Restore VM from Time Machine

[dlhendel]

My Windows XP SP3 VM gives me a blue screen on startup.  It was working fine.  I then changed it from a pre-allocated disk space to non pre-allocated.  It worked okay after that.  Then, I decided to split it into 2 GB files.  After that, I'm not sure it worked, but I think it did.

The next time I started it, I got the blue screen.  Okay, I thought, I'll use Time Machine to restore it.  So I did (after 4 hours).  Same thing.  I removed the VM from the library (deleted the files), uninstalled Fusion, reinstalled Fusion, and restored the VM from Time Machine (the restored version was from before changing anything).

When I went to start it, same issue, a blue screen.

Some questions

I did this several times.  At times, the Virtual Library knew that the virtual machine was there.  At other times, it knew exactly where to look, even though the files weren't installed yet.  How did it know this?  I thought I uninstalled Fusion.  Doesn't that remove everything?  It's almost as if it remembers everything, even the fact that it crashed on a newer version of the VM when I'm using an older version.  I don't really understand it (I'm a PC guy getting into Macs).

Thanks for shedding any light on this matter.  More a curiousity than anything.

[WoodyZ]

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 Packages 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.

How did it know this?  I thought I uninstalled Fusion.  Doesn't that remove everything?  It's almost as if it remembers everything, even the fact that it crashed on a newer version of the VM when I'm using an older version.  I don't really understand it (I'm a PC guy getting into Macs).

Thanks for shedding any light on this matter.  More a curiousity than anything.

Uninstalling VMware Fusion doesn't remove everything.  The most important thing is it doesn't remove the Virtual Machines.  It also doesn't remove the licence file and the preferences plist file and the latter is why you're seeing what you are with the Virtual Machine Library.