Thinkpads Forum

Hello all! I'm glad I found this forum. I bet you guys will be able to answer this one easily.

How can I restore files from a backup created by a previous installation of ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery? ( R&R )

In other words, I have an external HDD which contains the backup files, and I want to transfer some files over to a factory defaulted system. (The computer had to be reloaded using recovery discs).

Just run Rescue & Recovery and do a restore from the folder with the backups on the old drive. The restore routine will ask you for the location of the files. Point it to the folder on the old drive with them. It will have to be attached via USB or Ultrabay. This may get dicey if you are running a different version of R&R on the new drive vs. the old one, so keep that in mind.

Okay, I used to be able to access R&R from within the Windows environment, but since I reloaded the factory image using R&R v4.2, now I don't see it in Windows anymore. I can still press the "Lenovo Care" button during POST to enter the R&R workspace, but it won't recognize when I connect the HDD via USB. I got a message that says if that happens, you need to restart the computer with the device already connected. If I do that, I can't get into the R&R workspace though. It just restarts while R&R is loading! At the time that it restarts there is a message that says "Configuring your system... please wait." I don't remember that message coming up when the device isn't connected, just a message that says, "please wait while services are being initialized..."

I don't understand what is going on here, because this is a brand new factory image, or "clean install." This is very frustrating to know I have backups of my files, but I'm unable to access them because they're in some proprietary format. Why is R&R making this so difficult?! If it was Acronis, I could simply mount the image and browse my files normally. ARRRGH!!! HEEEEELLLLP!!!