XP Mode Recovery help please!

To make a long story short, my entire system became unbootable and I need to recover some additional data from my old drive. By loading one of the drives (broken RAID 1) in an external enclosure, I was able to use another computer to recover all the data except for what I had installed and saved using XP Mode.

After a lot of research (not too tech savy, learning by doing, here), I found out that XP Mode saves all the info to a .VHD file and that only certain programs are able to read it.

I was able to recover the following files from the old drive:

Windows XP Mode base.vhd (1,184,290 kb)
Windows XP Mode.vhd (13,116,804 kb)
Windows XP Mode.vmcx (2 kb)
Windows XP Mode.vmc (15 kb)

I have reinstalled the OS (Win 7 Pro) and XP Mode, and I would like to attempt to load the recovered files onto the reinstalled system.

Are there additional files I need from the old drive (still have it if need be), and do I even need to copy all of these files to the new system, or only the largest (which I assume has my programs and data)? Do I attempt to load the file/s from a Win 7 desktop folder, or do I copy it/them to the XP Mode desktop, or should I copy it/them over the file/s currently installed in XP Mode?

I hope I have explained this okay and it is not too confusing. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! Its been a troublesome day.

Thank you!

Reading some more, it looks like the XP Mode base.vhd is the same on all computers, so it seems like if I just copy the "recovered" Windows XP Mode.vhd over the newly installed file of the same name, it should be good to go.

Am I understanding that correctly?

Hi Amric, welcome to the Seven Forums.

You can forget the base vhd, vmcx and vmc files. Rename XP Mode.vhd (do not change vhd extension) you recovered, move the renamed vhd to C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines.

Then just create a new virtual machine. Choose Use existing virtual disk, and choose your recovered vhd.

That's it.

Kari

Thank you for the reply. If I copy the recovered Windows XP Mode.vhd over the existing one, and reopen XP Mode, will it open with the recovered info (ie. the previous programs and data)?

I'm not sure what you mean by "create a new virtual machine".

How to create a virtual machine: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8254-windows-virtual-pc-create-virtual-machine.html.


I would recommend this method. However, if you want to replace XP Mode already installed on your computer you will also need the vmc and vmcx files.


Try this:

• Replace existing C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Mode.vhd with your recovered one (copy original first to a safe place)
• Replace these two existing files with your recovered ones (copy originals first to a safe place):
  • C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Mode.vmc
  • C:\Users\Your_Username\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Mode.vmcx
• Delete these two files (notice: they must not exist, but if they do, delete):
  • C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Mode.vsv
  • C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Mode.vmc.vpcbackup

I'd rather create a new vm as I told earlier, but you can try this.

Come back to tell how it went

Kari

Thank you Kari!

I would have tried your suggestion, but I had not seen your reply and due to lack of knowledge (and patience) I did this:

I saved the newly installed XP Mode diff file in a separate location and replaced it with my recovered one. I did not change or replace any of the other files. I then re-opened XP Mode, which opened showing desktop icons from the recovered .vhd file. A new window also opened telling me an update was available with three icons, one of which was a setup file. Flying by the seat of my pants at this point, I ran the setup utility and the update installed by itself, closing the window and leaving me with the XP Mode desktop. I did not take notes on the update, so I do not know exactly what it did, but it seemed to want to do it, so I let it!

I ran my program and backed up my data so I have now achieved that goal. Thank you for helping with that!

My only other question is regarding the stability of continuing to run XP Mode with the recovered vhd file. Based upon what I have done, is it safe to assume that XP Mode will be stable moving forward, or should I uninstall and then reinstall XP Mode and then reinstall my programs and restore the data backups again? Obviously that would be a lot of additional work, but I will do so if you think I have compromised the integrity of the system by what I have done.

Thanks!

You are safe to go, no need to reinstall. Happy to hear you got it working.

Kari

Thank you!