Backing up and restoring only Parallels without full Time machine Restore

N

NishadP

Bit poster
I am going to reformat my hard drive but do not plan on doing a full Time machine restore of the entire image as I am going from a 500gb to two 240 solid state on my mac. I have backed up all the files using Time Machine and can browse all files and folders on my Time Machine external hard drive if necessary.

Is there any entire file or folder that I can re-install back on the new hard drive to get only Parallels and the entire Windows install/image back on to the new solid state drive without doing a complete Time Machine restore? I want to start free on my MAC, but want to keep all programs and settings installed for the virtual machine.

Any help would be great.
 
It depends on where you put the VM image. Normally, the .pvm file you need is in ~/Documents/Parallels.

Steve
 
Steve,
Thanks for you reply. I plan on using Time Machine to back up my entire 500gb hard drive which includes my VM. The PVM file is stored under /documents/parallels which does get automatically backed up as part of time Machine.

When I switch to my two new Solid State drives, I will be using one for boot/OS and I want to bring back my entire virtual machine or PVM file exactly the way it was. I don't plan on doing a full Time Machine restore of the entire 500gb, so I want to make sure if I copy the 'Parallels' folder under Document back (from my external Time Machine HD) back to my new solid state drive, will everything work?
Is there something else I have to do to get Parallels and my VM back on the new HDD?
 
The .pvm file can live anywhere. That's just its default location. If you put it somewhere else, you just have to select Open from the File menu in PD to recreate the VM, pointing to the .pvm file.

Steve
 
Steve,
I plan on keeping the PVM file in the same location (documents\parallels). That file and path will be backed up on my Time Machine.

Once I install the new hard drive and Mac OS, do I need to install PD again, then restore the PVM time from Time Machine back on to the new solid state HDD to the same path (documents\parallels) and then start PD and go to 'File / Open' to bring back my entire window virtual machine?
 
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