Problems with VM Fusion after restoring from Time Machine

[neville310]

Last weekend, I upgraded my Macbook Pro Hard drive. Then reinstalled Leopard and transferred all my files using time machine. For the most part, Leopard and my files returned with minor tweaking. My Macbook has been fully usable under Leopard.

Previously, VM Fusion worked flawlessly, yet after restoring the hard drive, Vista under VM fusion became unstable. Vista experienced a memory dump error and BSOD.

When VM Fusion boots Vista, it asks whether I want to start windows normally or in a safe mode. When I choose either choice, it gives me the following error.

File:\windows\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe

Status: 0xc000000f

Info: Windows failed to load because kernel is missing or corrupt.

Now, Vista will not boot. I have attempted to repair Vista with the installer DVD; no success (fails with errors). I have restored the previously VM fusion image file, .vmwarevm, from my Time Machine backup. It showed me the suspended desktop and begins booting up; then has a memory dump shortly after booting up the virtual machine.

I suspect that VMfusion may have been the culprit; in making Vista completely unusable. The Time Machine restore process may have not copied all the VM fusion files. Hence, the VM Fusion app continues to corrupt my backup image file.

Anyone have any clue on what I can do to fix it?

Thanks in advance.

• Mac OS X 10.5.6 - Leopard

• No Boot Camp set up

• VM Fusion v2.0

• Troubleshooting include

• Loading the Vista Installer

• Choosing repair; Fails with errors with ntkrnlpa.exe

• Typing fixmbr at the command prompt; command not found

• Typing fixboot at the command prompt; command not found

[Technogeezer]

Thoughts

• Try uninstalling and re-installing Fusion, just to make sure that it's installed properly

• If all else fails, try mounting the VM's disk with Fusion's disk mounting functions (makes it visible to the Mac's Finder as a read-only disk), copy your data off of the VM, and then rebuild Vista.

• You should really be running 2.0.1 or 2.0.2 to take advantage of the bug fixes in those releases over 2.0.

And, don't depend on Time Machine for backup next time. It's been widely discussed and noted in this community that Time Machine is not a dependable method for backing up VMs. Aside from being problematic, it's a time-consuming and tremendous waste of disk space for backup of VMs.

[sport550]

How did you make out with this? I had the exact same issue...

DarnComputers

[gmck]

I got this same error as well. Turns out that Time Machine was not backing up my .vmem file and when attempting to start VM that memory was out of sync with the rest of the load.

To fix, I deleted my .vmem and restarted. Fusion complained not having a virtual memory file and forced to shutdown state. I restarted again and it worked.

Took me a day to figure that one out.

[admin]

For those still reading this thread, and struggling with Time Machine backing up virtual machines, I've come in to recommend 's method here: http://communities.vmware.com/message/1229825#1229825

It sounds like has already solved the Vista issue.

[gpetti]

This no longer exists but the problem still remains. 

[ColoradoMarmot]

FYI, it's better to start a new thread than resurrect one that's 12 years old :-).

In any case, Time machine is completely unreliable for backing up virtual machines or other large bundled files.  Other methods are necessary.

[gpetti]

Thanks. 

I see this now but only after discovering the hard way and then looking up these threads.  Seems like fusion should make this explicit somewhere (I haven't seen any direct guidance from VMWare on this). MAC users are advised by Apple to use time machine to move all their files to a new machine but clearly we need to handle any VMs separately.  Putting aside the inefficiency of allowing time machine to backup these huge files, seems like either Apple or VMware should have addressed this problem at some point, or at least have some kind of work-around.  Anyway, live and learn, I think I've been able to cobble together most of the important files in various ways - the image is unstable but briefly usable -  but I'll likely have to rebuild this image from a really old backup or from scratch. 

As far as starting a new thread,  I've seem some people complain about starting duplicate threads for issues that have already been raised.  This appears to be exactly the same issue even after 12 years. 

[ColoradoMarmot]

I believe that VM's are intentionally excluded from time machine by default (and have been for years).  There's no way to make it reliable because of how time machine works and how VM's are built.  Fusion drives have similar problems.

Check @wila's signature for information on a third-party VM backup solution.

[wila]

Hi,

---

@gpetti wrote:

Thanks. 

I see this now but only after discovering the hard way and then looking up these threads.  Seems like fusion should make this explicit somewhere (I haven't seen any direct guidance from VMWare on this).

---

You mean like putting this in the documentation?

Using Time Machine When You Have Fusion on Your Mac

or type "Time Machine" in the Fusion's help..

Don't feel bad though as most people only find out AFTER they tried time machine for this and I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people still depending on Time Machine for virtual machine backups and I can only hope they never need it.

One could blame Apple's fantastic marketing for Time Machine.
But then again.. a virtual machine is not the most standard workload to back up and it helps a lot when you can use VMware's programming interface (API) to safe guard your backup.
Without that, the best you can possibly get is a crash consistent backup (aka.. a backup of a machine where you pull the power cord) whereas if you can employ VMware's APIs you can get restore a VM as if it was suspended at the moment of backup, in running state.

As far as my VM Backup software goes, I just released an update to Vimalin earlier today.

Thanks @ColoradoMarmot for the mention.

--
Wil

[gpetti]

You're exactly right - I did not even think to check the time machine until I hit problems. I did find the documentation you referenced after the fact but initially I didn't pay it much mind as the primary point seemed to be about the inefficiency of letting time machine backup these massive files.  Some of the suggestions in the article probably won't work for my scenario anyway but basically I just let time machine do its thing. On re-reading this article, however, I think the penny has dropped. The problem is that if I'm using the VM or it is running, the backup will almost inevitably be corrupt (which I suppose should have dawned on me).  This suggests that if the instance was suspended, or better yet shut down, prior to the backup, it might work. Assuming this is true, it is useful to know even if I use a different daily backup strategy as I will inevitably need to backup the whole laptop for migration to another machine at some point. No doubt I will copy the VM to a separate drive anyway. 

I will also investigate Vimalin.com, thanks for sharing this. 

[wila]

Hi,

Yes, taking a manual backup of the virtual machine bundle with the VM shut down should be fine.
That works fine for a one off backup or for migrating to another host.

If you use Vimalin then it can help you, but it certainly is no problem without that, as long as you know what you are doing.

Vimalin offers extra's like that it makes a hash of each file in the bundle to make sure that the backup is 100% correct on restore. It also allows you to make backups with the VM running, regardless of guest OS & add comments.

FWIW, Vimalin works 60 days with all features and continues to work afterwards as a free version but with some features disabled (eg. scheduling, email confirmations etc..), backup & restore itself continues to work after the trial period runs out.

--
Wil

[gpetti]

I've downloaded and had a look at vimalin. It looks like a well written, intuitive, piece of software. I haven't verified it's functionality yet as I have to re-build my main image (the one I want to backup daily) and I need to put aside a storage device for these backups, but I'll likely use this when I do.