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MonteVista
Contributor
Contributor
‎04-15-2014 02:37 PM

Lost Virtual Machine directory and library on MAC OS; Can I get it from MAC OS Time Machine?

vmware fusion was working OK on my iMAC until yesterday. Today, when I start it it complains that it can not find Windows XP Virtual Machine, which was the name of my machine. I searched through many directories and I can not find any Virtual Machines directory or anything to do with Windows. I have been running Mac OS Time Machine so I was hoping that I could recover the lost directory/file somewhere but to no avail.

Is there any hope of my finding this virtual machine; I can re-install Windows on a new VM but there were some applications that I shall lose. I am trying to avoid that.

Any help?

bulent@pacbell.net

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal
‎04-15-2014 07:33 PM

Using Time Machine to backup Virtual Machines is not considered a proper* backup however if you do have a Time Machine backup the default location is "/Users/${USER}/Documents/Virtual Machines/" and you can try to restore.

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* It is a known fact that Time Machine is not 100% reliable backing up/restoring Virtual Machines under all circumstances/conditions.  Also backing up Virtual Machines via Time Machine is disk/time intensive and wastes a tremendous amount of space for something that may be corrupt and worthless come time to restore it.  At a minimum I would exclude Virtual Machines from Time Machine and with the Virtual Machines shutdown, not suspended, and VMware Fusion closed then manually copy the Virtual Machines Package(s) to an alternate location, preferably on to a different physical hard disk.  Then keep the User Data that is stored within the Virtual Machine backed up off of the Virtual Machine on a regular basis so as to always have a current User Data Backup.  If you have to restore a properly backed up Virtual Machine that is not as current at least you'll have a working Virtual Machine and current User Data to go forward with when you find out your Time Machine Backup of the Virtual Machine fails.

Also have a look at: Best Practices for virtual machine backup (programs and data) in VMware Fusion (1013628)

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