If someone is using Parallels 11, 12 or 13 and VirtualBox 5 - it is much much easier.
Step 1: Expand the Package Contents of the parallel's HDD
Step 2: Within that there is an HDS file, ideally there will be only 1 file containing the data (unless split option was used), just double check the size of the file which is a good indication of the file you are looking for.
Step 3: Copy the HDS file to a new location that VirtualBox can access, rename the file and change its extension to hdd.
Step 4: Attach the newly copied file directly with the VirtualBox.
Step 5: Test everything, this is good to go.
Step 6: Run the guest OS, uninstall old parallels tool and install VirtualBox guest tools.
These steps will get finished within minutes and no conversion needed.
I have just finished executing all of these steps day before and tested.
After this, I executed the below listed Optional steps, so that the hdd file gets converted into VDI file. With VDI file the VirtualBox gets more control: most important one being optimizing the free space, which i sorely needed.
Optional Steps: (Switch off guest OS before this)
Step 7: From within VirtualBox tool, Open Global Tools, it will list all harddisks
Step 8: Use Copy function, this will export the attached HDD file to any other compatible options: VDI, VHD, VMDK and more, after researching which is best option i chose VDI - since this is native to VirtualBox.
In future if i need to export the Virtual machine to some other format, then VirtualBox has export option and supports "Open Virtualisation Format".
Basically with the above procedure, you skip the parallels tool for conversion, somewhere VMware converter was proposed, you skip that too. You will only need 1 single tool: VirtualBox, to complete all the steps.
It seems to be looking for .vhd, ,vdi or ,vmdk files... which my Parallels VM does not have. Do I need to rename something? I've got an empty .hdd file and .xml file in the directory of the VM. – Itai – 2011-08-31T17:16:22.837
What version of VirtualBox are you using? And what version of OpenSUSE? It looks like Parallels disk support was added in 3.1.0. – seisyll – 2011-08-31T17:22:28.383
VirtualBox is 3.0.6 and OpenSUSE is 11.2. I've been trapped at 11.2 because of Parallels. – Itai – 2011-08-31T17:38:11.633
Getting closer, updated VirtualBox to 4.0.4.12 which now sees the .hdd file but gives an error: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005) - I tried with the VM not running and running, same error. – Itai – 2011-08-31T17:56:33.710
I would guess that the disk is a newer Parallels disks (version 3 or 4). Try converting it down to version 2 disk and have another go. Sorry for the goose chase!
– seisyll – 2011-08-31T20:39:39.233Thank you for your patience. Getting there. After conversion, VirtualBox accepts to add the disk and creates a VM. Only it does not start, it gives the error: 'VT-x/AMD-V hardware acceleration has been enabled, but is not operational.... Please ensure you have VT-x/AMD-V enabled in the BIOS of your host computer'. Well, I tried but I have no such option. Parallels has no trouble running the VM, so maybe it is not 'properly migrated'. What can I do? – Itai – 2011-09-01T16:42:29.103
Okay, this error isn't an issue with the VM, but is an issue with VirtualBox running on your hardware. Go into your VM's settings (System > Acceleration) and uncheck the items there. You should be okay running without VT-x, but it depends on if you're using multiple CPUs on your VM. – seisyll – 2011-09-02T16:35:04.573
Unfortunately I tried this and when taking it off... it says 'You are using a 64-bit client OS and this is required and will be enabled automatically'... If I start the machine and ignore warnings, it keeps trying to boot infinitely. Would using a different version of VirtualBox let it run the Parallels machine without this? – Itai – 2011-09-02T17:26:30.310
Well, from your latest comment, it seems at least the 'conversion' worked, so I'll make this answer accepted and open another question for the VT-x/AMD-V issue. – Itai – 2011-09-02T17:28:39.213
Here is the new question for the VT-x/AMD-V issue: http://superuser.com/questions/331201/vt-x-amd-v-work-around-for-virtualbox
– Itai – 2011-09-02T17:42:17.523