Cursed Ghost Haunting my Data
July 11, 2009 11:54 AM Subscribe
Any alternatives to Norton Ghost for fbf recovery?
I've been using Norton Ghost 14 to create backups of several important folders full of random information on my C drive (where my OS and installed programs are stored) and saving them to drive D.
Late last night disaster struck and I had to format C and re-install the OS. So I awoke happy in the knowledge I had all the good stuff backed up. It turns out recovering large folders full of information is a total nightmare in Ghost. I use the "recover files and folder" option since the recovery points were lost in the format.
The backup is stored as one large folder (File Backup Data) with many other smaller folders (labeled such as fbfFiles_0cb) which each contains a number of fbf files. When I attempt to import backup data from the main folder it spends a while reading but ultimately fails. If I try to import from just one of the smaller folders of fbf files it seems to work (and since the data seems to be spanned it seems to import more data then whatever was just in that particular folder).
This is where the real frustration begins, instead of having a nice list of folders/files that have been backed up I have to do a search for what I want to restore. Now I don't exactly remember what specifically I had backed up, so I'm already going to be missing some data just by virtue of not remembering the details. But to make matters worse, where I do remember the folder I want to recover it doesn't seem to provide any way to recover entire folders.
Say for instance I want to recover my folder "webwork" which in itself has 10 sub folders each with hundreds of files in them. If I search for "webwork" it shows that folder, but doesn't seem to offer any way to recover the whole folder, instead I simply have the option of drilling down into some of the subfolders. But if a subfolder has a lot of files in it Ghost tells me something along the lines of this search returned too many results, narrow down your criteria.
I can't imagine any way I can possibly backup the data I need in this manner.
So the bottom line is that I'm hoping that there exists other software that can read and backup fbf files such as created by Ghost, and do a much better job of the whole affair. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks much!
I've been using Norton Ghost 14 to create backups of several important folders full of random information on my C drive (where my OS and installed programs are stored) and saving them to drive D.
Late last night disaster struck and I had to format C and re-install the OS. So I awoke happy in the knowledge I had all the good stuff backed up. It turns out recovering large folders full of information is a total nightmare in Ghost. I use the "recover files and folder" option since the recovery points were lost in the format.
The backup is stored as one large folder (File Backup Data) with many other smaller folders (labeled such as fbfFiles_0cb) which each contains a number of fbf files. When I attempt to import backup data from the main folder it spends a while reading but ultimately fails. If I try to import from just one of the smaller folders of fbf files it seems to work (and since the data seems to be spanned it seems to import more data then whatever was just in that particular folder).
This is where the real frustration begins, instead of having a nice list of folders/files that have been backed up I have to do a search for what I want to restore. Now I don't exactly remember what specifically I had backed up, so I'm already going to be missing some data just by virtue of not remembering the details. But to make matters worse, where I do remember the folder I want to recover it doesn't seem to provide any way to recover entire folders.
Say for instance I want to recover my folder "webwork" which in itself has 10 sub folders each with hundreds of files in them. If I search for "webwork" it shows that folder, but doesn't seem to offer any way to recover the whole folder, instead I simply have the option of drilling down into some of the subfolders. But if a subfolder has a lot of files in it Ghost tells me something along the lines of this search returned too many results, narrow down your criteria.
I can't imagine any way I can possibly backup the data I need in this manner.
So the bottom line is that I'm hoping that there exists other software that can read and backup fbf files such as created by Ghost, and do a much better job of the whole affair. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks much!
Response by poster: Well, that's good to know in the future, since I shant be using Ghost again =)
posted by Jezztek at 1:56 PM on July 11, 2009
posted by Jezztek at 1:56 PM on July 11, 2009
No firsthand experience, but it sounds like the trick might be that you have to choose Import Backup from the File menu, and perhaps delete the backup catalog as you get bits back/it starts complaining.
Myself, I'd make another backup of those .fbf files/folders first before doing too much tinkering. (And, I use Jungle Disk for backups - offsite, plus an absolutely simple/fast interface for restores).
posted by bemis at 4:03 PM on July 11, 2009
Myself, I'd make another backup of those .fbf files/folders first before doing too much tinkering. (And, I use Jungle Disk for backups - offsite, plus an absolutely simple/fast interface for restores).
posted by bemis at 4:03 PM on July 11, 2009
The point of Ghost is to be able to create a backup image of the entire drive. The pick and choose function is to eliminate things that you don't want to back up. When disaster strikes, you are able to replace the hard drive, boot up the PC with the boot disk, and restore the computer that way.
If the D drive is on the same physical drive, you aren't backing anything up. You are just making copies that will be just as gone when the hard drive craps out.
posted by gjc at 5:05 PM on July 11, 2009
If the D drive is on the same physical drive, you aren't backing anything up. You are just making copies that will be just as gone when the hard drive craps out.
posted by gjc at 5:05 PM on July 11, 2009
Response by poster: If the D drive is on the same physical drive, you aren't backing anything up. You are just making copies that will be just as gone when the hard drive craps out
It's not the same physical drive.
posted by Jezztek at 9:36 PM on July 11, 2009
It's not the same physical drive.
posted by Jezztek at 9:36 PM on July 11, 2009
Response by poster: No firsthand experience, but it sounds like the trick might be that you have to choose Import Backup from the File menu, and perhaps delete the backup catalog as you get bits back/it starts complaining.
Yeah, I'm using the "import a backup" from the file menu. When I pick the whole set of backup files the import fails, when I pick just one subfolder of backup files it appears to work but It doesn't actually restore the files, it just adds the list files to the internal database which you can then search through for individual files (but in my case since I'm trying to restore whole folders, all my searches produce too many results).
posted by Jezztek at 9:40 PM on July 11, 2009
Yeah, I'm using the "import a backup" from the file menu. When I pick the whole set of backup files the import fails, when I pick just one subfolder of backup files it appears to work but It doesn't actually restore the files, it just adds the list files to the internal database which you can then search through for individual files (but in my case since I'm trying to restore whole folders, all my searches produce too many results).
posted by Jezztek at 9:40 PM on July 11, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
It may open fbf files but I doubt it.
posted by Yorrick at 1:28 PM on July 11, 2009