For a few years my wife has resisted using any kind of backup solution � even the built-in Windows backup. She has simply made her own backups on the root of an external drive. She simply copies all the files she wants to backup into a folder with the same name as her computer. G:/COMPUTER_NAME/.
Well, yesterday, she decided to start using Windows backup to simplify her life.
I've used Windows backup for years, but when we set up her machine, I was unaware that she had this folder called "COMPUTER_NAME". Well, perhaps you've guessed, Windows backup created it's backup on the root of the drive, calling it "COMPUTER_NAME".
She cried for hours, fearing that 10 years of family photos she's taken are gone forever (they were saved in the folder "G:/Computer_name", but they were not part of her local computer files, and therefore, not saved in the "computer_name" backup file created by Windows).
My first thought was to use some Photo/File recovery program. But after sleeping on the problem, it occurs to me that perhaps the files aren't really gone, since the folder had the same name, perhaps Windows did not overwrite the directory's structure and files, though because the name of the directory and the name of the backup file are the same, the directory is simply not accessible.
best way to try and restore the directory (before trying photo/file restoration programs).
Any simple backup program that is capable of backing up large files incrementally by splitting the file and backing up only changed parts of the file? The files I'm talking about are files that get altered by appending stuff at the end of the file, e.g. log files or mailbox files, so it's generally possible to split a new version of the file at the exact point where the old version stopped, purely by file size.
Specifically, I want to back up Thunderbird and SeaMonkey mailboxes without having to create additional subfolders within those programs. I understand that if something had changed near the beginning of the file, then the whole file will have to be backed up, unless the backup program is capable of some very clever searching, but mostly the files will change only by having data appended to it.
what files Windows Backup backs-up except that it backs up your data files. Are Outlook .pst files included in that? If so, can i presume it will restore those files too?
I had a Windows 7 HP system that the motherboard was going out, so I sent it back. I did a reinstall of Windows 7 at first and it had me to back up my files to a drive, so I did. I sent it back and now I have my XP system. Can I retrieve those files from that external HD and have them on my XP system?
I had windows 7 keep giving me a blue screen more often than not. I decided to reinstall windows. All went well and I don't get any blue screens. Now most of my 500g drive is 2 files (windows.old and windows.old.000). Now I don't have any room to backup my computer. These 2 files take up about 300g. I went to my local computer store and they this is normal for windows 7 and the files just keep getting bigger as time goes on. They advised me that I should have at least 2T drive to keep running windows 7. So my question is, can I delete the old backup files because I'm only using less than 200g on an ongoing bases. My operating system tells me that I don't have backup setup and I don't have room to set it up. I would have just over 300g free if I could delete these 2 files.
The hard drive failed on my friend's Win 7 laptop. I replaced the hard drive, now I am in the process of recovering documents that he had backed up on an external hard drive. He was using Windows Backup.When I start the application in restore mode and direct it to the external hard drive, it shows a backup done on Jan 2. But when I browse through the backup folders using Windows Backup, it does not show any of his recent files. I went ahead and restored the folders, but the most recent files in the restored user folders are only from mid November
I have an Alienware M15x which was running on the special Alienware edition of Windows 7 Home premium 64bit.By mistake (long story which doesn't matter in solving this issue..) a second version of Windows 7 was written on the same partition OVER my previous one...The Windows 7 (Alienware) was put into "windows.old"However I lost all my installed programs and some stuff which I really liked and therefor would like to go back to it! I read it can be done by using a Windows Installation disk and entering loads of coding but sadly my CD/DVD drive is (god sometimes I'm unlucky) broken and I'm waiting for a replacement (3months) I read it can also be done from a USB flash drive or a external hard drive by changing something in the BIOS before but there again I'm unlucky.. I have no clue what that BIOS password is and I can't get it back from Dell support since I didn't buy the computer from them but from an other little shop that imports them from god know where!
I purchased a larger external hdd for my Win 7 Backup. I would like to move or copy the existing Win 7 Backup/Restore files to the new external hdd to freeup the old external drive for other data. Do you just copy the Backup folders on the old hdd to the new drive? Strangely, the Win 7 Backup folders' properties show zero bytes. I have restored files / folders from the Backup files, so I know they are not empty.
i used windows back up last night and came down in the morning to see that a file on my computer, which was labeled the same as the back up, is missing, although should i use the search function, i can still run them, such as SC2 which was on there as well as alot of other important stuff?
I have Win 7 Home Premium SP1. For the past year and a half, I've been using the Win 7 backup about once a month without any problems. My hard drive is partitioned into drives C and D, and I back up onto an external hard disk, which appears as Drive I when connected. (The external hard disk is partitioned into drives G, H, I, but there is plenty of space on drive I).
In addition, more often, I back up my important data folders (using MS Synctoy) on a USB flash memory which appears as Drive F. Yesterday, I backed up to the flash memory. Then I did the Win 7 backup to my external hard disc, but I forgot to remove the flash memory from the USB port, which I always do. When the Win 7 backup finished, I got an error message from Windows Backup: "Windows Backup did not complete successfully. The backup completed but some files were skipped."
When I looked at "View Skipped Files", it said "Windows Backup skipped F:Music because it cannot be found on drive F:." (There is no "Music folder on drive F). So I took out the USB flash memory and tried Win 7 Backup again (twice). Same result. Then I shut down the PC for the night. This morning I turned it on again. Everything else seemed to be working. So I did Win 7 Backup with the same result.
I looked at "Restore all users' files" in the Backup Window, and there I see that I have only a folder called "Users" backed up from the C Drive, and only a folder called "Music" backed up from the D Drive. I have many other folders in these drives, and even these folders only show a small portion of the files in those folders on my PC. It also shows that there is an empty F:Music folder backed up. Just to remind you - there is no F Drive once I remove my USB flash memory.
Looking at "Manage Windows Backup Space" I see that on Drive I (the backup drive) I use 26.6 GB for Data File Backup, 95 GB for System Image, with 64 GB of free space on the drive. Since my C and D drives have a total of 74 GB used space, and I assume Win 7 Backup compresses files, these numbers look reasonable to me. Are my files backed up or not? Why the silly error message? My external hard disk seems fine, as best as I can tell.
I keep getting an error every time I run Windows Backup Utility: "Backup skipped backing up F:Recorded TV as it is on the backup target." What does this mean, and how can I get to stop skipping files?
As my Vista machine was failing I did a full system backup. I did not do a simple file backup. That machine is now dead. Now I need to move the files within the system backup to my new Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit machine but I'm not finding any way to accomplish this.
My work laptop was being changed from a Dell to a Lenovo and I was using Windows Backup & Restore to backup my important documents and emails. I took a final backup to my external hard drive before handing my old laptop to IT. Once I restored all my files I noticed the following:
1. Some files were not the latest versions, i.e. they were a month old. 2. Some subfolders simply weren't there. I had two subfolder in one of my folders and only one was restored and not the other. I made sure that I restored from the latest backup file.
I'm trying to restore files from a Vista backup into 7, but, once they're restored I can't find them.
It only affects files that were in the various 'my documents', 'my downloads' etc folders on my Vista install - files from other partitions etc restore fine.
It seems as if the files are definitely being restored somewhere, because if I restore them again I get 'would you like to overwrite these files' dialogs. I've tried searching for the filenames after they're restored but they don't appear. I think maybe it's possible that 7 is restoring them under a different user (although my user name on 7 is the same as it was on Vista).
I keep getting an error when running a windows 7 backup. it backs up to a linux server on the network. network sharing is correct. At the very end of the backup it says some files were skipped. when i check on the linux server the hard drive is full of files so it has access so I don't think it is a network problem.
I had a look at the log files in "C:WindowsLogsWindowsBackup" at the file "Backup Files 2010-02-07 190008_error.txt". It says "Backup encountered a problem while backing up file C:WindowsSystem32configsystemprofileWebsites. Error: The system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002)".
I have made a Library in my Library folder called websites containing website files.
I made a backup disk of different files and now certain Word documents on the disk and when loaded back onto the laptop show with the file extention .LNK and have a type as Shortcut. The laptop had to be wiped clean hence the need to use the backup.
I was reading yesterday that if I want to restore a file, I need to go to the file and right click and select restore. If the file does not exist anymore then one would go to the directory where the file originally was and select restore (or something to that effect). I have two disks and I want to save some important files from one disk to the other. I have always used Windows 7 Backup but now I am not sure I am doing the right thing. What would happen if my main disk crashed and there was absolutely no hope of salvaging it? Could I still restore from the back up made by Windows 7 Backup? I won't know the file names or directory structure if one disk goes down completely.
Every time I open a program it comes up windows explorer stop working. And how do I make a recovery from my back up files. System restore does not go back as far as three months, why?
We are a small office, 5 or 6 computers. Only 3 are every day computers, other 3 are "server", admin and extra computer. The three in use every day are new win7pro x64 machines. Our server is xp pro (32bit) with a shared drive as our "server" drive. We access this for all our job related materials, etc. There is no network setup, just shared folders among our workgroup. we just got the new win7pro machines setup and are using Windows Backup function to create system images to the "server" computer in a shared folder. We've got the images created on 2 computers, and can see the .vhd files and associated folder structure. When testing to see if we could restore from these images, we got the error "Cannot locate backup sets on machine, etc."I moved the backup folder to the root of the drive, and made sure it was WindowsImageBackup or whatever the default is, but still could not find it.
I was using my desktop like normal then an error came up saying that there was a hdd failure, and that i needed to scan for errors. all my files disappeared and only this error would come up. There would be hundreds of the same msg spamed on my screen. I scaned my hdd for errors using my Bios/Advanced options and no errors came up. I decided to take out the hdd and put it into my External Hdd bay to hook up to my laptop to extract the data off it.When i hooked it up to my laptop it showed up empty. I went into folder options and clicked on show hidden files and folders. Everything came up but it was grey/transparent. I then copied the files to another hdd for backup.
Then i formatted the hdd and put on a fresh new OS. Id like to mention i have a second internal drive that i use for backups but it wasnt backed up recently when this issue happen so i had to take out the main drive and use it as an external to back up onto another external drive.so then when i click on my second internal drive after the reinstall of the new OS it shows empty i have to go in and show hidden files and folders.. now they show again transparent. also i plug in my external to get the recent back up and all those files are still transparent when i move them to my desktop that is freshly OS installed they are still grey/transparent and i have to keep the show hidden files and folders to view them.. so its all my music, pics, documents etc they are all greyed out..i tried to copy my backup IE favs into my new IE browser and they wont show up because they are hiden it shows it copied to the favs folder but in ie i cannot view them if that makes any sense.
I just backup files to an external HD and a second internal HD time to time. Then I get new pictures and designs and need to make up backups of those. Is there a good system that backs up only the new stuff? Many are corel files and some folders are pretty big to backing stuff up yet again takes a lot of time and space.
YOU MUST DO A CLEAN INSTALL. There is no upgrade path. There are user migration tools you can use, but you will need to backup your files and do a clean install. I have seen several threads about this and just want to clarify. The upgrade from Windows Vista is a valid upgrade path, but Windows XP to Windows 7 is not.
I deleted these before knowing they are necessary for removal of a service pack. Would system restore or an Aronis image of the system be better to recover these?
Running weekly backups through the Task Scheduler; periodic checks always show task completed successfully; discovered that "completed successfully" doesn't necessarily mean "completed correctly"; checked in Control Panel >> Backup/Restore and discovered that Windows reports my last 4 backups are not complete...there were files missing. Missing files belong to a hidden user account created for irrelevant purpose. Hero computer tech finds/edits registry to remove hidden account and backups now runs correctly.Problem: I now have 4 backup files that are incorrect and I don't know if that will cause any problems if I forget about their condition and choose to back up to one of them in the future.
Backstory: My computer decides to crash on me while browsing some site, and it failed to startup after that. After many tries of getting it to work through system restore/system repair, it still would not load up. I then see an advanced option of restoring to the system default, with an option of saving all personal data such as files and documents. After this successful reinstall, I have a huge folder (190 gigs!) worth of my old files sitting in a folder named 'Backup' in the C: drive, all on a fresh version of Windows 7 (ie: default programs and icons like internet explorer). I have tried running Windows' Backup and Restore application, but the aforementioned backup drive does not show up. Is it possible to transfer everything back?
tl;dr: restored old comp to system default, (with an option to save personal files/programs, all in a new folder C:/Backup) but can't figure out how to move/replace this system default back to my old setup.
i bought windows 7 ultimate 32bit because my girlfriend has a different mother languagewell i have always update , so i download and update every hotfixescan i get rid of the backups after the updates?i find that link-> Windows 7 SP1 Disk Cleanup Toolthat suggests -> Code: dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded now that article talks about remove the hotfixes after the sp1i did not update sp1 , i will do soonbut now i have lots lots of backups due the many paches/hotfixes installedcan i get rid of them ?
I have a large number of image files on my C: Drive. 337,000 files. Many are duplicates. I want to back these up to a new drive and edit them there. Is there a way of doing this with Windows 7 backup? Or some other free backup utility?
I frequently backup files for other users and start w/ a new clean OS. I tried looking for some articles online, but none were really informative for me - wasn't what I was looking for.
I was wondering if I could get some help here. Doesn't really matter the OS, mostly XP, Vista, or even Windows 7, but I guess the file structure btw. Vista and Windows 7 arn't really much diff.
I'm trying to restore files from a Vista backup into 7, but, once they're restored I can't find them.
It only affects files that were in the various 'my documents', 'my downloads' etc folders on my Vista install - files from other partitions etc restore fine.
It seems as if the files are definitely being restored somewhere, because if I restore them again I get 'would you like to overwrite these files' dialogs. I've tried searching for the filenames after they're restored but they don't appear. I think maybe it's possible that 7 is restoring them under a different user (although my user name on 7 is the same as it was on Vista).
I'm considering going from vista to windows 7 (32 bit to 64 bit which I have checked is possible on my laptop).However, I have a couple of programmes on my current laptop which I have lost the disks for (e.g Microsoft Money) or I bought and downloaded from the site e.g recovery software.Given I need to do a clean install, is there anyway of me being able to backup these programmes and then reinstall with windows 7?
