Restoring a backup to a new computer -- Desperate!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

My desktop computer/disk crashed seriously. I had made a backup using Windows
Backup and would like to recover the files to my laptop computer. But the
laptop does not see the files I backed up from the damaged computer -- only
the ones I backed up earlier from the laptop itself. I tried to make a
catalog of all the files in my backup but all I get is the old laptop files,
not the new ones. How do I recover files from another computer?
 
Xenophile said:
My desktop computer/disk crashed seriously. I had made a backup using Windows
Backup and would like to recover the files to my laptop computer. But the
laptop does not see the files I backed up from the damaged computer -- only
the ones I backed up earlier from the laptop itself. I tried to make a
catalog of all the files in my backup but all I get is the old laptop files,
not the new ones. How do I recover files from another computer?
Click to expand...

As a first step you should describe the method you used
to back up your files, and where exactly you backed
them up to.
 
I backed up my C drive to a USB drive. I don't know what you mean by
"method" -- I just used the backup Wizard and told it to back up the C drive!
I just realized that the directory I am seeing when I look at the backed up
bkf file using Backup is not from the USB drive -- it's from the C drive of
the laptop computer where I did an earlier backup. I think the problem is
that I don't understand the catalog system. What do I do to get a catalog of
what's really on the backup file rather than the old catalog that's on the
laptop's C drive?
 
Use the backup wizard in Restore mode to open the .bkf file
on the USB drive. It will show you exactly what's inside the
backup file.
 
That does not work -- that's my problem. When I double click the bkf file
(which launches Backup) all I see are old backups done on the laptop I am
currentlu using and not any of the files I backed up on the now-defunct
computer. But I think I have found how to see those -- I have to first
create a catalog of the bkf file: that does show the other files. I think I
will be able to restore them now.
 
That's fine if you accidental;ly deleted a file, but my entire disk crashed
and will not reboot Windows. I ran chkdsk and it spent a long time telling
me that thousands of sectors were unreadable.

By the way this is the fourth time in 18 months that I have lost a disk
(including a USB outboard backup disk).
 
Okay I was able to see the files by creating a catalog from the bkf file and
it did show the later backups that were not done from the computer I was
viewing the bkf file from, so I'm good on that score. Since I backed up
drive C: which contains everything, I assumed that I could recreate a new
computer disk identical to the one that crashed. But I have two problems:
(1) I could not create a floppy since I had no floppy drive (nor is there one
on any of new my computers) so I can't boot the backup, and (2) even if I can
read the bkf file into a computer with Win XP I am told that it still will
not recreate my software. Is that true? SHould I have done a "backup
everything" instead of backing up C: drive -- even though it contains
everything?
 
Back
Top