WINDOWS Backup & Restore utility not recognizing my backup file

huskertsunami said:

mjf said:

I use but admit both Windows imaging & file/folder backup are not robust in auto locating backup data sets. A corruption of a small MediaID file is all that is needed.
I experimented a little and find this procedure works for me.

How to Manually Recover Windows file/folder Backups

This will retain your original directory/folder structure.

1) Right click your file/folder backup named like "JONES-PC". Select Open and choose a backup set folder eg. "Backup Set 2011-06-23 194949".
2) Double click to open the Backup Set folder. You will see a number of Backup Files folders eg. "Backup Files 2011-06-23 194949". One will be large and be the first main backup of the set. The other folders will be smaller and be subsequent incremental backups.
3) Open each "Backup files " folder and there are your backup .zip files. Start with the large "Backup file ..." folder.
4) Create a recovery folder somewhere (say a data partition or an external drive).
5) Install 7-zip so that it appears as a right click option.
6) Highlight one or more of the .zip files and right click select 7-zip.
7) Choose "Extract files...". Under "Extract to:" browse to your recovery folder.
Ensure "Path mode:" is set to "Full pathnames". Select ok.
8) Do this for all .zip files in each of the "Backup files..." folders.

That's it.

An advantage of the Windows file/folder backup is that the zip files don't form what is called a spanned set like many other backup programs so they can be individually recovered.

The above procedure seems to work. I am in the process of executing it.

I executed the procedure & in the most part it worked reasonably well, but there are a large number of .ZoneIndentifier files & other file extension files remaining. Also, any files above 200Mb are splintered & essentially need to be spliced together by the procedure described by:
Backup - Manually Extract Files from in Vista & Windows 7

This can be labor intensive if there are a large number of video files. So getting the WIN 7 BACKUP & RESTORE utility working would be preferable.


I conducted further experiments & have finally been able to replicate the behavior. I created 2 backup files on 2 separate partitions. Then on 1 of the backups I deleted the mediaID.bin file. I then transferred both backups to another computer via REMOTE connection. On the 2nd computer I copied the 2 different backups to an external hard drive on 2 separate partitions. I then connected the external drive to the 1st computer & started up the RESTORE procedure. The utility recognized 3 out of the 4 backup sets. The 1 backup set it did not recognize was the 1 on the external drive which has the mediaID.bin file. The other backup on the external drive is the replica of the backup on the 1st computer from which the mediaID.bin file was deleted.

So now I surmise that the mediaID.bin file for the 1 case has been rendered obsolete through this process. How can I rectify this? Simply deleting the mediaID.bin file did not result in detection of this 4th backup set. The MARCH, 2013 backup set still has its mediaID.bin file & deleting it now will not resolve the situation.

If I do not hear from anyone in the next couple of hours I will initiate a new thread to reduce the clutter.

The WIN 7 BACKUP & RESTORE problem I had is now resolved! To reduce clutter refer to the following:
Trouble restoring backup sets due to mediaID.bin