K
kaighin
Guest
Re: Vista Business: Restore does not see the backup files.
I had the same problems recently - Complete PC Restore could not find
backup files. Here's what I did to fix:
Recipe to recover hard drives if backing up using Windows Complete PC
backup and Restore.
Read completely before following these procedures:
Ingredients required:
- The USB drive containing your backups
- One USB drive at least the same size of your failed internal hard
drive to write the files extracted
from the .vhd files
- A third USB drive to store the backups of your backups
- A new internal drive to replace the original internal drive if it
failed
- Beer (it's more prudent to overestimate the amount required than
underestimate)
Utensils required:
- Some basic knowledge of computers
- Understanding of how to use some of the basic tools in UBCD4WIN CD
- Understanding of MS Virtual PC
- Enough memory to handle installation of a virtual machine on top of
your host OS
Prep time:
Approximately 2 hours (includes drive time to nearest computer store to
purchase required external drives)
Cooking time:
Approximately 24 hours (depends on the size of the .vhd files you are
going to recover and your altitude above sea level)
1. Find and make a backup copy of the .vhd files
Disconnect and store the drive containing these secondary .vhd files
in case you screw something up, which you're bound to do. Leave the USB
drive with the original .vhd files attached and attach the third USB
drive.
2. Install new internal drive, format and install an operating system
(compatible with MS Virtual PC, I used Vista). Partitioning not needed
at this point, drive will be reformatted later.
3. Download and Install MS Virtual PC.
4. Create a new virtual machine. I used these settings to start and
added virtual drives later:
Memory - 1.5gb
Network Adapter - same as physical machine's network adapter
5. Install an operating system on virtual hard disk 1 (I used Vista)
of the new virtual machine 6. Download and burn a UBCD4WIN CD 7.
On the physical host machine, share the third USB drive, give share
permissions "Everyone - Full control"
8. Depending on how many .vhd files you are recovering, you might have
to come back to repeat these steps. I had four, so I needed to do this
twice. In Virtual PC, configure hard disk 2 to point to the first .vhd
file you want to recover, and hard disk 3 to the next one. Virtual PC
will only allow you configure three at a time (the first will be the
virtual machine's OS drive, and the other two the drives you are
recovering).
9. Boot the virtual machine off UBCD4WIN CD
10. Enable networking and verify you can ping the host physical
machine
11. In UBCD4WIN on your virtual machine navigate to the UNC path of
the USB drive you shared on the physical machine (i.e.
\\192.168.1.100\Z$)
12. In UBCD4WIN on your virtual machine, navigate to the second
virtual hard drive. You will see the files in there that you will need
to move over to the shared USB drive on your host machine. If the
volume contains the "System Volume Information" folder, you will have to
set permissions as "Everyone - Full" and propagate rights to child
objects. Select all files on this virtual drive and copy and paste to
the mapped shared USB drive into a folder with a name reflecting the
former drive designation. Don't forget to unhide hidden and system
files.
13. Repeat step 12 if you have a third virtual drive.
14. Repeat steps 9-13 if you have more than two drives to recover.
15. Once you have verified that all files have been copied to the
external USB, boot your physical machine off UBCD4WIN CD, format and
partition your internal drive according to your needs. It is not
necessary that the partition sizes match the original partition sizes
from your failed drive - we'll get that working later.
16. Give each partition proper drive letter designations - make sure
they match your original configuration.
17. Copy the files from the external USB to their respective
partitions.
18. Navigate to each drive containing a "System Volume Information"
folder and undo changes made in step 12.
19. Reboot off of Vista Install CD. Select System Repair option
20. Bring up DOS window and navigate to CDDRIVE:\boot
21. Run "bootsect /nt60 C:" (run bootsect /? first to verify the
proper boot sector options)
22. Reboot into safe mode
23. Verify your drive letter designations are correct, if not fix.
24. Reboot.
26. Add beer for taste.
27. Let cool and enjoy.
Some Notes:
It may not be required to load an OS on the virtual machine (step 5) -
I did it before I thought to use UBCD4WIN because I originally was going
to go another route. Keep in mind this is how I did it and I was
experimenting as I went. There may be a more efficient method, but this
worked for me. I had 4 partitions with a total of 82gb of compressed
..vhd files. The time required to move these files twice across USB 1.0
drives accounts for the approximate 24 hour cooking time. Your time
will be considerably less of course if you're using USB 2.0. The
original and replacement internal drives were both 250gb, and I resized
my C:\ drive from a 20gb drive to a 50gb drive on the replacement drive.
You've now obviously learned your lesson regarding Windows Complete PC
Backup and Restore. Now download and install a responsible backup
program and don't ever let this happen again. And also RAID your hard
drive.
Also, your Vista license key will likely not work after making these
changes - the hardware signature will be different enough to render the
key useless. You can try to talk Microsoft into giving you a new
product key, but good luck with that. You have three days to get a new
key.
Greg Kaighin
I had the same problems recently - Complete PC Restore could not find
backup files. Here's what I did to fix:
Recipe to recover hard drives if backing up using Windows Complete PC
backup and Restore.
Read completely before following these procedures:
Ingredients required:
- The USB drive containing your backups
- One USB drive at least the same size of your failed internal hard
drive to write the files extracted
from the .vhd files
- A third USB drive to store the backups of your backups
- A new internal drive to replace the original internal drive if it
failed
- Beer (it's more prudent to overestimate the amount required than
underestimate)
Utensils required:
- Some basic knowledge of computers
- Understanding of how to use some of the basic tools in UBCD4WIN CD
- Understanding of MS Virtual PC
- Enough memory to handle installation of a virtual machine on top of
your host OS
Prep time:
Approximately 2 hours (includes drive time to nearest computer store to
purchase required external drives)
Cooking time:
Approximately 24 hours (depends on the size of the .vhd files you are
going to recover and your altitude above sea level)
1. Find and make a backup copy of the .vhd files
Disconnect and store the drive containing these secondary .vhd files
in case you screw something up, which you're bound to do. Leave the USB
drive with the original .vhd files attached and attach the third USB
drive.
2. Install new internal drive, format and install an operating system
(compatible with MS Virtual PC, I used Vista). Partitioning not needed
at this point, drive will be reformatted later.
3. Download and Install MS Virtual PC.
4. Create a new virtual machine. I used these settings to start and
added virtual drives later:
Memory - 1.5gb
Network Adapter - same as physical machine's network adapter
5. Install an operating system on virtual hard disk 1 (I used Vista)
of the new virtual machine 6. Download and burn a UBCD4WIN CD 7.
On the physical host machine, share the third USB drive, give share
permissions "Everyone - Full control"
8. Depending on how many .vhd files you are recovering, you might have
to come back to repeat these steps. I had four, so I needed to do this
twice. In Virtual PC, configure hard disk 2 to point to the first .vhd
file you want to recover, and hard disk 3 to the next one. Virtual PC
will only allow you configure three at a time (the first will be the
virtual machine's OS drive, and the other two the drives you are
recovering).
9. Boot the virtual machine off UBCD4WIN CD
10. Enable networking and verify you can ping the host physical
machine
11. In UBCD4WIN on your virtual machine navigate to the UNC path of
the USB drive you shared on the physical machine (i.e.
\\192.168.1.100\Z$)
12. In UBCD4WIN on your virtual machine, navigate to the second
virtual hard drive. You will see the files in there that you will need
to move over to the shared USB drive on your host machine. If the
volume contains the "System Volume Information" folder, you will have to
set permissions as "Everyone - Full" and propagate rights to child
objects. Select all files on this virtual drive and copy and paste to
the mapped shared USB drive into a folder with a name reflecting the
former drive designation. Don't forget to unhide hidden and system
files.
13. Repeat step 12 if you have a third virtual drive.
14. Repeat steps 9-13 if you have more than two drives to recover.
15. Once you have verified that all files have been copied to the
external USB, boot your physical machine off UBCD4WIN CD, format and
partition your internal drive according to your needs. It is not
necessary that the partition sizes match the original partition sizes
from your failed drive - we'll get that working later.
16. Give each partition proper drive letter designations - make sure
they match your original configuration.
17. Copy the files from the external USB to their respective
partitions.
18. Navigate to each drive containing a "System Volume Information"
folder and undo changes made in step 12.
19. Reboot off of Vista Install CD. Select System Repair option
20. Bring up DOS window and navigate to CDDRIVE:\boot
21. Run "bootsect /nt60 C:" (run bootsect /? first to verify the
proper boot sector options)
22. Reboot into safe mode
23. Verify your drive letter designations are correct, if not fix.
24. Reboot.
26. Add beer for taste.
27. Let cool and enjoy.
Some Notes:
It may not be required to load an OS on the virtual machine (step 5) -
I did it before I thought to use UBCD4WIN because I originally was going
to go another route. Keep in mind this is how I did it and I was
experimenting as I went. There may be a more efficient method, but this
worked for me. I had 4 partitions with a total of 82gb of compressed
..vhd files. The time required to move these files twice across USB 1.0
drives accounts for the approximate 24 hour cooking time. Your time
will be considerably less of course if you're using USB 2.0. The
original and replacement internal drives were both 250gb, and I resized
my C:\ drive from a 20gb drive to a 50gb drive on the replacement drive.
You've now obviously learned your lesson regarding Windows Complete PC
Backup and Restore. Now download and install a responsible backup
program and don't ever let this happen again. And also RAID your hard
drive.
Also, your Vista license key will likely not work after making these
changes - the hardware signature will be different enough to render the
key useless. You can try to talk Microsoft into giving you a new
product key, but good luck with that. You have three days to get a new
key.
Greg Kaighin
