TeraByte Unlimited

I'm a long time and happy user of Bootit NG/BM and Image for Windows / Linux. Thank you Terabyte for products which work reliably and with so little fuss.

I would like to use IfW to make a backup of some of my VMware virtual machines. The machines make use of snapshots, so each one consists of a base file and several difference (snapshot) files, all in vmdk format. IfW can mount a base file as virtual drive, but I cannot make it mount any difference files. VMware Workstation can mount difference files correctly onto virtual drives, but I cannot make IfW see these drives. I'm stuck, as all the possible workrounds are extremely long-winded.
Can anyone tell me, is this situation due to a) user ignorance b) technical reason e.g unpublished format for difference files c) oversight on the part of Terabyte d) bug in IfW e) something else.
Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.

Personally, the fastest and easiest way to backup VM's with multiple snapshots, is without using IFW.
1. Exit and shutdown all VM's
2. Exit VMware Workstation
Copy the VM folders to another folder and/or disk.

To restore a VM,
1. Exit and shutdown all VM's
2. Exit VMware Workstation

Be sure you are restoring the proper BU folder to the VM folder.
3. Delete all the files in the original VM folder.
4. Copy all the files from the backup folder to the original VM folder.

The above restoration, will also insure you will not get the message, asking that you copied or moved the VM, upon startup.

I have also used a IFW WinPE ISO and backed up VM's, using the local Host or bridged network and saved the images on the Host machine. I have also backed to secondary VM hard drives. This is useful to attach the seconday hard drive to another VM and restore for testing purposes.

Hope the above helps,

Thanks for your reply.

Perhaps I should have been clearer. The VM contains a sysprep-ped version of Windows. I want to make an image backup of the VM so that I can restore it to a physical machine. If I can't do that I either have to make a file backup and tinker with the boot code, boot data and boot sector, or I have to create a copy of the VM, eliminate the snapshots and mount that in IfW. Both of these options are long-winded and tedious. IfW seems to be one of very few imaging tools which can handle virtual drives as well as physical ones, but unfortunately it doesn't do quite enough to suit my requirements.
I could make a 'hot' backup from within the VM, but I have found that method unreliable in the past, and in any case IfW does not form part of the standard build.

It doesn't directly support split files or differencing files - just do a
backup within the VM using IFD or IFL (one way is to create an .ISO and boot
the ISO from the config you want to backup - saving to another virtual hard
drive or via network (for IFL)).

You could attach (the drives) to another VM with windows and IFW then just
backup from there.

"Howard Bates" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

I'm a long time and happy user of Bootit NG/BM and Image for Windows /
Linux. Thank you Terabyte for products which work reliably and with so
little fuss.

I would like to use IfW to make a backup of some of my VMware virtual
machines. The machines make use of snapshots, so each one consists of a base
file and several difference (snapshot) files, all in vmdk format. IfW can
mount a base file as virtual drive, but I cannot make it mount any
difference files. VMware Workstation can mount difference files correctly
onto virtual drives, but I cannot make IfW see these drives. I'm stuck, as
all the possible workrounds are extremely long-winded.
Can anyone tell me, is this situation due to a) user ignorance b) technical
reason e.g unpublished format for difference files c) oversight on the part
of Terabyte d) bug in IfW e) something else.
Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.

VMWare Workstation allows cloning of VM snapshots to create a new (non-linked) VM.

It's a two step process but should work - use VMWare to clone the snapshot from your snapshotted VM, to spare disk space, which can then be used as a non-snapshotted VM. After doing whatever you need to, delete the cloned VM. End of problem.