I need to re-install Mac OS but I do not want to lose the XP installation that I have. What is the best way to backup my setup so that after I install Mac OS and Parallels I can resume using my Parallels XP environment? Is it as simple as tar'ing up ~/Documents/Parallels/Microsoft Windows XP and then extracting afterwards? Thanks
Where are you going to back it up to? If DDS3 or DDS4 tape, no problem, use tar, but it won't fit on a DVD without splitting it. If you're going to leave it on your Mac disk then that's not a backup. Most any decent Mac backup software can split large files across multiple DVD's or CD's.