1. A method for protecting data, the method comprising: creating a copy of a backup virtual machine on a data storage device; operating a virtual machine based on the copy, wherein the virtual machine is reconstructed using pointers associated with the backup virtual machine; and storing changes made to a virtual machine disk during operation of the virtual machine to the copy, wherein the virtual machine disk includes resident files of a master file table and non-resident files outside of the master file table, wherein the changes made to the virtual machine disk includes a list of changes to one or more resident files of the master file table.