I dont have specific experience with restoring parallels or virtual machines from time machine. but I understand the reason that you should be cautious about them. The "virtual hard disk" typically can be 30-40Gb in size, and it changes constantly when you are using it. The way time machine backups work isn't really optimised for this type of usage, as the whole 30Gb file will have to be backed up every time there is the smallest change, i.e. every single time you use the parallels machine.
What I would recommend to be sure is to make sure the parallels machine is shut down, and copy it onto the time machine shared disk, or a USB hard drive. As long as the parallels machine is shut down you shouldnt have a problem copying it back to your mac and starting it up again, even after the rest of your mac has been restored from a backup. The copy operation should take a few minutes depending on size, maybe 10-15 minutes or longer, so if you copy it and it only takes a second then it may not have completely copied. Toby On 24 September 2011 10:15, Sam - MacAmbulance <[email protected]>wrote: > Depends on the Mac really, if you don't have one of the internet restore > enabled Macs then if you zero the drive properly it's going to remove the > recovery partition so booting with CMD+R won't really be an option. > > If you've backed up with Time Machine and then restore, it'll also > potentially reinstall corrupt files from the backup, so it's probably better > to clone your drive to a disk image, then restore from that. At least you'll > know there are no bad blocks on the drive after a full zero format. > > Apple have a utility to make a USB key installer for Lion here : > http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 it'll be useful to have one around if > you need to reinstall Lion first before restoring from a backup, especially > after zeroing your drive! > > Sounds like the best thing you can do is progress through the following > list, going to the next item if the problem's not resolved : > > > 1. *Reinstall iWork* > 1. Delete Pages from the Applications folder > 2. Move the iWork 09 folder out of the Macintosh HD > Library > > Application Support Folder > 3. Open the App Store and re-download Pages, or reinstall from the > iWork DVD > 2. *Reinstall OS X* > 1. Boot holding CMD+R and select a fresh install of OS X Lion (if > you're on Lion) on your hard drive > 2. Boot from your Snow Leopard installer DVD (if you're on SL) and > select to install OS X on your hard drive > 3. Run the 10.6.8 combo updater http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399or > 10.7.1 update > http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1437 > 3. *Backup & Zero the drive* > 1. *Prepare* > 1. Boot from the install media that came with your Mac by holding > ALT and choosing it from the startup manager, be it DVD or USB key. > If you > have Lion use CMD+R > 2. Select to install OS X on an external USB drive that has > around 20GB of free space for the OS (just to be safe). The > additional free > space on the drive should be equal to the amount of data you've used > up on > the internal drive, with a couple of GB to spare hopefully. > 3. Boot from the external drive by holding ALT (after the OS X > install it should be the default startup drive anyway) > 2. *Backup* > 1. Use SuperDuper http://www.shirtpocket.com to make a full clone > to a disk image on your external drive. Choose Macintosh HD as the > source > and Disk Image as the destination, save the disk image on the > external drive > in Sparse image format (read only takes far longer as it needs to > convert > the image after making it) If SuperDuper is unable to clone the disk > then > you definitely have bad blocks and will need to seek the help of a > data > recovery technician > 1. Once finished, double click the disk image and check it mounts on > the desktop with the generic white disk icon, check your files are > there and > check the overall size of the disk image is similar to the data used > on your > hard drive. There will be a few GB discrepancy as there are system > specific > files which don't need to be imaged > 3. *Zero* > 1. Open Disk Utility and select the internal hard drive (not the > volume name Macintosh HD but the disk above it), go to the Erase > tab, click > Security Options, on 10.6 tick Zero format, on 10.7 drag the slider > one > notch to the right (Lion dumbing things down again) > 2. Zero the drive, it'll take a few hours. > 4. *Restore* > 1. Boot from the Lion USB installer mentioned earlier and > reinstall a fresh copy of Lion, this will recreate the recovery > partition > 2. Once finished, reboot from your external USB drive created in > step 3.1 > 3. User SuperDuper again, choosing the mounted disk image as the > source and the freshly installed OS X drive as the destination, in > settings > select "restart from Macintosh HD" to do when finished, then you can > go to > bed and let it finish > > > Once zeroed and restored, you should then be confident there are no bad > blocks on the drive. If you still get the problem then have Apple replace > the hard drive, boot from your lovely new external utility drive and use > SuperDuper to clone the disk image back to your new hard drive. Reinstalling > Lion from the USB key will restore the recovery partition to the zeroed > drive, then you can use SuperDuper from your external drive to clone your > original hard drive over the blank installation of Lion. > > Any problems just call me! > > Regards > > Sam > MacAmbulance > > Providing affordable Apple & PC services > > Sam Mullen > 07747 778022 > http://www.macambulance.co.uk > [email protected] > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Sussex Mac User Group" group. > To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/smug?hl=en-GB. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sussex Mac User Group" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/smug?hl=en-GB.
