My Parallels which I am running Pan 6 is broken, what to do?

[Golfersal]

For the last four years have been running Pan 6 via parallels on an older mac. Have had great success at it until last night.
I learned that Parallels works as a “virtual” drive, and that drive seems to have gotten corrupted. That machine, which I put Parallels on 4 years ago, had little issues like it would go to sleep, and if I didn’t wake it up within a few hours of using the machine, it would require a passport to restart the computer. It would do a half-ass restart in which it would restart the computer in about 20 to 30 seconds, and everything was good.
So, it was a regular routine that I just lived with. Usually, if I were finished for the day/night, I would turn off Parallels and just let it do its thing. Last night, I did my usual Sunday night update. I started the routine while the Vikings/Lions football game, and then I got interested in the game and went to watch it. At halftime, a little over an hour later, went back to finish up things and the computer wasn’t completely shut down, so I putt in my passcode, it started up loading the files that was open when I left to watch the football game.
One of the last things it did was open up Parallels, which I noticed was struggling to boot up. After about two minutes of trying to open it, I got the kiss-of-death message that the machine couldn’t be opened and needed to be reloaded.
It didn’t seem to be able to find the drive or whatever Parallels needed to start.
After an hour of trying to get it to load, I started looking around and found that with my Parallels rental, I get full technical support, which is something we don’t see with software anymore.

I spent about four hours with the tech guy who took control of my computer and tried several things that didn’t work, concluding that the virtual disc was corrupted.

The bad news is that I have been lazy about backing up things, on Christmas morning I backed up the week to week files, but stupidly I did not back up the main file that puts the weekly tournaments in one place. I didn’t back up those files because I was making changes to the Panorama files, which I finished yesterday afternoon. I was going to back those files up later this week, unfortunately I didn’t get around to it and now I have to figure out how to update that file from some incomplete backups. To answer a question, yes, I didn’t use Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner because I didn’t know it would record the virtual stuff of Parallels.
So it’s an ugly scenario, one we hear about every day. We all feel sorry for the poor bastard and tell ourselves it could never happen to us, but it just happened to me.

When I put Parallels on the drive, the Parallels tech guy had some questions that I couldn’t answer, like why I was using Mojave for the OS file. He also said that the Parallels system, which was 17, was ancient. He was trying to upgrade to Parallel 20, which didn’t work. He also found out that Parallels 20 and Mojave don’t work together.

So, I need to talk to someone and devise a plan of attack, first trying to retrieve the files (which I feel may be impossible) or two putting Parallels back on, which may be hard to do now. One piece of good news is that I have the old computer I used to use and will be firing it up for the first time in a year to see if I can update some of these files in Pan 6 and try to run the business as best I can.
My question is, does anyone have any experience with what happened to me and can help guide me through restoring my files and redoing Parallels? I fear that I need to find Parallels 17 and then Mojave.
It’s a real mess.
Thanks for any assistance.

[designer]

Golfersal, this comment isn’t a “guide” but just something I have to remind my friends about from time to time.

First, understand that Apple and Nike did the general population a disservice with their, “You don’t need a manual.” and “Just Do It.” philosophy. Those catchphrases recreated the expectation that no responsibility was required - Like when Synthetic Oil came out and the Vendors would say, “This oil is good for 25,000 miles.” The oil may be “good”, but your oil filter … maybe not. And want about the lube service that goes along with an oil change - or checking the levels of all the other fluids that support the car.

People like to think of computers and computer programs as solid rocks - they will always work. It worked yesterday so it should work today. I always saw that environment as crossing a river on chunks of ice. Very Fluid. I’d say, “You buy the new computer and new software at a point in time. The computer Hardware, the system OS, the App software are all pals going to school together.”

Time passes. They go their separate ways.

Now - say five years later - you have the same hardware, but the System OS has changed several times. And your App may or may not have had all its updates applied. The further apart the dates from the hardware’s origin, the Current OS for the platform, and the App Update, the more opportunity for … trouble.

At some point, you have to shake the cracker crumbs out of the covers. For myself, I’m updating to all Apple M-series computers. I run the latest OS (even if there’s a bug, I know Apple will [usually] fix it. I do know they are not going backward). And I keep all my software apps up-to-date (I also have the car’s oil changed twice a year).

Your post does give me pause. I have an old HighSierra MacMini and an old PC (Windows 7) that has Panorama 6. Though my initial justification was, “…just in case…”, holding on to them was more of a security blanket.

But that’s an idea. You can get a used PC really cheaply - less than a copy of Parallels or (they don’t tell you this) the cost of the Windows License you need to use it,

Instead of messing around with Parallels (one more “moving part”) just - Jim, shut your eyes - run Pan6 on an actual PC - but that PC should probably have an OS that was used during Pan6’s heyday.

At some point, you should consider, as I’ve had to do, humbling yourself to the current group of contributors here, learning PanX enough to mirror your Pan6 actions in PanX on a Mac, and exporting database results to the PC if you absolutely need the data on that machine.

For backup - I started using TimeMachine last year but I mostly rely on SuperDuper software to create a workable clone. I stagger the days for that clone backup - so it’s not every day. That way, I don’t immediately back up a problem over a good situation. I’m not in a “for-profit” commercial environment so those issues aren’t as critical for me.

[JohnB]

Another thing those still depending on Pan6 should be considering. Running that 15+ year old software not only requires YOU keep old enough hardware and OLD enough OS running yourself. But although now very old, it was never sold as freeware.
To run fully functional it had to be registered and for that to work it had to periodically verify the registration with ProVue. My understanding is that requires similarly ancient hardware and software be kept running at ProVue. Jim has said he won’t be able to keep that running forever, although just when it dies he hasn’t said and probably doesn’t know himself. Belongs in Guinness under longest software support. But it WILL die someday so prudence says those who depend on it should be making plans.
PanX can open unlocked Pan6 files and convert them to PanX although 100% may not convert. It can’t open files older than Pan6 and may not be able to undo some of its optional security so updating everything you care about to at least Pan6 and keeping current enough versions available without added security leaves future conversion conceivable. You’d be then able to see your old data and at least see your old procedure code. Forms are less likely to convert cleanly so be sure you know/document what you had, how they looked/worked so you can recreate them from scratch if necessary. Because you might not be able to play with them running to figure that out.
If late converters found Pan6 as useful as I had they likely have lots of simple databases for various tasks and a smaller pile of complex ones. Save PanX versions of all of them. Some likely will just work. Some will require minimal, straightforward fixes. Some alas will need. Start using PanX instead of 6 for whatever works, so you get used to the new interface. Fix what you can and then use them. With practice the next round of fixes seemed easier.
My complex Pan6 work involved many databases. Some of those converted fine, some parts of some took a lot of work. But fairly soon I had some stuff working in X and a known, shrinking, list of what needed work. When more dbs were converted the y could import the latest data from the Pan6 versions I’d still been running. One problem I had as an early converter, working with relatively early PanX betas, was that Jim didn’t have everything up and working initially. I had to wait for further development. That doesn’t happen nearly as much today. Help’s useful listing of “Unimplemented Statements and Functions” now only lists 48 (black text) unimplemented items which might yet be implemented, although it also lists 426 (red text) deprecated items. The black list was once a lot longer! Both lists’ items are mainly obsolete in modern Mac OS usage or have been replaced with newer ways of doing old things. Compared to what you can still do and to what new features have been added, what you could do in Pan6, but plumb can’t do in PanX is now a relatively short list. Albeit with some vocal fans for each missing item. Most of what you “can’t exactly do” you can functionally accomplish through other methods. Searching these forums may show the way. Those who like to dabble, can figure out a lot on their own, just like in Pan6.
I learned enough along the way to accomplish something Jim never envisioned nor claimed possible. I had a few things I’d first started as old HyperCard stacks and had then transferred to and enhanced with SuperCard when Apple let the former die. Like Pan6 SuperCard was a huge pile of non-standard material users to configure to their hearts content. Its developers succeeded in bringing it to OSX, but weren’t able to bring it to 64 bit code because they’d gone all in on the old Carbon coding system Apple abandoned. It’s company no longer exists. By going all in on Apple standard code ProVue and PanX has survived and yet by offering more at once of Apple’s options than most Apple programs he’s made a very flexible and configurable program which doesn’t have to look and work like most apple programs. I was able to shoehorn all the data and most of the look and feel of my old hypercard stacks into PanX databases. Not the design I’d advise starting from scratch today, but I’m delighted to have familiar old “stacks” around.