SD backups VmWare, WinXP, Mac OS???
 

I'm still not sure of the answer to this question and yesterday I had a small disaster with WinXP section on my VmWare but fixed it- my question is:

Does the SD backup include VmWare AND the WInXP which is running on it? Or does it just back up the Mac OS (running Leopard) which includes a VmWare icon on its desktop?

This is really confusing to me....as maybe I don't have any backup to my WinXP (running via VmWare) at all????

Or do I really have it all (everything - Leopard,VmWare & Win XP) covered in the backups I do consistently with both SD & Time Machine on different backup drives?

If your VMWare data is stored on the same volume -- as a VMWare "disk image" -- and not in a separate "BootCamp" Partition, the data is backed up.

Note, though -- you should not run VMWare while you're backing up. You want its data to be fully written to disk when it's copied.

Dave,

Let me clarify. My VmWare is not through BootCamp. I don't have to re-boot to get to it. I just click on a VmWare icon which sits on my iMac (Leopard) dock.

When I click on that icon, it brings up Windows XP (and Windows programs) via the VmWare image.

My question is while backing up with SD from my iMac....does it also backup the VmWare section AND Windows XP?

OR is Windows XP and the VmWare image which permits it - excluded from the SD backup????

I understand. And, as I said, as long as the data is being stored on the same volume -- as yours seems to be -- and you're not running it, it gets backed up.

Vm Ware and Boot Camp
 

Along the same lines I do have VM on a boot camp partition. To back it up using SD I make an image file of the partition, put it on my desktop and then run a normal back up. I'm assuming that in worst case I could restore from my backup but then would have to add back in the boot camp partition and then copy the files over from the image file. Would that work and is there a better way to do it? Thanks.

That'll certainly work, I think, but you could also use WinClone.

SD backs up Parallels VM installed in Boot Camp partition
 

Apologies if this issue has been addressed - this is my first post. I hope this post will be of value regarding the issue of "SD won't back up a boot camp partition".

I have been running Windows XP in Parallels. Note that my Virtual Machine is nicely backed up by SD per many other posts on this issue.

However, I have been disappointed with the slow speeds I'm getting when running the Parallels VM, in spite of 2 GB ram on my MacBook and a 250 GB hard drive. So I re-partitioned my hard drive and created a Boot Camp partition. Then I re-installed Windows XP in the Boot Camp partition (this is a whole separate topic, but I had to re-install apps and data in the boot camp partition). After I got Boot Camp up and running, I went back to MacOSX and configured Parallels to use the Boot Camp partition as the VM. Now I have just one Windows installation and I can use it either in Boot Camp or Parallels.

Now for the good part: I backed up my HD as usual using SD, then booted into the SD clone and then ran the virtual machine from the clone: Voila, my VM in the Boot Camp partition was backed up, no problem. Although I can't run Boot Camp from the SD Clone, at least I have a backed up copy of my Windows system.

Hope this helps some sorry soul out there who is forced to use Windows on their Mac!

Um, no: the BootCamp partition has not been backed up, at least not based on what you've said here. Instead, when you ran VMWare from the backup, it referenced the original BootCamp partition on the other drive.

Referencing Boot Camp partition vs. backing up
 

Thanks Dave, my bubble is burst. If I understand you correctly, Parallels (not VMWare in my case) looks to the Boot Camp partition on my source HD, as opposed to some cloned copy of the Boot Camp partition on the b/u drive? I take it that since the threads on this began in 2008, there has been no further development work for SD that would back up the boot camp partition. Thanks for all your help on this. I'm installing Acronis True Image 11 on my boot camp partition as we speak!

That's right. We don't have any current plans to copy Windows-formatted (NTFS/FAT32) volumes... which could mean BootCamp.