BlackBerry upgrade via MacBook Pro + VMware/Parallels

My advice if you ever plan to upgrade a BlackBerry using Windows in a VM on a MacBook Pro (Mac OS X 10.6):

Don’t do it.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s VMware Fusion or Parallels (I tested both). It failed for me and I ended up with a semi‑bricked BB 8900.

I couldn’t recover it — not with BlackBerry Desktop, not with BBSAK. Every upgrade attempt stopped at Uploading RAM Image in AppLoader. Google had no useful answers.

One helpful clue did appear: several people reported the same freeze on one laptop, then success on another. I wasted a full day troubleshooting this under VMware Fusion. Someone claimed Parallels worked; I installed it, converted my VM, and discovered it didn’t help either.
Eventually I gave up and reinstalled Windows on an old IBM laptop. And guess what? Native Windows upgraded the device in 15 minutes. That was my turning point.

MacOS + (VMware | Parallels) + BlackBerry + firmware upgrade = evil

Tested on:

• MacBook Pro
• VMware Fusion 3 / Parallels 6
• BlackBerry Desktop 6 for Windows

My life was saved by:

• IBM R60e
• Windows XP

I love my MBP, but it’s not always the best tool for the job 🙂

PS: Please leave a comment if it helped you a bit.