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Restore from WinXP machine to Win7

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I apologize if I am asking questions already answered. I have been reading a lot here and haven't found my particular situation.

I have TI v.11. My most recent back up was 7/9 :( I do have a boot CD which seems to start up fine.

(Sorry also for the long explanation - I don't know what's important) Looks like my problems started with a virus which got through my virus protection. Windows XP wouldn't boot any more without the XP disk in. I got Windows working again (only with the Win CD in the disk drive) and reinstalled TI v11. I was able to restore my computer with the backup. Then I tried to update and run virus software (Trend Micro) which crashed. Now I can't even get Windows resinstalled - I'm getting blue screens during Windows setup.

Then I located my Boot Disk. It seemed to be restoring ok for hours and then seemed to freeze. Lights on the external hard drive and computer drive continuously lit for a long time. I powered down the machine and tried again quite a few times. Now, my hard drive is not seen by the boot disk software (at the point where it shows My Computer and where it asks where to restore the backup to. The drive is not there). This despite I can hear the drive spinning.

2 Questions:

1) I tried pulling and reseating the hard drive cables at the drive and the motherboard. Is there anything else I can try to get my drive seen?

2) If not, I'm able to buy an upgraded computer but all the ones I see have 64-bit Win7 and my backup is 32-bit WinXP. Am I going to be able to restore the backup successfully?

Any help will be appreciated by the guy who knows only about enough to be dangerous.

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Carlo,

I'll answer #2 first! :) If the rescue CD is able to boot the upgrade computer and see all the drives then it will be able to recover your 32 bit image to the new machine.

Obviously this will mean Windows 7 will be deleted, unless you perform some repartitioning to have both OS's on the same system.

Pitfalls:

Almost certainly XP will not have the drivers for the new machine so you may or may not get a BSOD the first time you try to run Windows - this depends very much on how different all the hardware is. The good news is that with XP it will be reasonably easy to get everything back minto booting mode if this happens. Just wop in the XP install CD and perform a repair install, this will wipe out the hardware items in registry and re-install the ones that are more likely to work with your new hardware.

Sadly you will lose any service packs and updates that aren't included on the XP install CD you have, they will need to be redownloaded or if you've download the service pack installer(s) then you can run them by mounting your image and clicking on th einstallers. Few people apply their service packs this way so if you haven't then redownload time it is for you (unless you have one of those magazine CD's with the service packs on). All your programs will not be touched by this process.

To perform a repair install requires you to select 'install' after Windows has stopped chunking the hard drive around, you should see a message showing you that XP has found an exisisting OS on the system at which point it will ask you to either pefrom a Repair Install or a new install - select Repair! Do not select the command line repair system option that is the first choice you see when booting from the CD but the Install choice.

Back to #1.

Does the PC BIOS show your drive(s) correctly?

How old or new is this drive that is causing a problem?

When you say boot disk are you referring to the XP/DOS boot disk or the TI 11 rescue CD?

Colin,

Thank you for the detailed response.

At the moment, when I press [F10] for the boot menu, the hard drive shows as an option. But, I am trying to put my Win install disk in and the tray keeps popping out. All I get onscreen is a blinking cursor. The drive is several years old.

Your response brings up another question. If I get a Win7 machine, can I restore just certain files and keep my Win7 OS? The most important things to me are pics, music, financial data. I'd prefer to keep the Win7 OS if possible.

Thanks so much!

Carlo

All data files can be retrieved - no problem there. However, you won't be able to 'drag and drop' any actual programs if they rely on registry entries (and most do). You should also be aware that some programs might need to be upgraded to run on W7, True Image amongst them.

However depending on whether you made a complete disk image or a files and folders backup will make the difference if you don't want to either upgrade to at least TI 2010 or download the trial version of 2011 as you'll need to mount your image to retrieve your data files that includes pictures music etc, unless your image if a files and folders type.

There is the other option of partition fiddling so you had W7 and XP on the same disk, however this is slightly more complicated.

As you have access to another PC, before going too much further it would be prudent to boot with your TI 11 CD and validate your image, just to make sure it is still intact.

This assumes of course that the v11 CD will boot on the system you are currently using.

Bed time now!

Just a thought!

Have you tried performing a repair install of XP rather than an install, if the installer isn't reporting it has found an existing installtion then your drive is well and truly trashed - it could be a disk firmware fault which can be remedied but isn't advised if you aren't of an electronics or computing bent, and you'd need to check on the disk manufactureres website to see if your drive falls into the ones known to have a firmware problem, or all the partition information has become corrupted in which case you need some form of software such as DD11 to see if it can recover the missing partition - here unfortunately the trial version will only tell you if it has found a partition as it won't be able to recover it, only the paid for version would be able to do that.

Colin,

I used the TI v11 Boot Disk on my working laptop and it says the backup is valid. That's good news. I probably won't try a dual partition. If I can restore all files and directories, one of my directories has many of the programs I purchased as downloads. I suspect I can reinstall them. I know I'll lose some programs but you say not everything.

My poor desktop seems to have progressive dementia. At one point, it was letting me do "repair" install but that only seemed to get me out to a shell and then I didn't see much useful to do but chkdsk. In desparation, I did a full reinstall. It was after that that I started the restore described above which ultimately failed. Now all I get is blinking cursor and cd drive won't keep a disk in - it just keeps opening - when I try WinXP install disk or TO v11 Boot Disk.

It looks to me like, unless I want to sink money into a shop trying to get my hard drive "seen " again, I will have to buy a new desktop.

I don't have a problem upgrading to 2011 to get up and running again. When I do, I will have 1) a new copy of TI 2011, 2) a new desktop with Win7 64-bit OS, 3) a TI v11 Boot disk, 4) a valid backup in v11 format (if that's putting it right. What will be the proper steps to restore files and directories to the new machine. BTW, I'm pretty sure I did an image backup. Under what circumstances should I do file - by- file backups in the future?

Thanks for helping me with this!!!!

Carlo