Restore complete system from Time Explorer Backup.
I restored my system from the Time Explorer backup to an earlier date as a few files had been deleted at random by some one else using the computer. Unfortunately, the system will not boot anymore after the restore. It looks like all files from the C: drive are gone when I boot using the Windows Install Disk and use the repair option to peek at the C: drive. Only the Users folder is there with a few temporary files.
It appears the Time Explorer only restored files from a snapshot instead of the entire partition as of that date and time.
The Time Explorer files are still available on a separate files. Is it possible to install Windows from scratch and restore the entire system from the CDP files?
Hi Pat,
I opened up TI in Windows 7, explored the snapshots available to me, selected one from last week before the point in time when the unwanted deletes were performed and asked TI to restore the entire C: partition. It started the restore, rebooted the system and then started the restore from a pre-windows screen. It said that it would take 19 hours to complete, but I think it completed the restore in about 30 minutes or less.
After that the system rebooted and it came with a message (not exact) that the hardware or software changes I made prevented Windows from starting normally and that I should attempt to repair Windows from the Install Disk. I booted from the Install Disk and it found the partition, but when I look at the partition, I see nothing but the Users folder under C:. No Windows folder or anything else.
I don't think I have a Recovery CD; at least I cannot find it as I must have created it. :-( I have one in the office.
I still have the disk with the Time Explorer CDP files intact. Is there some way I can restore all the data from those files? If not, can I at least restore some super critical files?
Magigimmix,
Maybe yOu can download a bootable ISO from Acronis.com on another computer and burn it to a CD, then use it to restore. Since you have the backup files, you can use any other computer to restore files from it, using ATI in Windows, or restore an entire partition, using the recovery CD>
Pat,
I downloaded a bootable ISO from Acronis and restored the entire disk using the recovery CD. The process lasted about 3 hours, but at the end of it I had a similar result. Windows was not bootable, but this time there were a lot more files restored to C:. So I decided to copy everything out using robocopy, but it got to documents and settings folder and stopped there. It looks like the restore was not complete again leaving a corrupt file structure.
I am going to try restoring a different date/time to see if it makes a difference. If that fails, I will restore all the files using a file restore. If the file restore works, I will re-install Windows and begin the process of re-installing everything from scratch. Hopefully one of these attempts work. If not, I am going to be in a hard place.
Thanks for your help so far.
MagiGimmix.
Restoring another date and time seems to have worked. I am running a chkdsk now to make sure all is well. I may have lost a few changes, but nothing that I cannot recreate.
Pat - thanks again for your help.
MagiGimmix.
Glad to see it worked out. It looks like your NSB got corrupted at one point, for some reason. NSB is not very flexible (no validation, no control of retention rule, "monolithic" archive, impossible to backup different things separately), so I don't use it. In my mind, NSB is most adequate for fast changing content where version archiving is important, but this use case is pretty rare in my case: I always use straight images for my system and apps, and I use sync with version retention for content (I don't like having content put into proprietary monolithic containers).