Major problem with my data backup - I need help
My PC and laptop got hacked awhile back, the hackers somehow managed to get into my online banking and got me for $1350. I'm pretty experienced with Windows - I've built my last 5 desktops. But this hacker issue was way out of my league. A guy from an Anti-Hacker forum helped me get my desktop cleaned up to the point where I felt it was safe to do a backup (actually 3 different backups) then I formatted the drive - just to be on the safe side.
I did two backups of just my data partition - one with Acronis 2016 and one with Paragon Disk Manager suite. I got windows 10 reinstalled, and my data was also restored. Then I did an Acronis Image backup of my computer with the good clean Win 10 install and my data.
My hard drive crashed. Long story short, Western Digital replaced it. I just did a clean install of Windows again and planned to just restore my data. Nobody would believe this - but my external Western Digital drive has gone bad. It's failed every test. When I try to access any folder/file on the Passport Ultra external, it just hangs. But I have to have that data. It's most of my photos and a lot of other important data back to 2005 in some cases. My Windows install I did is running very slow, so I thought I would just try to restore the image of my whole system when it was up and running good. I did a Windows repair on the Passport Ultra, so I'm going to try to restore my data to a secondary internal drive. If that works, I want to restore the full system Image to my WD replacement drive. Sorry this is so long, but a lot of events have occured.
My Acronis Boot DVD (which is what I used to make the image backups) won't boot up anymore since this reinstall of Windows. I installed Acronis 2016 on my PC after the recent install of Win 10. I tried using the options from the menu to restore, and it acted like I wanted to do a backup. It found the backups right away, but it just kept trying to backup my backups. Truthfully, I don't think I'd ever used the menu items to do a backup - I've always used the boot media. I downloaded Acronis from the WD site, and it's Acronis 2015!! I couldn't believe it. So I have 2 questions: Will 2015 restore an image made with 2016?
Next question, since I'm afraid to trust the data integrety on the bad Passport, Could I install the complete image on my new WD internal drive without knowing what the partition sizes were at the time the image was created? I could format the hard drive as one partition - if I did that would the Image of 2 partitions restore properly? (All things considered)
Man, I thought I was being so extra safe by making 2 backups of my data and one full system image. Who would think I would have my External Passport AND my WD Black Internal drive both fail within a month of one another??!!
Thanks for any help. I can still reinstall Acronis 2016 and make another boot DVD. I've just spent soooo very much time messing with these 2 PCs, I'm wanting to be done so I'm trying to save a little time.
Hey Steve,
Thanks for the advice. But if I can recover my data from the Passport,, I want to try to restore the FULL backup I did. This windows install has not gone well, my system is very slow, etc. So can you answer my question about doing an image restore on a drive that is different from original?
I have 2 partitions now, and I did on original drive. But I'm sure they aren't the same sizes. So if I decide to restore the full image, does it matter how its partitioned?
Should I just partition as one 1TB partition, restore image? And if I do it that way will Acronis put the 2 partitions back as two, like they were on the image?
So many questions. So many problems. I've had my share of rotten luck on the tech front.
Thx again
Next question, since I'm afraid to trust the data integrety on the bad Passport, Could I install the complete image on my new WD internal drive without knowing what the partition sizes were at the time the image was created? I could format the hard drive as one partition - if I did that would the Image of 2 partitions restore properly? (All things considered)
The answer to all of that would be YES.
HOWEVER... based on your bad luck, and just being cautious, if there is anyting you want to preserve on the internal WD drive, if you have any other drive to test with first (or use instead), that would be my suggestion. Always better to test on a disk you don't need/want (or use instead of the original for practice first) instead of working with the only source/copy of original content "as is" unless you have absolutely no cares if somethign else should go wrong.
If you have taken a full disk image and restore that full disk image to another disk, as long as the content will fit on the new drive, it will restore everything exactly as teh original - all paritions and data. You don't even have to format the drive or do anything to the disk you want to restore to first (although it certainly wouldn't hurt).
The ONLY thing you need to make sure is that you boot the reocvery media in teh same manner as the original OS was isntalled. The reason being is if your original OS was GPT/UEFI adn you boot the media in legacy mode instead of UEFI, then Acronis will format the drive in legacy mode and the restored image won't boot. You can never go back from GPT/UEFI to legacy. However, you can "usually" go from legacy to UEFI, but to keep things simple and have the best success rate, keeping them the same would be ideal. If/when that works, you can then try to conver from legacy to UEFI if your system supports UEFI and you're up for trying.
Well bobbo, looks like great minds do think alike. ???? I bought a new Seagate external drive yesterday so I could do exactly what u suggested. And yes , I said Seagate. I've been around the block a few times and have used Seagate and WD both quite a bit. But the past few years ive been loyal to WD. Now… after 2 supposedly high end WD drives failing after 3 months on the internal and I think 5 or 6 months on the Passport Ultra, ive decided to give my business to Seagate. PLUS the Wd Black internal drive was replaced a few months ago, and then the replacement failed just a week or so back. While I'm on my high horse ????, WD support was terribly incompetent on the internal drive replacement.
One more note. I have an external Seagate Free Agent 500GB external that is 8 years old and i still use it. Not for critical data, but I run diagnostics on all my drives regularly and that old Seagate is always rated high.
Now, back to my Acronis questions… I don't really want to restore my full image on my new drive and then have to copy 350 odd GB to it's permanent home ????. If it restores ok to the new drive, I'd like to do the restore again to the WD internal. Then if anything seems out of place, will I be able to copy the data from the new drive to WD? I'm thinking no, that it won't work with windows.
For that matter, once I restore to the new USB external, will I be able to start Windows 10 from the new external?
Man, I feel like I have quite a bit of knowledge and experience until this hacker attack and dealing with backups that are shaky at best, 2 iffy drives… I've never had to deal with this kind of mess before. ????
Sorry for venting so much. It's just been a tough year.
Thanks again for the words of wisdom.
ckbeme
If it restores ok to the new drive, I'd like to do the restore again to the WD internal. Then if anything seems out of place, will I be able to copy the data from the new drive to WD? I'm thinking no, that it won't work with windows.
For that matter, once I restore to the new USB external, will I be able to start Windows 10 from the new external?
If your restore goes ok to the new drive, then it would suggest that the same could be done to the WD internal, assuming the integrity of that drive is good - run a CHKDSK /R before attempting the second restore. In terms of copying data - is this separate to the backup being restored? If so, how is it getting on to the new drive in the first place?
You cannot boot Windows from any external USB drive - this is a Microsoft restriction to not permit this, so if you need to try to boot the external drive, you would need to remove from the USB caddy and install it in place of the original WD internal drive.
Hi Steve,
This is almost too complex, too many factors to discuss in a forum environment. We amost need a conference call. As far a copying the data vs restoring the data, I just figure it will be faster to restore than to copy data because the backup is compressed - isn't it?
And if I was to copy the complete restored data from the Seagate to the WD internal, I didn't know if that would work with Windows and all of its system files. So I figured I would have to restore the Acronis full image to the WD. Another option I thought was to copy the Acronis backup files to the new Seagate, and restore to the WD that way - once I felt the WD was behaving and passed the intergity tests.
And after thinking about it and looking at my notes, when I did those backups, I remember I couldn't get the Acronis boot CD to boot in UEFI mode. I tried it a few times - no go. So I thought, maybe I forgot how it needs to boot. And my mind has been really frazzled since the hardware and hacker problems. Anyway, I did the Acronis backups in legacy mode. I do have a backup of my Data partition that was done with Paragon on the system - I didn't use boot media to do the backup.
You guys say I might be ok going from legacy to UEFI, but I'm thinking I might be better to just try to restore my data with Paragon and do a new Windows install. Yeah, I might get lucky and the Acronis restore will work - but I don't feel very lucky right now.
And if I was to copy the complete restored data from the Seagate to the WD internal, I didn't know if that would work with Windows and all of its system files.
You cannot just copy system files from one drive to another, there are too many which are locked which would make this fail, hence why tools like Acronis need to use snapshot copies using such as Microsoft VSS to capture these files in a given state.
The Acronis backup data has approximately 20% compression applied under normal circumstances, but should be quicker to restore from than attempting to copy raw data.
In terms of Legacy versus EFI (UEFI) - one simple test is to look for the presence of an EFI partition in the backup file - if there is one, then that is how it needs to be booted to work after restore, and how the Acronis Rescue Media will need to be booted to do a successful restore. If there is no EFI partition, then it is a Legacy system. You can check the same for your current Windows 10 install by looking in Windows Disk Management.
See also webpage: Check if your PC uses UEFI or BIOS for further methods of checking this.
You cannot just copy system files from one drive to another, there are too many which are locked which would make this fail, hence why tools like Acronis need to use snapshot copies using such as Microsoft VSS to capture these files in a given state.
Agreed. Plus you'd be missing the registry entries to go along with them, even if they could be unlocked. A restore is the way to go. Copying files would best be suited for static data like pictures, photos, music, documents, .pdf's, etc. Anything that belongs to the OS (and many embedded applications) should not be copied between drives natively and especially not while any OS that is part of the equation is in use.