Installing guest OS with 3rd party back up software?

I was trying to use forums search to find answer to my question, however wasnt able to find anything relating.

My question is: is it possible to install guest OS (Windows XP) using third party back up software?

I use Divine Snap Shot which I have installed on host OS. Even program allows to make .iso images, the easiest way of restoring OS is to start program from Windows. While doing it program ask to which drive or partition image is to be restored. While looking on possible options, quite enigmatically Snap Shot shows some HD 1:2 drive (never seen it before, Im guessing its probably some Parralels virtual drive) however it shows no empty space on it (60GB used). Other option of restoring is to boot from floppy and using command prompt specify destination of drive/partition to which image is to be restored.

Knowing all this would it be possible to install guest OS from back up images which I already have?

 

Udpate:

Update:

I already managed to successfully boot Virtual Machine from floppy, which contains free DOS and my back up software and it appears to be running correctly. I also created shared folder (which I named x-1) to which I granted access to my entire physical PC partition (E:\) - containing my back up image files.

In order for back up program to run, I have to now define path using command prompt where my image files are located. If I understand correctly this should be simply:

E:\image_file.sna

When entering this path I am receiving error specified input file does not exist. Im guessing syntax of the path is incorrect. How exactly should I define path to my shared folders using command prompt?

Appreciate help.

 

Hello Rob1212,

Shared folders use Windows Network Share protocol and you can access them manually through \\.psf\x-1. However I don't think your loading disk supports this protocol.

Sometimes Acronis True Image and identical software is used to restore backup image by loading the file and getting access to it through network connection.

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Thanks for answering.

Actually I e-mailed same question to Paralells support and were told that I need to format my HDD first. Upon careful reading of help files for Parallels image tool it appears however that generally images of OSs cannot be used to install guest OS - because hardware of OS from image and virtual hardware of guest OS differs.