I have a TM backup...can I create a OS X Virtual Machine from it?

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RobertP6

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I think I almost have this working but here is my question: After I've got the OS X guest created, it comes up and asks me if I want to restore it from a TM backup. The TM backup is on an external USB disk so I point the OS X guest to the external USB as the location of the TM backup. That worked ok. Then, it asks where the destination is going to be and I point back to the same USB external disk because I want to create a OS X VM that is restored with the contents of the TM backup thinking that a VM image is just an image that takes up disk space. BUT...after pointing to the destination external USB, it warns me that the entire disk is going to be wiped out. Is that really the case? Won't it just be a huge image on the disk? Hopefully my question makes sense. Thx!
 
RobertP6 said:
I think I almost have this working but here is my question: After I've got the OS X guest created, it comes up and asks me if I want to restore it from a TM backup. The TM backup is on an external USB disk so I point the OS X guest to the external USB as the location of the TM backup. That worked ok. Then, it asks where the destination is going to be and I point back to the same USB external disk because I want to create a OS X VM that is restored with the contents of the TM backup thinking that a VM image is just an image that takes up disk space. BUT...after pointing to the destination external USB, it warns me that the entire disk is going to be wiped out. Is that really the case? Won't it just be a huge image on the disk? Hopefully my question makes sense. Thx!
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Hello @RobertP6,
You should be able to restore your virtual machine (.pvm) file from a valid copy on your time machine. Please check the size of the virtual machine file on your time machine and check if you have enough space on the destination to move the file. If the issue persists, please share a screenshot of the error message here.
 
I'm getting farther...still not all the way there (I'll write it up once I can actually boot into the restored image (from Time Machine). Now I'm stuck here (see attached). Any ideas? Parallels doesn't seem to be using much CPU but it doesn't go any further than this.
Parallels Picture.png
 
Just read what I posted and it wasn't very clear so I'll clarify. I was able to create a new OS X (El Capitan) image and restore it from a Time Machine backup (it was a saga...). The backup is from my Mom's iMac computer (also running El Capitan)...I'm on a mid 2013 Macbook Pro. After the restore, it rebooted and got stuck here. I've quit and restarted the VM (and parallels desktop) several times and keep getting stuck here. Any ideas? Is there some way to turn on a log of the startup process so we can see where it is hanging?
 
I'm trying different things...now it seems my problem is that i have a Time Machine backup of a machine that used 67.4 GB and for some reason, Parallels only allows me to create an OS X VM that is 64 GB...why is that???? Even if I create the 64 GB VM and then shut it down and go to resize it using the Hardware menu (I resized to 304 GB), it still complains that I only have 64 GB...why is that????
 
Have you upped the size of the virtual disk? Go into config for the VM, check Hard Disk size .. you might have to make it fixed size not sure.....
 
I came across this thread and I'm looking to do the same: I need to run an old Mavericks environment in a VM on El Capitan.
Did you succeed?
 
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