and process the Boot Camp partition properly.

To properly install Windows in the Boot Camp partition, use the partition created by the Boot Camp Assistant. The partition needs to be formatted, but the Windows installer must not be allowed to create or delete any partitions. For more information, see the Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide (Mac OS X v10.7 Lion) on the Apple website.

To resolve this issue, use Boot Camp Assistant to remove the BootCamp partition and re-create it, and then re-install Windows.

Alternatively, you can use vCenter Converter Standalone to convert the Boot Camp partition into a virtual machine, and use the virtual machine with Fusion. You can download Converter from the VMware Download Center . For more information on using Converter, see Best practices for using and troubleshooting VMware Converter (1004588).

Additional Information

For other Boot Camp issues, see Troubleshooting using a Boot Camp partition in Fusion (1027853) A Boot Camp virtual machine fails to power on with a disk error
Best practices for using and troubleshooting VMware Converter
Troubleshooting using a Boot Camp partition in Fusion
Boot Camp virtual machine created by Fusion on macOS High Sierra or higher version does not have correct boot sector