Need to get a restore to a boot drive, but not the active boot drive
Base conditions: TI home 2011. Win 7 64. I had an index corruption in the boot partition. Chkdsk "fixed" a whole bunch (I am guessing thousands) of files/folders. I have no clue where it may have logged any of these fixes. I have an older backup of the drive. Done as a partition backup. I want to restore the backup version to a clean disk and then use a compare utility (against the normal C /boot drive) to try to figure out what I need to replace or fix. I realize that this process is problematic; but I am out of ideas. I have a bunch of stuff on the corrupted drive that I don't want to loose.
TI will allow explorer to see backup files, but not other applications. Hence I can't use a compare program to find problems. I have tried mounting the backup disk image as a virtual drive and that did not allow access. I have tried going through manually; but that is getting real real old.
When I go to the restore function in TI, I get to a screen that says "restore". There has been no opportunity to select a destination. I am seriously scared to assume that TI will be clever enough to offer that option after I select it. Screens/messages have been less that clear in this product, as has rational processes. If I destroy the basic C drive things will not go well.
Does anyone have an idea how I can accomplish my objective?
Even if I get the restore to a clean drive, there would then be two drives marked as the boot drive. This is a problem. From everything I have read, I am hesitant to use the rescue disk that is generated from TI. And I have no idea if I can do what I need with that. The PE version may be better but I have not figured out how to make one of those after reading a number of things about how it is done. They are mostly written using terminology and acronyms that essentially render them useless to mere humans. Or at least the ones that simply don't know or care to know this kind of detail to just backup and restore data with a commercial program.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
So is there an option after "restore" to select a destination drive?
Boot from the CD and work your way through the options. First you select what is to be restored and then on a later screen you select the target destination. When booted from the TI Rescue CD, the last screen provides you with an option either to Proceed or Cancel. Click Cancel to prevent the restore process from beginning. Only click the Proceed option if you really want your selected options to be restored.
I was rather hoping to do it from Windows. That is the restore process that ends in restore without allowing a target drive.
When you say the mounted drive didn't allow access, what do you mean? Are you saying you couldn't access the files via the assigned drive letter? Was it a permissions problem? Or were you trying to access files down "dead-end" junctions?
If you don't want to select a target drive you're left with Mounting or Exploring the image and copying the files out.
Does the "fixed" system not boot or run Windows properly right now?
Do you have a current backup image of the drive? If not, consider creating one since it sounds like you're concerned about the posibility of losing it if something goes wrong.