Please follow this email chain between myself and our friend Karl AKA ATA.
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ME
Here's the scenario....
Backed up info off old laptop to external HD.
During XP install I saw two identical drives...nuked the first partition and tried to install. XP said no. Nuked the 2nd one...XP allowed the install. JOY!!!
You know where this is going don't you.....
Anywho...it turns out XP is able to see external USB HD's and I nuked the MBR on the drive. Do you know of any freebie tools to recover the data on that drive? I have my bosses personal stuff on it and a lot of my own personal stuff too....and the drive states that it needs to be formatted....
HELP ME Obie-ADMIN, You're my only hope! :-D
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Karl
Sorry it took so long ive been in windows mobile hell today.
Do not let it format! Knoppix live cd wll fix you right up.
You will be able to see and copy everything even without the mbr.
Let me know how it goes and if it doesnt work i might have some other apps
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Me
I bought a tool to recover the drive....but.....I have a BKF file on
there that is corrupted now....any idea of any tools that are freebies
to be able to recover those files? I suppose I can get the bosses CC to
buy a tool to do it...but I'd rather not.....
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Karl
What OS is the BKF file from? What os are you restoring to? What is the error message?
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Me
Win2k Pro. It is saying that the BKF(windows Backup file) is not valid or something to that effect....
I am running a scandisk on it....we'll see if it goes. I downloaded a demo of a $ product and I could see the data in the file, but I cannot get at it without paying.....
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Karl
Are you restoring to w2k as well? Did you use msbackup or ntbackup to compress it?
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Me
NTBACKUP to create it. Tried restoring on Win2k server and XP.
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Karl for the win
I'd try to restore on 2k pro but if that doesn't work check this out:
Backup Exec has the ability to read .bkf files. You can download the trial
version and use it for 60 days for free.
If you go to the "Tools -> Options -> Catalog" menus, there is a check box
labeled "Use storage media - based catalogs". If you remove the check from
this checkbox and run a catalog job on the bkf file, you should be able to
recover any files that are not corrupted. The catalog operation will take
longer to complete, but you should be able to restore any valid file within
the .bkf, before and after the corruption. Its hard to know how much
corruption there is in the .bkf file, so I wish you the best of luck.
This link will give you instructions on how to import a bkf file into the
program for restore. Before performing step 6. (The catalog operation),
follow the steps above. http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/241600.htm
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Grateful Me
Dude......you rock.
We use BE and I never thought of trying it. Thanks to you I was able to restore....get this.....ALL OF IT.
Rock on Detroit....Rock on Chicago...NAPA, it's the auto parts store. (If you don't know what this is...do a Youtube/Google search on Wesley Willis)
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So what have we learned today?
- 1. NEVER, EVER leave a USB HD attached to XP on install and NEVER, EVER nuke a drive unless you are 10000000% certain you have the right drive.
- 2. Karl rocks and has great ideas.
- 3. NAPA, It's the Auto Parts Store
--A Grateful Slothman
