Clone to External Hard Drive

J

Justin48

Bit poster
After having my internal iMac hard drive crash (yes, the one on which I had Parallels installed with Windows 7) I had to recreate my entire Windows setup from scratch...a long and arduous process.

I am now trying to back up my whole Windows installation to an EXTERNAL hard drive so that, if this happens again, I can fix the Mac (simple) and just boot up a clone of the Parallels installation...but when I try to make a clone to the External drive, I get the message "you do not have the ability to create folders in this location" or something to that effect.

I have successfully created a clone on my Mac...but if the hard drive crashes, it's gone.

What am I doing wrong? Is there a way to make a copy of my Windows VM on an external drive?

Thanks for the help.

Justin Friedland
 
Similar concern: best way to back up Win 7 VM in case of crash?

Have sued winclone which was fine until a month ago but now it crashes with long error logs as shown below. Happy to buy an program that would give me peace of mind in case of a serious crash.


Mon Nov 14 14:55:46 EST 2011
=====backing up boot sector=====

/bin/dd if="/dev/disk0" of="/Volumes/CarbonCopy250GB/Winclone11-14-2011.winclone/boot.mbr" bs=446 count=1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
446 bytes transferred in 0.004079 secs (109338 bytes/sec)
return value of /bin/dd if="/dev/disk0" of="/Volumes/CarbonCopy250GB/Winclone11-14-2011.winclone/boot.mbr" bs=446 count=1 is 0

=======creating empty file to overwrite pagefile.sys with=========

/usr/bin/touch /tmp/winclone_empty_file
return value of /usr/bin/touch /tmp/winclone_empty_file is 0

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

Unmounting /dev/disk0s3
Use of uninitialized value $command in concatenation (.) or string at /Applications/Winclone.app/Contents/Resources/winclone.perl line 548.
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount "/dev/disk0s3"return value of unmount is 256

output is disk0s3 was already not mounted

did not complete successfully
cleaning up: Mounting Disk
Volume on disk0s3 failed to mount
Mon Nov 14 14:55:50 EST 2011
 
Actually, I spoke with Parallels support, and the answer is simple. Use the "Clone" function built into Parallels. That will put a file on your computer called (in my case because I'm using Windows 7) "Windows7.pvm" which is a cloned copy of your entire hard drive...operating system, programs, docs, etc.

Then, locate the file, and copy it to an external hard drive or wherever you want. Just be prepared to wait, because it's a VERY BIG FILE.
 
Seems simple to clone.....but how do i shut down the VM and still get to the file men

Thanks. Sounds simple. Read the help menu. "Before cloning a virtual machine, make sure that:

The virtual machine is turned off. If the virtual machine is running, the Clone option in the File menu is disabled.
The virtual machine has a guest OS. You cannot clone a virtual machine without a guest OS."

How do i shut off the VM and not shut off parallels? Can't seem to ungrey the FILE>Clone menu.
Thanks for the lead.
 
PS - Forgot to mention I am running as a Bootcamp instalation

Does this affect the process? Is there an advantage to running s a pure virtual machine? It is real fast as is. Any advice appreciated.
Thanks.
 
You have to shut off the VM and then the clone option becomes available in the "File" menu of Parallels.

The manual has information on running within Boot Camp. I do not use it and so have no experience with it.
 
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