Problem restoring to C:

[Lintking]

OK, hopefully somebody here can help - and I hope this is the right forum. The problem I have isn't exactly the Roxio program's fault, I don't think, but it is an error.

 

Briefly; I took my laptop in for repairs (power issues, probably not significant to my current problem, except that, indeed, they replaced the harddrive while it was there), and paid for the store techs to make a backup before it went. (I hadn't been able to, because, well, the computer wouldn't turn on anymore.)

 

It seems they used the Roxio software to do it, and from what I've found reading these forums, I believe EMC10 (or some EMC, at any rate) is the program they used. All I know for certain is that the DVDs I got back have Roxio's "Launch_Retrieve" program on them, though.

 

The *problem* is that when I try to run the Retrieval, if I set it to "Restore to Original Location," it comes back with "Could not create target file `D:\[filenames]. Access is denied." Note the drive designation. D: is, of course, my DVD drive; I want it to restore to C:, where everything actually was originally.

 

My assumption is that, since my computer wasn't working when I took it in, they pulled the drive and plugged it into another, more functional, computer, to get the data off; on this other computer, it was probably designated as Drive D. But within the limited options of the Launch_Retrieve program, I don't see any way to fix it.

 

I can retrieve most of it if I send it to an "alternate location", but the backup process seems to have created a stack of subdirectories to keep everything in - so I *cannot* get it to build directly up from C:\. At a minimum, it creates a directory called "[My Name]\[NTFS]\" and puts everything in there. I haven't been able to checkmark just the deeper subdirectories in the stack to have it restore those without first building the ones I don't want. I have two problems with this kind of restoration. One) My drive was pretty packed when I took it in - that's why it was worth paying for the backup. So I don't seem to quite have room to do the full restore into subdirectories, even with just the basic, nearly-empty system that came on the new drive. Two) I'm familiar with computer use, but not the real technical aspects; I *don't* know how to move all those fiddly little bits back into the right places to have my settings where I wanted them, rebuild my start menu properly, etc.

 

I've tried using diskmgmt to redesignate my drives, hoping I could just call C:, D:, and have it put things back there, but apparently it's still a pretty strong convention that the boot drive has to be C...

 

 

I'm using Windows XP, on both the old and new drives. "Professional", apparently - I'm not *positive* that was true before they replaced the drive, but probably it was. Computer is an AMD Turion 64 Mobile. I don't own any Roxio software.

 

Essentially, I suppose what I'm hoping for is one of; a way to redesignate where the Retrieve_Launch program will put things so that it actually builds up from C:\ directly, OR a way to trick my computer into treating C: as D: so that the Retrieval can build it the way it thinks it should and still end up in the right place, OR (and this seems the most likely) some advice on an easy way to move everything - especially those obscure little bits that I'm generally not even aware of - back into the right places after doing the Restore into a subdirectory (like the My Documents\Roxio\Retrieve one that it defaults to.) The drivespace problem I can presumably get around by restoring as much as I can in the subdirectories, moving everything to the right places (overwriting the `extra' stuff as applicable), and then relaunching the last disk and getting whatever didn't come out the first time...the software doesn't seem to have any problem with the idea of `starting in the middle', and I have worked out how to restore only parts of a single disk. (Or at least, I've seen that I can checkmark only some directories on a given disk. I haven't actually tried it, since that's not what I want to do at this time.)

 

I'd take it back to the store that did it, but I'm out of town for a couple of days - so, any help would be appreciated! Thanks! (And if there's crucial information I've left out, please just ask - as I said, I'm familiar, but not very technical, so I'm not sure I know what's applicable.)

[james_hardin]

It is never going to do what you think it should. Wrong software for that type of application.

 

It will recover the files, to an alternate location, but you are going to have to put the data where it belongs. Likewise, you will have to reinstall all programs.

 

You could take it back to the outfit that created this, but I doubt they will do much about it. Actually you really made out good with this! In most HD failures, you lose everything!

 

And to answer your data question, NO.

 

It is all One's and Zero's on the disc, but a Word file is "data", whereas the WINWORD.EXE is the Word Program. A Program must be Installed, it will not run by itself no matter where you put it.

[Lintking]

I just wanted to say thanks! I've got things mostly back in place, so while I'll admit that, of course, I'd been hoping there was an easier way - it did help to know that there isn't.

[james_hardin]

I just wanted to say thanks! I've got things mostly back in place, so while I'll admit that, of course, I'd been hoping there was an easier way - it did help to know that there isn't.

You are a persistent person!

 

It is too bad that your shop did not use a HD Image program to copy your old disc over to the new one… They may have felt the old one was not reliable enough to risk duplicating the errors onto the new one.

 

At least you got your data! I lost one HD with no warning which meant all data since last backup was gone.

[james_hardin]

It is not a magical 'make everything OK again, please' type of program. In fact there are not really many backup/recovery programs that are!

 

It will recover the data that it was told to save, but it is up to you to put it where you want it.

 

It will not recover programs and their settings! It only saves data.

[Lintking]

I don't think I'm asking it to be. As far as I can see, they told it to copy everything from the root up; I just want it to copy everything back from the root up, too, if there's a way to do that.

 

I have to admit, I don't understand what you mean about not recovering programs and settings; it's all data, isn't it? There ARE programs on the disks, and they certainly have settings, and it all seems to be there just fine. I just can't get it to put, for example, things that were in "Program Files", back into "Program Files". Clearly it *does* store directory trees in their original forms.

 

If it can't be done, that's OK. If anybody has some helpful advice on how to get things back into the right places (it doesn't have to be convenient), that would be great, too. Some of it's easy, but there are things that I don't know where they go. (Each disk seems to have, for example, a whole mess of little directories with names in hex, like [00A6AA], say - brackets included. They each seem to have from one to three files in them - I don't know if this is something Roxie did, or something Windows does, or...what?)

 

 

Please understand - I don't have any problems with the Roxie software - so far as I can tell, it's doing its job just fine. I think the problem lies in the way the techs made the backup; I'm just hoping for some advice on how to fix that.