Trouble Restoring Taketwo Cds

[ssg_13565]

I tried restoring a multi-CD data archive written with TakeTwo in Easy CD Creator 5.

 

It got started by asking me for the first disk and then the last. Then the first disk again.

Then it waited for me to issue a request. I selected the backup set and I asked for a

restore from the menu. It let me browse for a destination.

 

It then started asking me to insert different CDs. It never spent more than

30 seconds reading an inserted CD. It seemed to be making progress as we

kept switching from between CD 1 and CD 2, then CD 1 and CD 3, then CD 1

and CD 4. Then it started asking for CD 2 and CD 3 again.

 

We spent 4 hours doing this with no inidication of whether we were making

progress or whether it would ever end.

 

We cancelled the operation. I was never able to get more than a small fraction

of the files from the disks.

 

Roxio support is of no help. When I finally got to talk to a support person, he

suggested IsoBuster. I don't think he understands the problem. I don't think

that Isobuster can decipher a tk2 file type. I don't have individual files on the

CDs. I have a Take Two archive.

[d_deweywright]

I tried restoring a multi-CD data archive written with TakeTwo in Easy CD Creator 5.

 

It got started by asking me for the first disk and then the last. Then the first disk again.

Then it waited for me to issue a request. I selected the backup set and I asked for a

restore from the menu. It let me browse for a destination.

 

It then started asking me to insert different CDs. It never spent more than

30 seconds reading an inserted CD. It seemed to be making progress as we

kept switching from between CD 1 and CD 2, then CD 1 and CD 3, then CD 1

and CD 4. Then it started asking for CD 2 and CD 3 again.

Wow... 4 hours! You're very patient! We must start by determining exactly what you're trying to do. My guess is that you're trying to recover specific files from your T2 archive, not "restore" a disc from it. To do a full restore, you must boot from the diskette and run the Restore application, which will recreate the image from the discs onto your HD.

 

You're apparently trying to open the T2 archive and get to the T2 Explorer, so that you can extract specific files. I can suggest some things that may speed up the process. If you have plenty of HD space, copy the .TK2 files to your HD, and when you start to open the archive, you can point to the different files from the different discs, rather than swapping drives. I believe Take Two will keep track of where you opened the files, and once it recognizes that they're all available at once, it'll stop asking you to insert them. That should make it much faster. If you don't have that much HD space (not really all that much with current drives and a 4 disc backup), then if you have multiple CD drives available, do the same thing. If you have a home network, you can share the CD drive on another system and make that disc available.

 

Unfortunately, all development work on Take Two stopped when Windows XP came out, and starting with ECDC 5.1, Take Two was actually removed when installing ECDC. (You could manually reinstall from an ECDC 5.0 CD.) It was a great backup imaging program, but I've moved on to Acronis True Image. Very similar in behaviour to T2.

 

Good luck!

[ssg_13565]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will give them a try if in fact I am able to copy the two tracks

from each CD by normal windows explorer means. Or is there some other way to

get the raw contents of the CD onto my hard drive?

 

I don't know what words that I can use to convey what it is that I am trying to do.

I'll give it a try. I had a disk partition that contained only data files that I created.

There were no Windows-2000 system files on it.

 

I used Take-Two to write all of the files in this partition onto the 4 CD set.

 

I am now trying to recover all of the files that were recorded onto the CDs.

 

Is there another word that I should be using other than "recover"? This may

be important because I may need to do something else in Take-Two other

than to try to "recover". I think I did try to do a "copy" at one time, but got

similar behavior as I did with the "recover".

[lynn98109]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will give them a try if in fact I am able to copy the two tracks

from each CD by normal windows explorer means. Or is there some other way to

get the raw contents of the CD onto my hard drive?

 

I don't know what words that I can use to convey what it is that I am trying to do.

I'll give it a try. I had a disk partition that contained only data files that I created.

There were no Windows-2000 system files on it.

 

I used Take-Two to write all of the files in this partition onto the 4 CD set.

 

I am now trying to recover all of the files that were recorded onto the CDs.

 

Is there another word that I should be using other than "recover"? This may

be important because I may need to do something else in Take-Two other

than to try to "recover". I think I did try to do a "copy" at one time, but got

similar behavior as I did with the "recover".

 

It occurs to me - you say "CDs" - are we discussing CD-R or CD-RW?

 

Lynn

[d_deweywright]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will give them a try if in fact I am able to copy the two tracks

from each CD by normal windows explorer means. Or is there some other way to

get the raw contents of the CD onto my hard drive?

 

I don't know what words that I can use to convey what it is that I am trying to do.

I'll give it a try. I had a disk partition that contained only data files that I created.

There were no Windows-2000 system files on it.

 

I used Take-Two to write all of the files in this partition onto the 4 CD set.

 

I am now trying to recover all of the files that were recorded onto the CDs.

 

Is there another word that I should be using other than "recover"? This may

be important because I may need to do something else in Take-Two other

than to try to "recover". I think I did try to do a "copy" at one time, but got

similar behavior as I did with the "recover".

Okay, I understand what you want to do now, you're just not using the "Recover" program to restore the partition image to your HD, which, in this case is perfectly reasonable. One of the limitations of Take Two is that if you actually use the DOS program to restore the image, it will create an exact image, including partition size of the original. You probably don't want that.

 

So, copying the files out of the image, using the Take Two Explorer is an appropriate way to go. (At least, I'm assuming you're probably going to a new, larger drive, and you may already have files on the partition you want to recover the files onto.)

 

You should be able to copy the files to your HD since your system wasn't complaining about not being able to read the files during the 4 hour marathon disc swapping session you went through. If you wrote them using the default method that Take Two uses, Packet Writing with Direct CD, it may take awhile to read the files off, but with any luck, it'll work. Myself, I always had T2 write the files to another HD first, then I used ECDC to write the files to CD-R using sessions. They're easier to read (and faster) during recovery.

 

Let us know how you make out!

[ssg_13565]

Thanks for your wonderful suggestion.

 

I have just tried it and it worked.

 

When I spun up a CD, I was able to use windows explorer to copy the tk2 file

to a hard disk directory. The tk2 file on each CD had a distinct sequence number

on it, so I was able to copy all tk2 files to a common directory.

 

I then double clicked on the tk2 file from the first CD. It asked for the last one.

I clicked on "advanced" which said I could choose a new destination. Actually I

was choosing a new source. I clicked on the tk2 file from the last disk.

 

Each time it asked for a particular disk, I went through the same process for selecting

the appropriate tk2 file. Once I told it the location of the tk2 files for the four

CDs, it went ahead and restored all the files without asking me for another item.

 

I have recovered 2Gbytes of archived files.

 

I cannot thank you enough for helping me restore this data. I thought I had lost it all.

 

 

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[d_deweywright]

Thanks for your wonderful suggestion.

 

I have just tried it and it worked.

 

When I spun up a CD, I was able to use windows explorer to copy the tk2 file

to a hard disk directory. The tk2 file on each CD had a distinct sequence number

on it, so I was able to copy all tk2 files to a common directory.

 

I then double clicked on the tk2 file from the first CD. It asked for the last one.

I clicked on "advanced" which said I could choose a new destination. Actually I

was choosing a new source. I clicked on the tk2 file from the last disk.

 

Each time it asked for a particular disk, I went through the same process for selecting

the appropriate tk2 file. Once I told it the location of the tk2 files for the four

CDs, it went ahead and restored all the files without asking me for another item.

 

I have recovered 2Gbytes of archived files.

 

I cannot thank you enough for helping me restore this data. I thought I had lost it all.

http://forums.support.roxio.com/style_imag...icons/icon4.gif

Excellent! I love it when a plan comes together!

 

Thanks for letting us know it worked. I know the multi-disc T2 backup CD shuffle was always annoying, that's why I tried to keep my partitions small enough to fit onto one or two discs. As I say, I've moved to Acronis True Image now.