Urgent - Restore windows Programs and settings

Hi Singnetsvc

If you have not taken any image of the hard drive and your system had Bsod by replacing any file to the new system
will not retain any of the programs because when you install the program the registry had to be updated

Rupesh Krishna

You can only retain the data not the application or programs

You probably can restore the image do a different partition on the HDD, but before make sure you create a different windows Name, Then on windows copy the non-existed files on the existed Windows directory, the same thing goes to the Program files directory, But note that this will not make all the application works, only some of them as others will require some DLLs to be installed and registered by windows which is too Hard to do ..!

We have a ghost image of the whole operating system and we want to restore as much as the programs as possible to  another system which has just been setup with a base os.

The BSOD is refering to 0x00000037  which is some type of inaccessible boot device so restoring the files is not a problem, we just cant restore th actually hardware spcific drivers  and boot options from the old system.

We have successfully resoterd a computer to a virtual pc image before by using the NTBACKUP, but in this case the problem is due to the ghost image and more possible, disk drivers or signatures. So it is possible

Alan.

Hi Singnetsvc

Sorry man i missed the point that you had the Image if you have the image no matter if its a different PC use that image
and then replace the hal.dll by updating it

If you restored the image copy of windows/ program files / Docs & settings to different partition and then copy them, but don't replace any other files to the new system then I guess some but not all of them will work...!

I have tried this on many systems, some applications gives an error related to a missing files and others have missing registry keys..

So i don't think that all of them will work, specially the Big programs such as Corel draw,, Office,, Photoshop..etc

I have spoken to one of my collegues who has explained how applications are installed. I will attempt to restore the folders

c:\documents and settings  ( User profiles and program settings )
c:\ Program files  ( Obviously the program files
c:\ windows\system32\config  ( registry files )
c:\ windows\system32  ( may cause issues, but some programs dump there files in here )

This should allow the operating system to launch and still allow the programs to launch. a Fix on teh system should remove any conflicting files and settings.

Lets hope.  Any Ideas?

Don't attempt to replace any files during the copy process to these directory ..! Good idea but for sure not all the applications will run ..!

I don't see it happening because your not restoring the registry at any point which holds key info on how the programs run/act.

Am I getting this right
You have a ghost image from a pc with a different chipset and you basically can't use it on the new pc due to the chipset/drivers?

Sounds like your best bet (especially if it's urgent and worth alot of $$$) is to find out what chipset that old pc had and get another pc with that same chipset, reload the image and you should be back up and running in a few hours.

Ok, I was unable to restore the image, even when we obtained a pc which we belived was the correct architecture.

Thanks for all the help

For anyone interested, below are the steps we used to transfer a live machine to virtual pc, which should also work for live machine transfers. Just dont use Ghost.

Requirements
•      Backup Media
o      DVDRW-Drive
o      Tape Drive
o      Secondary/Removable Hard drive
o      NAS
•      Machine with virtual pc install including SP1
•      Virtual PC image with Same OS as the host Live Machine

Special System Requirements
The User must have administrator access to all three operating systems, including any remote backup locations
3.      Backup – Live Machine
3.1.      Pre-Configuration
To reduce any issues from the operating system transfer, it is recommended to remove any non essential services and start up items. To remove these startup items refer to 6.2 Removing Services and Startup Items
3.2.      Creating a Backup
Before creating the backup of the host operating system it is recommended that you close any running applications and stop any hard drive intensive services. To create the backup of the host machine follow these steps

•      Open the Start menu
•      Browse to All Programs >Accessories >System Tools >Backup
•      Click the Backup Tab
•      Select Local Drive (C:)
•      Select System State
•      Click Browse at the bottom left of the Page
•      Browse to the folder that you will create the backup to
•      Enter the name of the backup in the File Name box
•      Click Save
•      Click Start Backup located at the bottom right of the page

4.      Restoration – VPC Image
4.1.      Restoring the Backup
To restore the backup to the Base OS VPC follow these steps

•      Open the Start menu
•      Browse to All Programs >Accessories >System Tools >Backup
•      On The Welcome screen Select The Restore Wizard
•      Click Next
•      Click Browse then Browse again to locate the backup file
•      Click Open then Click OK
•      Expand the list on the Items to restore in the left box
•      Select The C: Drive and system state files
•      Click Advanced
•      Ensure restore files to is set to  original location
•      Click Next and confirm Overwrite
•      Select Replace Existing Files ( bottom of list )
•      Click Next
•      Unselect Preserve Existing mount points
•      Click Next then Click Finished

4.2.      Fixing the Boot Records
4.2.1.      Loading the recovery console
Launch the vpc image and follow these steps before the operating system loads

•      On the virtual PC console window click CD located at the top of the window
•      Click Capture ISO Image
•      When prompted click any button to load from CD
•      When the menu appears, Press R to load the recovery console
•      Enter the number of the Windows operating system listed ( Usually 1 )
•      Enter the password for the local administrator account to logon
4.2.2.      Repairing the Operating system Startup

•      On the recovery console Type Bootcfg /scan
•      Type Bootcfg /rebuild
•      Type Y and Press ENTER to add the Windows location to the startup profile
•      Type Windows under Enter load identifiers
•      Type Windows (Repaired) under Enter OS Load option
•      Type cd system32
•      Type expand d:\i386\HALACPI.DL_
•      Type copy HALACPI.DLL HAL.DLL
•      Press Y and ENTER to confirm overwrite
•      Type Fixboot
•      Press Y and ENTER to create a new boot record
•      Type Exit to restart the image
5.      Cleanup
5.1.      Initial Startup
When the operating system starts up for the first time, it will automatically detect the hardware of the virtual pc application. (This may take some time depending on the services and startup items still running on the machine.
The mouse will not load on the first Boot. Once the hardware has been installed, the mouse will load on next reboot. The keyboard is required to control the operating system at this time. If the keyboard will not function, wait for the hardware to install and restart the image by selecting action on the vpc console, select close and select shutdown windows.
Restart the VPC operating system

WARNING – DO NOT RENAME OR SYSPREP THE IMAGE AT THIS POINT.
If the vpc image is connected to the network, duplicate name errors will appear. However renaming or sysprep’ing the image at this point will cause further problems and may make the image unstable.
Disable the network by following these steps
•      Click Edit on the VPC window
•      Click Settings and Select networking
•      From the drop down list Select Not Connected
5.2.      Disabling Services and Startup Items
Disabling none essential startup items and services will increase the performance of the VPC operating system. It is essential that all disk utilities and services are shutdown including, ghost, antivirus and disk monitoring tools.

•      Click Start
•      Click Run
•      Type msconfig (not available in windows 2000)
•      Click Selective Startup
•      Click the Startup tab
•      Unselect all non essential startup items (Note that none of these startup items are actually required)
•      Click the Services Tab
•      Unselect any non essential services. Unselect all third party disk utilities (Antivirus, ghost, etc)
•      Click Apply
•      Click Close
•      Click Restart when prompted

5.3.      Installing VPC Additions
VPC Additions should be installed for better support of the virtual pc operating system. To install the VPC additions, follow these steps
•      Click Action on the vpc window
•      Select install or upgrade virtual machine additions
•      Click Continue
•      Click Next on the install wizard
•      Click Finished
•      Click Yes to restart

IMPORTANT   A Backup of the virtual PC image should be taken before proceeding with the following steps. To backup the image copy the *.vhd to another location on the hard disk
5.4.      Fixing any disk errors
It is recommended that a disk check is run on the disk to remove any errors that have occurred during the restore process. To check the disk, follow these steps
•      Open the Start Menu and Select Run
•      Type cmd
•      In the Dos prompt Type chkdsk /f
•      Type Y and Press ENTER to run the scan when the computer restarts
•      Restart the computer to run the scan

5.5.      Correct the Windows Startup Entry
When restoring the image startup entries the windows location was reclaimed and renamed to allow the operating system to boot. The start up item can now be renamed and cleaned up to start the correct Windows OS startup Location. To do this follow these steps
•      Right Click MY computer located on the desktop
•      Click the Advanced Tab
•      Under startup and recovery Select Settings
•      Click Edit
•      Locate the following line “multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Repaired" Windows”
•      Change the text to rename “Repaired” to “Windows XP Professional” ( Or other OS )
•      Delete any other references to windows location. Refer to Example below

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Repaired" Windows
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

CHANGED TO

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional" Windows
This line was deleted as it point to wrong locations ( Partition 2 )