Backup VM

I have a WinXP guest OS setup on my MBP and I want to back it up to an external hard drive, but a little unsure how to proceed. Can I simply copy the WinXP folder in my Parallels folder to my external hard drive and then if I corrupt my WinXP guest OS simply copy it back on?

 

Yup.

Just copy the folder to your external drive and it's backed up!

 

Yes, you can just copy it over. I just do it other way around: VMs are running off the external HDD, and my backups are on the internal