I am trying to back up my parallels files. I am running Time Machine on my Mac, but have excluded the Parallels folder based on previous advice for space constraints. I need to know the best way to back up that folder since I have excluded it. I made a separate folder on the external hard drive I am using for Time Machine called "Parallels Back-up" and copied (by dragging it) the Parallels folder from the documents area on my mac into it. However, I noticed that the windows disk folder is empty after I copied it over to the external hard drive. There is a winxp.hdd file. Is this the file that I would use to recover the VM if my hard drive crashed on the mac? I am just worried because not all the my items are in the windows disk folder where I would normally find the hard drive when I look in the finder on my mac. Any advice would be appreciated. I am wondering if I need a separate external hard drive for backing up the windows side of my mac. I am not running the VM through boot camp.
Refer to Parallels Desktop for Mac user guide from http://www.parallels.com/en/download/file/doc/Parallels_Desktop_for_Mac_User_Guide.pdf on page 243
