Okay folks, I'm in a hellacious jam here and I'm looking for assistance.
This past weekend the motherboard on my PC decided to croak, because the motherboard was 4 years old there was no way to get another one, leaving me no choice but to get a new one, along with a new CPU & memory.
I do backups of my entire system, so the data is there, but because the MB & CPU are different now, theres no way to do a full restore from those backups because the O/S expects certain hardware to be there and it isn't anymore (Thank you Windows XP :angry: )
The bottom line is I have the programs, but I need a way to get the data from the backups to be recognized by the programs (The two biggest issues being Outlook 2003 & the mail/calendar files and Firefox 2.0.0.9 and all my passwords)
In short HELP!
NefCanuck
ANTHONYD,Nov 7 2007, 10:36 AM Wrote:Buy a Mac.
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Still cheaper to fix a PC than to buy a Mac ;)
NefCanuck
Buy a second hard drive install a new copy of windows on it and use your old drives as your secondaries (slaves).
Install all your programs again and copy your cookies and password files into the new IE or Firefox folders.........do the same with outlook.
Then go buy a mac
Google for a BKF file explorer that should let you go in to retrieve the PST files at least for the email stuff. As for Firefox, I actually have no clue. I use MozBackup for everything... my Thunderbird profile and all my email, my Firefox settings and bookmarks, etc.
Otherwise, assuming you WERE using Windows Backup (NT backup), you should be able to at least mount the backup file with the Restore wizard and retrieve only the files you want. Google "Firefox profile path" to recover the files manually that you'd need to recover your Firefox settings.
In the future, I recommend MozBackup wholeheartedly for Firefox / Thunderbird. It's a damn near-bulletproof app for preserving tricky email and Internet settings and stuff.
Thanks for the suggestions so far (aside from buy a Mac, I work for a poverty law clinic, can't afford that :lol:)
My backup software is DriveXML and I have a copy on CD so I can install it to grab the files, I just don't know where the cookies/password files are stored in FireFox.
Oh gods... reinstalling my mapping software for my GPS... that's gonna be as fun as watching the Leafs getting pasted last night was :(
NefCanuck
Yup, a second hard drive is your best option.
I recover PC's as a side line and have done this kind of recovery numerous times.
Need a new/used video card for your new mobo?
I've got a nice 7900GTX waiting for you, lol ;)
Firefox keeps all your setting here by default:
"C:\Documents and Settings\*******\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\"
Replace de ****** with your profile name.
Same situation happened to me a few weeks ago, ended up picking up an external enclosure up to store a hdd from another puter to use for backup, luckily the drive that died on me was a backup (somehow I'm happy this was the case... even though I formatted and reloaded the OS as it hadn't been done in over four years). And I'd like to note, this was the first Maxtor hdd to die on me, never have I seen one die other than at a shop I worked at back in highschool... so from now on, WD for life.
/ end rant.
Hope you get all the backups to work for ya Dan!
Well, now I'll technically have three drives. My original 180GB (now slave) a new 500GB (master) internal and a external 500GB USB drive where the backups are located.
As to teh vid card, sorry already grabbed an 8600 GS OC ;) (Wanted DX10 compatability)
Thanks for the tip on Firefox though.
NefCanuck