My BKF file is missing its content

[Cherep]

Hello, I'm in a terrible mess. I wanted to see when was my last backup
done, so I checked my Scheduled back-up procedure. But, unintentionally
I started the procedure and then canceled as I did not want to wait
anoher 45 minutes for a back-up I already had from the day before.
Well, the back-up procedure which only lasted couple of seconds before
I canceled it, has erased the contents of the previous BKF file and
made a new one which is blank and has a size of 2KB only. PLEASE HELP
ME to restore my previous 11 GB file. PLEASE tell me what to do to get
my old data back. Thank you in advance. Cherep

 

[Poprivet]

Hello, I'm in a terrible mess. I wanted to see when was my last backup
done, so I checked my Scheduled back-up procedure. But,
unintentionally I started the procedure and then canceled as I did
not want to wait anoher 45 minutes for a back-up I already had from
the day before. Well, the back-up procedure which only lasted couple
of seconds before I canceled it, has erased the contents of the
previous BKF file and made a new one which is blank and has a size of
2KB only. PLEASE HELP ME to restore my previous 11 GB file. PLEASE
tell me what to do to get my old data back. Thank you in advance.
Cherep

I dont' understand the problem; just run another backup?

Pop`

 

[Cherep]

I dont' understand the problem; just run another backup?

Pop`

Oh, I'd like that very much, however what I'm trying to do is to
restore the backed-up file. You see, I wanted to check my back-ups
before I formated my laptop. By checking my back-ups I unintentionally
started the back-up procedure which I canceled just seconds afterwards,
and then the problem occured. The BKF file was replaced with an empty
one. I just didn't realize it until after I formated my laptop drive
and later tried to restore my back-up which was an empty 2 kB file. Any
help? Thanx. Cherep

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Hello, I'm in a terrible mess. I wanted to see when was my last
backup done, so I checked my Scheduled back-up procedure. But,
unintentionally I started the procedure and then canceled as I did
not want to wait anoher 45 minutes for a back-up I already had from
the day before. Well, the back-up procedure which only lasted
couple of seconds before I canceled it, has erased the contents of
the previous BKF file and made a new one which is blank and has a
size of 2KB only. PLEASE HELP ME to restore my previous 11 GB file.
PLEASE tell me what to do to get my old data back. Thank you in
advance. Cherep

If I am understanding you correctly - you have a backup schedule where you
never keep a history?

In other words, you should have a backup schedule that ensures you can
restore to (example) yesterday, the day before, the day before that, the
week before that, the month before that... Not just one backup that gets
overwritten everytime it backs up. After all - even as your current
situation is a prime example of why this method of a single backup is bad -
it is also possible that something happens, you don;t realize it for days
and by the time you get around to restoring - your only backup is the one
that HAS the issue at hand.

Unfortunately for you - the chances of recovering that backup file is slim
to none. You began over-writing it. That scrambles the underlying data -
makes it very difficult to fix. I cannot say impossible - but probably
expensive in one manner or another.

You may want to review how you do your system backups and such...

How To Use Backup to Back Up Files and Folders on Your Computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422

Yes - you still need some sort of external media to store the results
on, but you could schedule the backup to occur when you are not around,
then burn the resultant data onto CD or DVD or something when you are
(while you do other things!)

Another option that seems to still be going strong:

Cobian Backup
http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

A lot of people have wondered about how to completely backup their system
so that they would not have to go through the trouble of a reinstall..
I'm going to voice my opinion here and say that it would be worthless to
do for MOST people. Unless you plan on periodically updating the image
backup of your system (remaking it) - then by the time you use it
(something goes wrong) - it will be so outdated as to be more trouble than
performing a full install of the operating system and all applications.

Having said my part against it, you can clone/backup your hard drive
completely using many methods - by far the simplest are using disk cloning
applications:

Symantec/Norton Ghost
http://snipurl.com/13e00

Acronis True Image
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

BootItT NG
http://terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

 

[Poprivet]

Oh, I'd like that very much, however what I'm trying to do is to
restore the backed-up file. You see, I wanted to check my back-ups
before I formated my laptop. By checking my back-ups I unintentionally
started the back-up procedure which I canceled just seconds
afterwards, and then the problem occured. The BKF file was replaced
with an empty one. I just didn't realize it until after I formated
my laptop drive and later tried to restore my back-up which was an
empty 2 kB file. Any help? Thanx. Cherep

Ouch! I see. IFF you haven't used that drive since then, and then it was a
short lived use, it's possible the data is still there. The os looks for
unused space to begin writing files, so chances are it started with an
unused location. Trouble is, the old, missing file was removed from the
File System so finding it could be another matter.

This isn't something I've had to do since the days of win98, though, so I
can't help much further than this. You'd need a good disk editor, one that
bypasses normal file I/O, and can read the disk data directly. Then do a
search of the drive for files wiht a .bkf extension; there are likley to be
hundreds of them BTW. Look for portions of the filename and hopefully date,
and go from there.
That said, I don't have such a disk editor. The only ones I know of
wouldn't work for this, so like I said, my input's not very useful beyond
this.

Maybe this is enough to trip someone's memory for you though. Like I said,
it also depends on MINIMAL use of that drive since you made that error, and
NO USE since then! Otherwise chances are excellent the data has been
overwritten to the point where it'll be unusable.

Pop`