575481df-decc-45d2-bb29-1c93ae667c10 Posted March 18, 2011 Report Share Posted March 18, 2011 Hi Folks, My hdd just died (unrecoverable). I have a full file backup of the main partition on an external drive, and I'd like to try to use that to restore my comp to its state at that point. I do not have an image backup - just a full file backup using Retrospect 7.7 (with Open File Backup). Because I don't have a full disk image, I figure that I have to install windows 7 first in order to get the system reserved partition installed. I'll do this with my Lenovo recovery discs. Then I plan on restoring *all* the files (OS included) on the main partition. I'm concerned about a couple things: 1) If retrospect's open file backup didn't manage to back up some files correctly (though it did report 100% success and verified all files), and 2) Some boot files sometimes need to be at specific addresses on the disk. Perhaps there are some other things I should be worrying about too - I dunno. Does this sound like a good plan? Will it work? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated! Thanks! Allie Win 7 Pro x64 SP1 Lenovo Thinkpad T410 500 GB HDD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaronpriest Posted March 19, 2011 Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 I've done this successfully quite a few times with 7.7. If you don't have a disaster recovery CD, you'll have to load Windows and Retrospect first to do a restore. Your first hurdle will be to get the drive structure (partitioning) setup the way it was. Typically Windows 7 has a hidden 100MB partition that holds the boot and recovery information (it has no drive letter, but you'll see the volume in disk management); Drive C will be the second larger system volume where Windows, Program Files, and everything else goes. Your Lenovo recovery disk will probably put this all back. Some OEMs also have their own utility partition either before or after the system volume (C:\) that may be hidden or may not be. Your recovery disk may take care of that as well if one existed, I dunno. The Retrospect recovery itself is pretty painless. You may have to recreate a catalog file from your external drive before you can restore if you don't have access to it. Afterward try restoring the entire volume with Retrospect, including the system state. It's worked very well for me in the past, good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
575481df-decc-45d2-bb29-1c93ae667c10 Posted March 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 Thank Aaron - this is great news. I pretty sure the version I was using was 7.7 - I kept it updated. It was the version that came up with that annoying little Roxio activity manager. So, after restoring, did you ever come up with any problems, or did Windows work without errors thereafter? I just ask, as I'm hoping to move forward with my restored system without any nagging worries in the back of my mind. Anyways, thanks so much again for your response. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaronpriest Posted March 19, 2011 Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 The activity monitor has been around for awhile. It's useful when Retrospect is running as a different user or in the background and you want to restart it safely, but I've found it can't always cancel a task properly and I have to crash Retrospect anyway to open it back up, especially if it is waiting on a prompt to be answered. Sometimes this corrupts a catalog file and requires a repair or rebuild of it, which is easy but takes some time. I wish it ran better as a service. Retrospect has many strengths, but that is one weakness. Hopefully you did have 7.7, as 7.6 and earlier won't handle Windows 7 hidden boot partition properly for a restore. The Windows 7 machines and 2008 Servers that I've restored with 7.7 have gone very smoothly though. It will probably prompt you to reboot a time or two after doing a full volume restore with system state, but it has been very solid for me every time that I had a good backup to begin with. It's why I keep using Retrospect in spite of a couple shortcomings. What good is a backup if the restore is not solid? And in that department it has saved my butt on many occasions! Just this weekend we had a laptop that failed miserably with a Windows 7 SP1 install, even though all the other identical ones in the building were successful. After several minutes of messing around, it was easier just to restore from the previous night's backup and call it good. We had no data on the laptop that hadn't already been stored to the server, and I already had the universal disaster recovery CD burned, so it was far cheaper in man hours to just restore than to attempt fixing the issue. Reinstalling SP1 worked fine the second time around incidentally. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
575481df-decc-45d2-bb29-1c93ae667c10 Posted March 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 hey, that's great Aaron. In my situation, I'm not sure if I checked anything having to do with "system state" in my backup script. Is that something that gets taken care of automatically, or did I have to enable it to make sure I got it? Or, perhaps it's just the type of restore you have to perform... And yeah - my system is win 7 sp1 too. Had no problems applying the pack... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaronpriest Posted March 19, 2011 Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 I guess several people have had trouble when choosing "Install updates on shutdown" and Win7 SP1 gets applied. Since I typically install it manually I've never had this issue myself. Most of my customers have had it applied automatically at 3AM and there is no problem with that either. Apparently it's only when they click shutdown and the update gets installed that it sometimes hiccups and won't boot again. It doesn't finish writing some files before powering off. I've seen it four times already with customers. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/1c9a7151-b48c-4a98-aae7-a4b82682ea8e/#bcabda57-7338-499f-aee2-d708e76df315 Anyway, the system state should have been backed up by default unless you purposely unchecked it in your scripts (Options, Windows, System, Back Up System State). When doing a restore, if you choose Rollback everything on x to be exactly as it was on x date it will include the system state as well. If you are in advanced mode instead of the wizard, the option would be restore an entire volume, and under Options, Windows, System it is already checked by default to restore the system state too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
575481df-decc-45d2-bb29-1c93ae667c10 Posted March 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 sounds good Aaron - I think I should be ok. I'll have my backup next weekend and will give it a shot then and report back. Thanks a bunch for your help - there is a faint light at the end of the tunnel! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
575481df-decc-45d2-bb29-1c93ae667c10 Posted March 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 hi aaron et al, here i am with my newly recreated catalog, trying to restore my drive. Things seem to go pretty well, I boot with the recovery CD and start to restore to the E: drive (which is the drive letter of the windows partition when mounting from the CD). I select "roll back everything to x date", etc. I confirm the settings, and when it starts executing and retrieving the snapshot, it gives me a warning that all data on my *backup* drive D: (the external drive where all my retrospect backup files live) will be lost!! What's up with that?? How do I restore my drive without risking the loss of my backup files? Very strange. Any help would be *greatly* appreciated! Thanks! allie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaronpriest Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Very interesting, since you are the second person to ask a similar question this week. I'm using the universal recovery CD and I don't see that option or message, so I'm unsure. I'd call tech support for a faster answer. Sure doesn't sound like a warning you'd want to ignore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
575481df-decc-45d2-bb29-1c93ae667c10 Posted March 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 the "universal recovery CD" is the one you download from the dantz website, right? i downloaded the windows version... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaronpriest Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Yes, correct. I boot off it, click restore locally, confirm the date/time, click the restore button on the first menu, and then click switch to advanced mode on the next dialog box. From there I choose restore an entire volume and choose my source and destination manually. I think this might avoid what you are seeing with the wizard (which I don't typically use). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
575481df-decc-45d2-bb29-1c93ae667c10 Posted March 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Thanks Aaron. I've actually tried both with the wizard and advanced, both with the same result. Alas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
575481df-decc-45d2-bb29-1c93ae667c10 Posted March 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2011 (edited) well, it's backing up right now - fingers crossed. i plugged in the external drive after booting the cd, thus giving it a higher drive letter (F), and the windows os partition has drive letter D. No more warnings about overwriting the backups. It warned me that it would overwrite everything on both the system reserved partition © and windows os partition (D) - let's hope I did use 7.7 and that it's not screwing up the reserved partition. If it does screw it up, perhaps i'll try hiding that partition so retrospect doesn't touch it. I checked the option to restore security information for matching files, but i doubt that matters since i'm restoring the entire volume, and hence i think everything gets deleted to begin with. i'll report back when done... EDIT: aw crap - i'm getting a ton of -1101 file/directory not found errors. I think it might be because my windows partition is mounted as D:, and not C:. Either that, or I'm getting errors for files that were in a previous snapshot somehow, but no longer exist in the backup sets? Just seem like a bunch of files (14,454 of them) that I likely deleted at some point... Edited March 30, 2011 by luckycharms Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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