gbafam Posted September 23, 2006 Report Share Posted September 23, 2006 I thought I'd posted this note earlier, but it hasn't shown up. My apologies if it's a repeat. I have a new computer that recognizes my western digital external hard drive with my retrospect folders. The old computer has gone to that great cyberspace home in the sky, taking with it existing files etc, thus making access to the backed up data more critical. I've never done a restore of a back up, and retrospect promises user friendliness. But I can't see a step by step guide for we dummies anywhere. Will it restore software programs or do I need to find those disks and install those first? What about programs already loaded on the new computer (E.g., microsoft office)? In the unlikely event I'm actually able to carry this out, do I delete the backup when it's been completed? What other stupid questions should I ask? gba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted September 25, 2006 Report Share Posted September 25, 2006 Hi, First you should determine if you're able to access your backup set or if you need to rebuild the catalog file. If your data is stored in a series of .rdb files on the external disk, then the default location for a catalog file would have been your old internal drive. You can see how to rebuild a catalog file here: http://kb.dantz.com/article.asp?article=8350&p=2 Assuming you were backing up your entire operating system volume, you would be able to restore the entire volume just how it was on the previous machine. The caveat to this is the operating system was backed up in a state that worked with the hardware on the old computer. So, if you restore it to a new set of hardware there is a good chance it will not work. In that case you would need to reinstall your applications individually and restore just your data from the backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozbill99 Posted February 23, 2007 Report Share Posted February 23, 2007 Hi Foster, I have a SOHO network with 3 WXP systems with an old tape autoloader (ATL L500 DLT4) on one, acting as a server. We run Retro Vs 7.5.370 with Retro client backing up the 2 existing laptop. It is run every night via a script. One laptop is starting to "Play up" so I bought a replacement. The 2 laptops are completely dissimilar from different manufacturers, however, the replacement has WXP already on it and MSOffice 2003 (like the existing one). The existing laptop's backup is complete and accessible at the server. Can I just do a full restore to the new laptop and rely on retro to add any new files needed and avoid ones already existing, inluding applications? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edwin.lau Posted February 24, 2007 Report Share Posted February 24, 2007 Foster, thanks for your advice as I have a similar question. As you mention, the old catalogue file was probably on my internal hard drive before my computer crashed. The .rdb files are on my external hard drive, but there is no backup set (.rbf or .rbc files) that Retrospect recognizes from which it can create a new catalogue. Is there someway to create a new backup set and to update it for my old backup files (I have 115G of old files just waiting for me to restore them!) Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jelenko Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 Quote: The existing laptop's backup is complete and accessible at the server. Can I just do a full restore to the new laptop and rely on retro to add any new files needed and avoid ones already existing, inluding applications? Unless the new laptop uses essentially the same hardware - including the chipsets on the motherboard, the answer is almost for sure NOT. If the laptops are not from the same manufacturer, no chance. For me, unless the laptops were identical - same maufacturer, same model with manufactured dates close together, I wouldn't even try. [unless I just wanted to see if I could solve the puzzle that resulted] Remember, the Registry is a set of files that Retro will also overwrite. So, even if the correct driver files are still on the drive, Windows probably won't find them. You could try. But, if it fails, you'll have to reinstall Windows and drivers for all the devices on the laptop. If the laptop came with a system restore CD, it might be worth a shot. If there aren't system restore CD, it could be quite a hassle to get it right. Assuming the new laptop already has Windows installed, I would leave the OS alone and just restore data files. And install the applications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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