Help - Tech support closed and System is down

[DesperateUser]

Hi, My hard drive was in the process of failing on my Dell laptop and I ran out so I ran out and bought an external drive bundled with Retrospect Express 5.6. I did a complete disk backup, installed the new drive on my laptop, re-installed Windows and tried to drag and drop the backup from the external drive to the brand new drive. Some of the .dll's and other little files didn't make it to the new drive - and, of course, my programs won't function.

 

Tech support is closed today and I'm out of business until this gets up and running. I'd appreciate any help that you can give me!

 

Is there a way that I can restore the files properly at this point? If not, is there a preferred procedure for backing up a complete hard drive in this case? If so, maybe I can get one more backup out of my old drive before it expires. And once backed up properly, what is the most reliable way to restore the files to my new drive?

 

TIA

 

[Mayoff]

A backup with Retrospect would not allow you to drag and drop files. Did you do a "duplicate" instead of a backup? The Duplicate stores data in the Windows Explorer format, backup stores it in a Retrospect format.

 

You would need to do a "duplicate" in the opposite direction from the original, so you can "restore" your data. Keep in mind that Retro Express does not duplicate the Windows Registry, so Applications and operating system would need to be reinstalled.

[DesperateUser]

Thanks for the clarification Mayoff. We followed the Maxtor external drive directions for the immediate duplicate operation. The program settings for our installed applications have been tweaked over time and we would prefer a backup method that includes Windows registry.

 

 

 

So... if we go back to the beginning and put the original hard drive into the computer, what's the best way to backup the system onto the external hard drive so that everything is captured? Once the new internal hard drive is installed, what's the best way to restore so that everything is replaced from the external drive?

 

 

 

EDIT: While reading other postings, it appears as if the Disaster Recovery procedure is the way to go. The old internal drive may fail at any point, including while we're doing the Disaster Recovery and we want to keep the current backup until we are sure the new internal hard drive is working properly. If we do the Disaster Recovery, how can we make make sure we don't overwrite the backup that is already on the external drive?

 

 

 

Again, thanks for your help on this.

 

 

 

David

[natew]

Hi,

 

The only way to backup the registry and fully restore the system in your case is using the "backup" feature of Retrospect. You will of course need to install your old hard drive to run the backup.

 

Detailed info can be found in the following tutorial:

http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=27447

 

If you run into the file size limitation outlined in the tutorial you can always download a trial version of Retrospect to get you out of this Jam. Once you are up and running again you can either upgrade or use what you have.

 

The above method will allow you to save the new backup on your Maxtor drive without deleting the data you already have saved there.

 

Nate

[kaikow]

I too have the Maxtor drive (model 5000LE).

The One Touch button, as currently implemented is just smoke and mirrors.

 

Do a full backup to a DISK backup set on the Maxtor drive.

Then create a Retrospect Disaster Recovery CD-ROM.

And.copy the Retrospect Catalog files and the config*.dat file to secure media.

 

Make sure you tell the backup the System State.

 

You could then boot with the DR CD and restore your files.

[AmyJ]

The Disk backup set cannot be used with hard drives in Retrospect for Windows 5.6 and earlier. The only options are duplicates and File backup sets or an upgrade to 6.5 (which will prevent the OneTouch button from functioning).

 

 

 

The OneTouch button functionality will work only with the software it came bundled with. However, the drive can be used as a standard hard drive with any version.