Clarification on CLONEs - Please Help

I am using Parallels Desktop 3, Build 5584 on a Mac Pro, Dual Quad 3.2 Ghz and 4Gb RAM. OSX is Leopard 10.5.2 and NO Boot Camp.

My question regards Cloning VMs.

I believe that Clones are complete copies of a current VM, whereas a Snapshot is a version in time of the VM. I think of them as:CLONEs are "FULL" Backups and SNAPSHOTS are "PARTIAL/INCREMENTAL" Backups. So far, so good....hopefully.

As such, my Question is: "ARE CLONES Dependent OR completely INdependent on their "parent" VM ?

My presumption is that they are INdependent of the VM they were created from....BUT I had an issue with deleting an older cloned VM(via Finder vs, the Parallels Desktop) and later OPENed a newer clone --BUT got a message that the newer VM was corrupted because it could not find a"previous" one.

Many strange things have happened to me in the last week as I have been configuring my VMs for XP Pro SP2.

My strategy has been to create a VM "session," thank God that it was successful, then CLONE it (completely) so I would have a "fail safe" to go back to -- should "Murphy's Law" strike. I did experiment with Snapshots, but when I did get in trouble, when I tried to revert to a previous snapshot I was told that it was corrupted and could be restored.

I realize that snapshots require far less drive space to create, but I'm not comfortable with the "weakest link" method. I prefer to use monoliths (clone method) as my failsafe -- BUT just need the assurance of the expertise on this forum that my presumption of completely autonomous (NOT dynamically linked) Cloning is the reality.

If anyone could shed some light on these issues, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you

 

Over One Week and Still No Answer...

Can I PLEASE get an answer to my question?

 

Cloning a VM should create a independant VM.

You can try it by putting a VM on an external (USB, firewire) hard drive, cloning it to an internal drive, unplugging the external drive then running the clone.