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Restoring files with onecare RRS feed

  • Question

  • I have been trying to restore files to a new computer from my attached  external hard drive .

    The problem that I am am having is as follows

    When I select restore files it shows the C drive and also the D image drive and there is no way to select just the c-drive ,so naturally it displays that there is not enough space on the D drive, so it can't complete the restore to the C-drive. 

    How do I go about restoring to the C-drive only and why is it listing both locations with no option to exclude the image drive .

    I would greatly appreciate any help that you can give me in order for me to complete the restoration.

    Thank's,
    Thomas Roughan
    tmr01906@hotmail.com  
    Monday, June 22, 2009 7:51 PM

Answers

  • As I said, try changing the drive letter for the D: drive via Control Panel/Admin tools

    I've never been a fan of OneCare backup. It works well in most cases, but has quirks like the one you have encountered.

    Don't pull your hair out over it yet, though. If changing the drive letter doesn't allow you to proceed, contact support for help.
    -steve



    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare & Live Mesh Forum Moderator
    • Marked as answer by Kelltom Tuesday, June 23, 2009 3:40 PM
    Tuesday, June 23, 2009 1:24 PM
    Moderator
  • Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this. I seem to recall a workaround that another user found - they went to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage Management and changed the drive letter of D: to be something else. Then, when running the OneCare restore, since there is no D: drive, OneCare will restore everything from the old D: to a \OneCare Restore folder on C:\. You can then manually move the files to their final detination using Windows Explorer.

    There are two alternatives.
    1. If you have the old PC still available, connect it to your router and use Windows Explorer to copy the files from the old PC to the new PC after Sharing the hard drive on the old PC.
    2. Manually extract the backed up data using WinZip or similar compression program and rejoin the parts of larger files that were split by the backup process. If you desire to use this painful method, let me know.

    And the final alternative, of course, is to contact support for assistance.

     

    How to reach support (FAQ) - http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onecareinstallandactivate/thread/30400b52-7f26-4ba0-bc18-17e305329d90

    -steve


    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare & Live Mesh Forum Moderator
    Monday, June 22, 2009 11:59 PM
    Moderator

All replies

  • Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this. I seem to recall a workaround that another user found - they went to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage Management and changed the drive letter of D: to be something else. Then, when running the OneCare restore, since there is no D: drive, OneCare will restore everything from the old D: to a \OneCare Restore folder on C:\. You can then manually move the files to their final detination using Windows Explorer.

    There are two alternatives.
    1. If you have the old PC still available, connect it to your router and use Windows Explorer to copy the files from the old PC to the new PC after Sharing the hard drive on the old PC.
    2. Manually extract the backed up data using WinZip or similar compression program and rejoin the parts of larger files that were split by the backup process. If you desire to use this painful method, let me know.

    And the final alternative, of course, is to contact support for assistance.

     

    How to reach support (FAQ) - http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onecareinstallandactivate/thread/30400b52-7f26-4ba0-bc18-17e305329d90

    -steve


    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare & Live Mesh Forum Moderator
    Monday, June 22, 2009 11:59 PM
    Moderator
  • Thanks Steve.

    I don't have the old computer.
    The old and new computer had Vista Premium O.S. and are 64 bit systems

    I  have done restores before and have never encountered a situation like this ,I still don't know why when the original backup was done, why it also included the small image drive, as this drive as labeled the D  drive is never used as a drive to perform a backup to.

    The part that I find difficult, is when I select restore all files not presently on this computer and when you select ok ,it comes back with the options to restore to the user accounts ,in this case there are three of them.

    The choices given are to restore to the following user accounts ,the proper names of the accounts are listed and when you select ok it now scans and compares the information to be restored .

    The next step is when it displays the user accounts you have two options 
    First option  -restore to user accounts 
    Second option to restore to c/ restore folder.

    Selecting anyone of these choices, the results are  the same.

    I understand that the image drive which is about 10 gigs when backed up can not restore to the new image drive which is about the same size ,with just two gigs available.

    This is all that is preventing me from restoring the missing files.

    Thanks,
    Thomas Roughan
    tmr01906@hotmail.com
    Tuesday, June 23, 2009 12:48 PM
  • As I said, try changing the drive letter for the D: drive via Control Panel/Admin tools

    I've never been a fan of OneCare backup. It works well in most cases, but has quirks like the one you have encountered.

    Don't pull your hair out over it yet, though. If changing the drive letter doesn't allow you to proceed, contact support for help.
    -steve



    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare & Live Mesh Forum Moderator
    • Marked as answer by Kelltom Tuesday, June 23, 2009 3:40 PM
    Tuesday, June 23, 2009 1:24 PM
    Moderator
  • Steve,

    Thanks the information on changing the drive letter. It solved my issue on restoring the files. 
     
    I did change it back to it's original drive letter upon completion of the restore.

    Thanks again for your help,

    Tom Roughan

    tmr01906@hotmail.com   
    Tuesday, June 23, 2009 3:39 PM
  • Excellent! Glad that this worked for you and thanks for confirming.
    -steve
    Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator
    Tuesday, June 23, 2009 7:07 PM
    Moderator