Restoring a differential backup after restoring a full system backup
I have Acronis True Image 10 on an HP Pavilion dv6 laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium OS.
I backed up a system full image and subsequently a differential backup. These backups files are on a USB external drive.
Thereafter my MS Office products got messed up and would not load.
Before attempting any recovery I did a system full image backup of the corrupted system.
My plan was to (1) restore the first full system image backup, (2) restore the differential backup, and (3) selectively restore data files from the corrupted system full image backup.
I successfully restored the first full system image backup (step 1 above).
However, I cannot figure out how to restore the differential backup (step 2 above).
What is the proper procedure to accomplish this (step 2 above)?
Given that I can get the differential backup restored, What is the proper procedure to accomplish restoring selected data files from the corrupted full system image backup (step 3 above)?
If restoring the differential cannot be accomplished, can I still restore selected data files from the corrupted full system image backup (step 3 above)?
Thanks for any assistance,
Richard

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Thanks for your response.
I mounted the corrupted full backup and used windows explorer to copy data files that were new or changed since the good full backup. So I believe I am back to essentially where I was when things got messed up.
I believe all the problems were in the registry or the OS program/windows files. Any MS updates will be reinstalled automatically so I am not concerned about them.
Please clarify for me. I understand from your response that rather than restore the full backup I should have just restored the differential backup (which would have included the full backup automatically).
It sure would have saved me 4 days of frustration to have the recovery procedures more clearly stated in the help documentation or presented in the wizard when intiating a restore task!
Thanks again,
Richard
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Yes, you should have picked the differential archive for your first restore. It would have automatically restored the full backup, then applied the differential.
Disk/partition backups are "image" backups where disk sectors are read instead of files. When a differential backup is done, only sectors that have changed since the full backup are in the differential archive. The differential archive *must* restore the full before it can know how to apply the changed sectors in its own archive.
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Richard W Stewart wrote:Thanks for your response.I mounted the corrupted full backup and used windows explorer to copy data files that were new or changed since the good full backup. So I believe I am back to essentially where I was when things got messed up.
I believe all the problems were in the registry or the OS program/windows files. Any MS updates will be reinstalled automatically so I am not concerned about them.
Please clarify for me. I understand from your response that rather than restore the full backup I should have just restored the differential backup (which would have included the full backup automatically).
It sure would have saved me 4 days of frustration to have the recovery procedures more clearly stated in the help documentation or presented in the wizard when intiating a restore task!
Thanks again,
Richard
Much of the lack of clarity is due in a large part to the fact that it is a translation from Russian to English. Likewise for the wizard.
Glad to hear you are "back to square one".
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Out of curiosity when restoring from incremental backups do you start with the last increment you want and it automatically restores the full backup and all increments up to the one selected?
Or do you restore each in order starting with the full backup?
I guess I assumed restoring starting with the full backup and then needing to restore the differential afterwards based upon the discussion in the help file of the need to restore each incremental backup versus only needing to restore the final differential backup.
Clarity in documentation without example procedures is seriously lacking.
Many thanks ... we live and learn!
Richard
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With incrementals you start with only the latest one that you want and again TI will know that all the other incrementals up to the Full are in the chain so to speak and will restore all.
This is different from doing differentials where TI needs only one differential and will restore that one and the Full.
Read the Sticky at the top by GroverH - you will find answers to many questions you might have, and it is written in easy to understand english.
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