still learning Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Hello, I have this box that used to be vista, the owner said vista asked him if he wanted to back up his files one day and he said yes. So he gave me these 3 dvd's, the first 2 are about 1GB each, and the last one is I think around 500MB which are suppose to be his backed up files. My questions are does it matter if he backed them up on vista and I try to restore them to a win 7 system? He bought a brand new PC from best buy and after 3 or 4 months the HD died, so best buy sent it to the manufactor and they replaced the HD for free but did not install any OS. So now I have his vista back up (vista came with the computer but no cd incase of a crash, just key on the box) and after the HD crash he bought win 7 to upgrade and wants to restore the backed up files he made before the crash to win 7. I took a screen shot of the files on the CD, it does not look like anything I have seen before and all the files on each DVD look like the same files /structure pretty much.. what do you think? thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netshroud Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 That doesn't look like a standard Windows Backup backup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
still learning Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 Any ideas on what kind of back up this is? the owner of the computer knows nothing about computers and cant tell me the name of the program he used to back up the files. He says the computer asked him if he wanted to back up his files and he clicked yes and backed them up onto dvd discs. Maybe some kind of program that is bundled with new computers? It was bought at best buy and is a compaq presario sr5710y I think it used to have synamtic anti virus, possibly that is what asked him to back up files? /me gets to googling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netshroud Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Considering that HPCD file, I thought it was HP. Most of the files there are common with Windows PE. Then there is that folder, PC-Doctor for Windows PE. My guess is that the program was PC Doctor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
still learning Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 I was thinking PC-doctor until I looked at dvd 2 and 3.. they look exactly the same (No pc-doctor folder on these ones). I opened 2 of the files in notepad [imghttp://img709.imageshack.us/img709/1680/disc2.png[/img] please let me know if you need another screen shot or something to help me figure this thing out :) thanks for your help Psychosis! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netshroud Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 what's in 'HP' and 'Preload'? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
still learning Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 heres a pic of whats inside those dirs.. and within the apps dir a dir called dta which looks like it has a data list of some sort in there that says [APPS] APPS\APP01013=0 APPS\App01013.dta=0 APPS\APP02708=0 APPS\App02708.dta=0 APPS\APP02947=0 APPS\App02947.dta=0 APPS\APP06834=0 APPS\App06834.dta=0 APPS\APP12819=0 APPS\App12819.dta=0 APPS\APP14341=0 APPS\App14341.dta=0 APPS\APP14508=0 APPS\App14508.dta=0 APPS\APP17529=0 APPS\App17529.dta=0 APPS\APP18389=0 APPS\App18389.dta=0 APPS\APP19751=0 APPS\App19751.dta=0 APPS\APP21120=0 APPS\App21120.dta=0 APPS\APP21930=0 APPS\App21930.dta=0 APPS\APP22938=0 APPS\App22938.dta=0 APPS\APP31123=0 APPS\App31123.dta=0 APPS\apps.log=0 actully all of the files in the HP dir only total 40kb they look like reference data files or something from what I understand a *.wim file is this "File-based imaging format introduced with Windows Vista; allows a single disk image to be deployed to multiple computer platforms; files such as drivers, updates, and components can be managed within the file without booting the operating system image. WIM images may contain multiple disk images that can be mounted as new volumes within Windows; they can also be made bootable, which means a computer can boot from the disk image." so are these suppose to be a boot image discs? is this really what the back up discs that win vista creates look like? *confused* I back up my stuff differently and this is new to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 It looks like the machine he received was one of those that doesnt come with an install disc, and these are probably a sort of restore setup that will put Vista back on the machine with all the drivers and pre-loaded crapware that came with the machine. My laptop came with something similar, and there was something in the start menu to make my restore discs, which took 3 dvd's to back it all up. I imagine that it is something similar from the oem, and not something to restore backed up files per say, but a backed up system install to day one of the purchase. Check this out: http://4sysops.com/archives/how-to-mount-a...-windows-vista/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
still learning Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 Digi-P, exactly.. when he first got the pc it had no windows disc with it (it was allready installed). I will try to boot those discs from BIOS to see, even though I dont think his music files will be on the back up files. He had a music collection of his favorite songs which he thinks that he backed up during this 3 dvd disc process.. but I think is impossible because there is only 1GB of info on each of the 3 dvd's, unless it is compressed on each dvd disc at most, each disc when I hit properties says around 1GB. Probuly is what you said with a bunch of crap-ware.. I will read more into your link tommarow, very busy day so far, have not had time to read more on it yet but have it bookmarked for tommarrow. thanks for your help again man :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 I'm with digip on this one. It sounds like all he did was create the "restore cds." I had to use 3 dvds to "backup" my acer when I had it, all that did was create some dvds that I could use to restore the original OS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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