How do I recover files from a previous ThinkVantage backup?

[rmendoza]

Hey everyone,

I will be as brief as possible. I have a T60 and received the "free" upgrade to Vista. I put off using it until this weekend, when I followed the instructions in the Lenovo website, to uninstall some software, make a backup, etc., before doing the upgrade.
Long story short, the upgrade was a nightmare. Several things didn't work, Vista itself seemed to be corrupted or something, and a long etcetera.

In an act of desperation, late Saturday night I decided to follow Bill's sticky's advice, and do a clean install. Needless to say that I used the well-known loophole in the installation process to do a clean install with upgrade media.
In any event, I thought I backed up all my personal files to an outside source (a portable hard drive). Then, Sunday morning I realized that I hadn't copied some important files that were not in the "My documents" folder.

Since I did a clean installation, Lenovo R&R does not know that there is a backup in the network drive.

So, the question is, Does anyone know how to restore files from that previous OS (and previous version of R&R) backcup?

I thank everyone for their help and/or input.

Robert

PS. By the way, after the clean install, Vista, and the Lenovo software work like a charm, no problems at all.

[GomJabbar]

I see a couple of possible ways to get those files. If you have made a Rescue Media CD, boot from that to access your Rescue and Recovery backup to retrieve your files.

If you didn't make a Rescue Media CD when you had XP on your T60, it becomes more problematic. If you had Rescue and Recovery version 4 installed, you should be able to download and install that same version on Vista. After installing you can make a Rescue Media CD. If you did not wipe your service partition, you can repair the boot sector with a Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair disk.

Rescue and Recovery 4.0 by Lenovo

Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette

[rmendoza]

GomJabbar,

First, I thank you for your response. I don't think I wiped out the hidden partition, as my C partition still says that it's only 89 GB, and the Disk Manager says that there is another 4.51 GB partition. I assume that is the hidden partition.
On the other hand, I did create the recovery DVDs almost when I first received the laptop, and I have them ready to go. I will try that.

However, this raises another question. Does this mean that the hidden partition, if I ever need it, will restore my computer to XP Pro? I suspect the answer is yes, but I thought I would ask any way.

Again, I am grateful for all your input and responses.

[GomJabbar]

However, this raises another question. Does this mean that the hidden partition, if I ever need it, will restore my computer to XP Pro? I suspect the answer is yes, but I thought I would ask any way.

If you use the Rescue and Recovery - Recovery repair diskette to repair the hidden partition, you should be able to boot into Rescue and Recovery to retrieve files from the backup that you made previously. If you restore the entire XP backup or if you Restore Factory Contents, then yes, that would put XP back on your ThinkPad.

[rmendoza]

After several attempts, I was finally able to see the backup in my network drive.
I don't really know what happened, but this morning I thought I would give it one last try. I had lost all hope of recovering my EndNote files and libraries. And then, R&R just "saw" the backup in the network drive. I was soooo relieved...

Anyways, I was surprised that R&R was able to detect the backup, even so it was made with a previous version, and the current one is a fresh install, with no reference to the previous OS or R&R installation. I was the more impressed, since just by going to the drive, with windows explorer, I could not see the backup file.

Now I only have the issue of reinstalling WinDVD and RecordNow. But so far I am happy I did the clean install of Vista. I just should have been more careful and not have done it in haste or desperation. But oh well, live and learn.

[GomJabbar]

I am happy for you that you were able to recover your files.

FYI, from the IBM Rescue and Recovery Deployment Guide, Version 2.0 Updated: April 11, 2005.

In this document, unless otherwise noted, the location of the backups are assumed to be in the primary location: C:\RRUBACKUPS. This directory, when placed on a local partition on the primary hard disk drive, is protected by a filter driver that is installed as part of the Rescue and Recovery installation.

[stef-n]

I have almost exactly the same problem as the OP, my backup is located on a network drive but R&R doesn't find it at all. I have tried locating it using both R&R 4 (using Vista) and an old boot disk made when I was still using XP. The backup was made using version 3, so I guess that'd be the best bet, but when I try to "recover files from a network drive" it says that I should insert the last CD/DVD from that partition"? When using version 4 nothing like that happens but it doesn't find any files. This really sucks, I made the backup on the network drive so that I could restore some personal files after the clean install of Vista. I don't know if I dare to continue using R&R, it seems like there are a lot of problems associated with it. Any help would be much appreciated.