Just inherited a law firm network set up by a guy now cross country. Due to problems on the administrator sector of a 2 user iMac setup, I had to do an "ARCHIVE AND INSTALL (A&I) saving user settings and prefences" and followup updates to Mac OS 10.4 to get it to 10.4.9. Following protocol, first did a backup of user/home/documents as I found a TIMESLIPS 2007 (TS2007) data backup folder there for the only Windows application used (and therefore important) in the office. Then had to reinstall Windows XP and TIMESLIPS 2007. The data in the TS2007 folder mentioned above is the wrong data. I and a Windows Tech have spent 16 manhours thus far trying to find the original user data and backup for TS2007 that existed prior to the OSX A&I and reinstallation of XP and TS2007. HELP. Where is the missing data stored? I'm praying that the virtual hard disk was not written over during the reinstall. Everything I've read in this forum and in the documentation indicate that the data SHOULD be on the actual Mac hard drive. How is it titled? What is it called? Have already looked for any visible .pvs, .sav, .hdd, .fdd labeled files and everything shows a creation date of post reinstall. Searched the "previous systems" save point with no luck either. Could really use some guidence here. All visible results indicate that nothing was actually backed up by TS 2007 as was indicated to the secretary using the iMac. Tracked down and spoke to the former Admin and he create no systems mangement files and can't remember what he did. Thanks in advance and I really hope I didn't hose 6 months of the firms data by NOT backing up the entire hard drive for a damage control restore point.
If it's still there, the original VM virtual disk should be in the /Users/<username>/Library/Parallels/<VM name>/ directory. Where <username> is the user name of the Parallels user account. You may not be able to access that user directory unless you log in to OS X as root. The actual hard drive image will be a .hdd file in that location, and the vm config file will be a .pvs file in the same directory.
Thank you Alan H. Used your suggestion and still hit a brick wall while even logged in as ROOT. I brought in a friend who has a degree in Computer Science and works in Computer Forensics. After I gave him a quick course in all things APPLE (he's never used one)...he recovered the missing data (using the files I found by following your instructions). There was a problem and his fix may help others. He was only able to capture and use the data after opening a window in APPLICATIONS/UTILITIES/TERMINAL and via UNIX command prompt entries, alter the permissions on a copy, of the copy, of the USER copy of the .hdd file that I initially found. It was very involved; but, ALL the missing data was found and the firm secretary's sanity was saved...along with my butt. Again...Thank You very much.
