Windows 7: XP Backup Restore

I had a serious hardware fault on a XP Pro machine which let to me losing a lot of data. I did however do a backup a few weeks back. Now, I have a bought a replacement machine equipped with Windows 7.



Am I able to recover my files to the new machine using the windows XP created backup....? Is one able to restore files backed up in Windows XP

Hello gccr and welcome to Seven Forums.

A couple of questions if I may to clarify some things.
1. Did you use the built in XP backup tool or some other backup program?
2. I seem to recall that after using the built in XP backup tool it prompts you to insert a floppy disk. The software will then write a program to the disk that allows you to boot the system using the disk, and restore your system via a *.bak file. Did you do this? (Probably not applicable if you used some other backup program.)
3. Where did you store the backup files? (ie: XP hard drive, external hard drive, CD, etc.)

Yes, I just used the XP Pro Back Up facility to create a backup file which it wrote in to a remote HDD I'd bought for that purpose. It did everything.

It just asked me where I'd like to put it, so I pointed it to the HDD and off it went. That back up file is now on that HDD which I could plug in via my new machine's USB.

Hmm ... this is an absolute guess on my part. Since the old computer was running XP, this is where you're supposed to find your data on the external hard drive:

• Documents should be in Documents and Settings\<your user name>\My Documents
• Pictures should be in Documents and Settings\<your user name>\My Documents\My Pictures
• Outlook Express mail should be in Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{string of letters, numbers, -}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

You should be able to copy data to the corresponding folders in Windows 7.

However ... it may not work. Since the data wasn't copied to the external hard drive with a simple drag and drop or copy/paste operation, the file path may have changed or file extensions changed. From what I've read, Microsoft has always recommended using Windows Easy Transfer. And I have no idea if WET can be used to read and transfer files that were already transferred from the XP hard drive to a USB external hard drive via the XP backup program.

Windows Easy Transfer - Microsoft Windows

You may have to experiment. I found this advertisement for 3rd party software. DISCLAIMER: Information only. I have no financial interest in the software.

How to Restore XP Backup in Windows 7

some links that may be useful.

How to Restore .BKF files Using NTBackup in Windows 7 and Windows Vista - The Winhelponline Blog

Description of the Windows NT Backup Restore Utility for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2

Thanks for all your pieces of guidance and advice on this. Eventually i found the simplest way was to borrow a mates XP pro Laptop and access the XP back up file on the HDD placed in a remote reader (USB Connected) and restore the files onto the laptop in a separate folder set up for that purpose.

Then, dump the files back onto the remote now in files form.
Then plug the remote into the new Windows 7 PC and grab the files.

http://images.designermediacdn.com/ima...lies/smile.gif

Really daft that one cannot use Windows 7 to restore files directly from the XP backup file.

http://www.sevenforums.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Glad to hear you got it sorted out. And thanks for sharing how you did it. It may help someone else with a similar problem.