Vista backup/restore question

[Philip Herlihy]

I hope it isn't bad manners to ask a Vista question here, but I can't
find a working Vista newsgroup, and folk here are very well-informed!

I've had to reinstall a Vista box from original media after a hard-disk
failure. We have a USB drive with a backup set on it, created on this
machine (the previous incarnation, of course). If I open the Backup and
Restore tool, select Advanced Restore, and pick "backup made on another
machine", it insists "there are no backups available on this computer".
There's no option to browse. Any ideas? Searching the web merely
confirms how much more intelligent newsgroups are!

 

[Robin Bignall]

I hope it isn't bad manners to ask a Vista question here, but I can't
find a working Vista newsgroup, and folk here are very well-informed!

I've had to reinstall a Vista box from original media after a hard-disk
failure. We have a USB drive with a backup set on it, created on this
machine (the previous incarnation, of course). If I open the Backup and
Restore tool, select Advanced Restore, and pick "backup made on another
machine", it insists "there are no backups available on this computer".
There's no option to browse. Any ideas? Searching the web merely
confirms how much more intelligent newsgroups are!

I'm guessing, but Win7 is similar: the backup/restore can't see USB
devices.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I'm guessing, but Win7 is similar: the backup/restore can't see USB
devices.

If that's true, then my idea of transferring the file to a CD or DVD
might work. I almost posted it before, but I was unsure, so I decided
not to - but your remark changed my mind.

To the OP - some Usenet providers still carry the old some of the old
Microsoft groups.

In particular, I see microsoft.public.windws.vista.general on
News.Individual.Net, Albasani, and Eternal-September.

It's not enormously active, so you might still be better off here

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:51:23 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"

[snip]

In particular, I see microsoft.public.windws.vista.general on
News.Individual.Net, Albasani, and Eternal-September.

It's not enormously active, so you might still be better off here

Hasta la Vista?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[dave]

<snipped>

I'm guessing, but Win7 is similar: the backup/restore can't see USB
devices.

Win7 can certainly see a USB HD, by what reasoning did you come up with
that incorrect statement. I haven't tried a flash drive.

 

[Paul]

I hope it isn't bad manners to ask a Vista question here, but I can't
find a working Vista newsgroup, and folk here are very well-informed!

I've had to reinstall a Vista box from original media after a hard-disk
failure. We have a USB drive with a backup set on it, created on this
machine (the previous incarnation, of course). If I open the Backup and
Restore tool, select Advanced Restore, and pick "backup made on another
machine", it insists "there are no backups available on this computer".
There's no option to browse. Any ideas? Searching the web merely
confirms how much more intelligent newsgroups are!

Found this thread. Looks like "wbadmin" might work.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/fo.../thread/e9d820ef-bced-461e-8d80-b25bfb9b7174/

*******

Other than that, if you want to pick over the scraps...

http://www.shadowexplorer.com/downloads.html

(VHDMount - kinda creaky...)

http://www.petri.co.il/mounting-vista-backups-using-windows-complete-pc-backup.htm

(Shadow Copy mentioned here - don't know what versions of Vista this uses...)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.09.backup.aspx

Normally, there'd be a set of XML files in the backup directory.
So there's more to a backup than just a few .vhd files. And some
of those XML files must have control information.

Paul

 

[Robin Bignall]

Win7 can certainly see a USB HD, by what reasoning did you come up with
that incorrect statement. I haven't tried a flash drive.

The Win7 backup/restore disk, when booted from, can't see my USB3 drive
even if it's plugged into a USB2 port. Neither can my ShadowProtect
boot disk, even if you load all possible USB2/3 drivers.

 

[Ashton Crusher]

I hope it isn't bad manners to ask a Vista question here, but I can't
find a working Vista newsgroup, and folk here are very well-informed!

I've had to reinstall a Vista box from original media after a hard-disk
failure. We have a USB drive with a backup set on it, created on this
machine (the previous incarnation, of course). If I open the Backup and
Restore tool, select Advanced Restore, and pick "backup made on another
machine", it insists "there are no backups available on this computer".
There's no option to browse. Any ideas? Searching the web merely
confirms how much more intelligent newsgroups are!

With your newly installed Vista running why not copy the USB drive
backup files onto a DVD and then see if the restore program can access
them there.

 

[Philip Herlihy]

Isn't it the same machine?

As it's a clean install I tried both options - it doesn't recognise the
backup set either way.

 

[Philip Herlihy]

If that's true, then my idea of transferring the file to a CD or DVD
might work. I almost posted it before, but I was unsure, so I decided
not to - but your remark changed my mind.

To the OP - some Usenet providers still carry the old some of the old
Microsoft groups.

In particular, I see microsoft.public.windws.vista.general on
News.Individual.Net, Albasani, and Eternal-September.

It's not enormously active, so you might still be better off here

Thanks - but there are juggabytes of data in this backup set. The
Outlook PST file (most anxiously sought) is 6 GB alone. Yes, I'll be
having a word with him about this, and mentioning the Outlook
'autoarchive' facility.

Looked for signs of life in the old Microsoft groups, but didn't see any
recent activity.

 

[Philip Herlihy]

With your newly installed Vista running why not copy the USB drive
backup files onto a DVD and then see if the restore program can access
them there.

Thanks for the suggestion, but this is a huge backup set orders of
magnitude bigger than a DVD.

 

[Philip Herlihy]

Found this thread. Looks like "wbadmin" might work.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/fo.../thread/e9d820ef-bced-461e-8d80-b25bfb9b7174/

*******

Other than that, if you want to pick over the scraps...

http://www.shadowexplorer.com/downloads.html

(VHDMount - kinda creaky...)

http://www.petri.co.il/mounting-vista-backups-using-windows-complete-pc-backup.htm

(Shadow Copy mentioned here - don't know what versions of Vista this uses...)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.09.backup.aspx

Normally, there'd be a set of XML files in the backup directory.
So there's more to a backup than just a few .vhd files. And some
of those XML files must have control information.

Paul

Thanks for these useful links - I'd found a couple of them before, but
two are new to me. I had looked briefly at wbadmin, but there's more
information in that first link and I'll try again.

Meanwhile, I tried another search using "reconstruct vista backup" and
that led me to articles about the mediaid.bin file and a utility to
reconstruct it (which I'll be trying later). Apparently the mediaid.bin
file is left at the root of any drive used for a backup, and if it's
missing or corrupt problems like these can happen. I'll post a followup
here if I get anywhere with this.

I wonder if there is any reason I can't carry on using ntbackup - it's
always worked fine for me!

 

[Philip Herlihy]

Sounds like your back up is borked. When you do a back up image, it's a
good idea to test it before considering it to be a good back up.
Personally, I don't do imaging and just back up data as I don't
considering reinstalling an OS to be a big deal.

Could well be borked - I hope to know later today. This machine arrived
with me after a disk failure, but with (supposedly) many months of
backups on a (nearly full) USB drive, so while I fully endorse your
ideal of testing backups with a restore, it isn't going to help us much
this time! I do remember a technology leading company I worked for once
which badly needed a file from backup, and discovered 6 months of log
files all saying "backup could not start". Oy Vay...

Imaging does have its place. I had to reinstall this particular machine
from DVD media, but I spent ages tracking down some obscure drivers.
Had an image been available I could have had it running in half-an-hour.
I must say I haven't had time yet to investigate virtualisation
properly, and I rather think that this might be a useful tool for me.
But I won't get round to that until everyone I've ever met stops
bringing me their injured PCs!

 

[Char Jackson]

Could well be borked - I hope to know later today. This machine arrived
with me after a disk failure, but with (supposedly) many months of
backups on a (nearly full) USB drive, so while I fully endorse your
ideal of testing backups with a restore, it isn't going to help us much
this time! I do remember a technology leading company I worked for once
which badly needed a file from backup, and discovered 6 months of log
files all saying "backup could not start". Oy Vay...

I bet many of us have similar stories. I worked in an emergency
operations center for 5 years where we had about 72 incoming phone
lines, (mostly hotlines from other agencies that we routinely dealt
with), and a dozen outgoing lines. 100% of telephone traffic was
recorded on a huge reel-to-reel recorder that stood about the size of
a modern refrigerator. We dutifully changed the tape every evening at
2300 hours, carefully marking both the reel and the box it would be
stored in, then placing it in order on the cabinet shelf.

On an irregular basis, we had to access one of those tapes and recover
a conversation, and it always just worked...until the time when we
discovered the tape was silent. How long has this been going on? We
tried the tape from the day before, the beginning of last week, the
beginning of last month, and so on, until we found where it had
stopped working. It was a real wake-up call and resulted in regular
testing of the backups. Getting burned is sometimes the best way to
learn a lesson.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Thanks - but there are juggabytes of data in this backup set. The
Outlook PST file (most anxiously sought) is 6 GB alone. Yes, I'll be
having a word with him about this, and mentioning the Outlook
'autoarchive' facility.

Looked for signs of life in the old Microsoft groups, but didn't see any
recent activity.

Yeah, juggabytes is too much. Is it more than one DVD or BD worth?

Is the computer a desktop where you can connect the drive internally? Or
is there an eSATA plug? A drive plugged into an eSATA plug looks like an
internal drive to the computer.

Even a self-contained USB drive can be removed from its case to get
access to the SATA connectors. You might need a chisel

Of course, if it's an IDE drive, then you need to go inside the case...

 

[Philip Herlihy]

Yeah, juggabytes is too much. Is it more than one DVD or BD worth?

Is the computer a desktop where you can connect the drive internally? Or
is there an eSATA plug? A drive plugged into an eSATA plug looks like an
internal drive to the computer.

Even a self-contained USB drive can be removed from its case to get
access to the SATA connectors. You might need a chisel

Of course, if it's an IDE drive, then you need to go inside the case...

It's a small sealed unit, so there would be a risk of damaging the disk
if I tried to get into it. Might come to that...

I can't remember off-hand how much data is there, but I understand it's
several hundred GB.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

It's a small sealed unit, so there would be a risk of damaging the disk
if I tried to get into it. Might come to that...

I can't remember off-hand how much data is there, but I understand it's
several hundred GB.

Too bad.

I had an all-in-one that I wanted to get into. I couldn't figure out how
to open it. Removing all ten screws didn't help, and I couldn't figure
out where the plastic catches might have been. I gave up, since I
figured any more attempts would ruin the box...