Back up

J

Jensen

Bit poster
Hi
First time poster to this forum and judging by the problems with the new build,which incidently I have no problem installing, my query is probably basic stuff.

However, I am a recent convert to Mac and am very pleased with it but I still have some buisness programs I needed to keep running, so I went down the Parallels route. As with all this stuff I need to make regular backup for obvious reasons. I bought a copy of 'Personal Backup' for the Mac side and it backs up easily to a plug in and play external hard disc.

When I try in the windows side the ext hard drive is not recognised in My Computer. I've tried a windows specific backup software but I cant find a way to back up anything. What is the normal proceedre within parallels please? I want specifically to back up to a external device if possible. To may days spent rebuilding lost data from numerous PC crashes!

This is really bugging me now because this is just housework stuff and I want to get on and play!

Jensen
 
Check out this thread

Many of us use SuperDuper! because it does a complete, bootable backup of the MAC. It views the Parallels code and the Virtual Machine as just another MAC file(s), so they are automatically backed up. I back mine up to a firewire disk, and I can boot from the firewire disk if I ever need to.

I am not familiar with the product you mention, but if you make sure you are getting copies of your virtual machine files, you should be OK.

One more thing...Although I get complete backups every night with SuperDuper, sometimes during the day, I will want interim backups of particular files. One example is if I enter a lot of data into Quicken. In this case, I will back up the Quicken file to the Parallels Shared Folder. This way, even if the VM gets corrupted (and I have to revert to last night's backup), I can recover the latest data.

Another way to backup critical files during the day...is of course to run SuperDuper. If you pay for SuperDuper (as opposed to using the free version) you get both scheduling features (let's you run it at a certain schedule) and you get incremental backup features (so you can backup just what has changes - saves time). This means you can do backups during the day if you need to.

Another note: All this applies to Parallels running under MacOSX. If you are running a bootcamp partition, that is a whole 'nuther animal, and you may need a Windows specific backup program for that.
 
Last edited:
Jensen said:
When I try in the windows side the ext hard drive is not recognised in My Computer. I've tried a windows specific backup software but I cant find a way to back up anything. What is the normal proceedre within parallels please? I want specifically to back up to a external device if possible. To may days spent rebuilding lost data from numerous PC crashes!
Click to expand...

Is your external HD formatted in a Mac OS format or as FAT32/NTFS? If it's a Mac format, Windows (within Parallels) won't be able to read it (without third-party software such as MacDrive).

The SuperDuper recommendations are fine if you want to back up the entire Windows image (which could be several GB). But this would be a relatively slow way to back up if all you want to do is back up a handful of Windows files. As an example, if you create one, 100KB Word document in Windows, your Mac software (or SuperDuper) will back up the entire Parallels .hdd file (several gigs).

As Purplish mentioned, you can use shared folders to backup select Windows files to your Mac side. Then your Mac backup software should back up those files incrementally.

EDIT:
Another option is to partition your external hard drive with one Mac OS formatted partition and one Windows partition. The Windows partition should work with your Windows backup software (as if you were working on a PC with an external drive).

If your external drive is formatted for Windows, you might need to go to the Parallels menubar, choose Devices->USB , and select your HD.
 
Last edited:
backup update

Thanks for all the useful replies. Heres where I'm up to.

I have partioned the external drive into 2

1) OS X Extended (journaled)
2) Windows MS DOS (FAT32)


My mac backup software works no problems individual files, clones etc probably the same type of thing as Super Duper. But as yet I cant get it to boot up from the external drive. Took forever to clone with very frequent shutdowns. Have downloaded an updated version of my backup software so I shall try again.

But... I still cannot get the Windows/Parallels side to recognise the external drive! There a basiaclly only 2 lots of buisness software I am particulally worried about backing up regularly and the way that is working for me is simlpy to drag and drop the files into the Windows partition. I've uncoupled the drive and opened it on a Windows only machine and my files are fine.

How do I install the applications onto the windows side so my files can be open from there?

Cheers
 
Jensen said:
But as yet I cant get it to boot up from the external drive. Took forever to clone with very frequent shutdowns. Have downloaded an updated version of my backup software so I shall try again.
Click to expand...

I assume you mean you cannot boot OSX from the external drive? There are a few possible reasons:
1) The external drive wasn't partitioned correctly. Check out this link:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060628150518481&query=partition+boot
(except leave the 2nd partition as FAT32 - i.e. don't reformat it as NTFS)

2) Your backup software isn't making a bootable clone. I'm not familiar with Intego's Personal Backup. Is there a setting somewhere to make the clone "bootable"?

Also make sure your clone is being made to the Mac partition and not to a disk image.

And what is "shutting down" during your clone? That can't be a good sign. Try using the free portion of SuperDuper to do a full clone onto the Mac partition. I think the general consensus is that SuperDuper is one of the more reliable cloning tools.

Jensen said:
But... I still cannot get the Windows/Parallels side to recognise the external drive! There a basiaclly only 2 lots of buisness software I am particulally worried about backing up regularly and the way that is working for me is simlpy to drag and drop the files into the Windows partition. I've uncoupled the drive and opened it on a Windows only machine and my files are fine.

How do I install the applications onto the windows side so my files can be open from there?
Click to expand...

If Windows isn't recognizing your external drive, how are you dropping Windows files onto it? Do you mean the Mac side is recognizing the drive and you're setting Parallels to use it as a shared folder? If so, try unmounting the drive from the Mac side (and unplug it from your Mac). Then boot into Windows/Parallels. Then plug in the drive. If the Windows partition doesn't mount automatically in Windows, then you may need to manually mount it (via Parallels menubar -> Devices -> USB).

I don't understand your last question.
 
Last edited:
Ok I can finally clone a bootable OS X to the external hard drive:)

The problem was with an Intel Mac the partition needed to be in GUID format,whatever that means, which it wasn't, which in turn probably kept stalling my original attempt and then wouldn't boot anyhow.

What I mean when I say not recognised in Windows is that it is not shown in My Computer as an external drive at all. Just CD/DVD and floppy. I have 2 external HD icons on the Mac desktop (Windows & OS X) so I just drop my files which sit on Windows desktop into the OS X one, that's all.
Thing is there is no supporting Apps in which to open these files on the partition(which is on the Mac side) so I cant open them to check if they have updated. Like I said I took the EX HDD to a Windows only machine running the apps and they opened fine. If I could install the apps on the windows partition I could see if all was well.

Cheers
 
Jensen said:
What I mean when I say not recognised in Windows is that it is not shown in My Computer as an external drive at all. Just CD/DVD and floppy. I have 2 external HD icons on the Mac desktop (Windows & OS X) so I just drop my files which sit on Windows desktop into the OS X one, that's all.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure you can't have the external drive mounted on both OSX and Windows at the same time. This is why my previous post suggested unmounting the external drive in OSX first. Then plug the drive back in when Windows/Parallels is open.
 
menu >> devices >> Shared folders >> add


HINT

in the Mac OS file system
look for users >> your own log on >> desktop

I use freebie Irfan view to experiment with browing the Mac disks


Hugh W
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top