I need to extract single files from a windows backup file (*.dat) without unpacking the whole backup file. I have been told that such a program exists, but I don't know the name of it or where to get it. I have serched download.com extensively and have not found it. If anyone has a helpful hint short of installing a second hard drive and unpacking it therem please let me know.

What version of windows are you running?

Sorry i forgot to mention it, it's a XP Pro system with an athlon 2800+ and 256 of DDR. plenty of resources for whatever i need to do with it.

And you created these .dat files using microsoft backup? Microsoft backup files are usually .bkf files.

I created the files with the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. they're named things like IMG00001, IMG00002 and so on. none of the files are larger than 2GB, it starts a new file when they get that big. in explorer, it says it's a DAT file.

Ah ok.

You should read the info here:

http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/fast.htm

I'll do that, i'm goign to call them today and see if i can get that program. thanks for the help

I just got off the phone with microsoft, and they told me that fastconv is not a microsoft product and that I should search the microsoft knowledgebase and newsgroups which I have already done. If anyone reading this thread has the program, please let me know.

You had them reference the internal Knowledge base article called Fastconv?

FASTCONV is an unsupported utility.

See: <http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/fast.htm>

It is unsupported, but everything I read states that you need to get the file from microsoft.

Ah, MS operators!

When one poses a question and most of the MS Ops see in the KB that
it is an unsupported program or utility - that's the end of it for them!

I've even gone to the point of calling in on different shifts trying to get
an individual to extend themselves ever so slightly. No Joy!

Dealing with a similiar problem an acquaintenance had several months
ago, we just opted to expand the file onto another drive and extract the
files she needed to acquire. But that is the hard way to do it I guess.

Have fun!

I am not that familiar with this utility. Is it possible to expand these dat files to another drive that has enough capacty or will using that utility automatically overwrite system files?

"I am not that familiar with this utility. Is it possible to expand these dat files to another drive that has enough capacity or will using that utility automatically overwrite system files?"

I too was unwilling to take that risk, so I temporarily slaved an external drive to the PC
that I wanted to extract the files from, transfered and unpacked them, and then extracted the files individually that the the lady wanted to retrieve. (20 minutes of work after several days of exploring, asking questions, and playing games with MS inept phone operators.)

I did copy it off to a file on a Linux partion of a hard drive to extract the files.

Damn that seems to be outside brionbastian's scope of what he wants to do. Brionbastion I would call microsoft again and give them the name of the internal knowldge base article and tell them they are supposed to provide the file.

thanks for all the help so far guys, i was beginning to think MS just hates me. the operstor told me that it was unsupported, not that they don't provide it. If it comes to that, I will install a temporary second drive and expand the files there, but i'll have to install XP on that drive too to do it. It's just a big pain. Fastconv is definitely not available publicly anywhere. I've found 2 programs named that, but they're unit sonversion utilities. I may try calling a few more times before i go to the slave HD option.

go get symantec ghost server. the trial version never runs out and you are only losing a few features that you will most likely never use. you can make a ghost of your system then use ghost explorer to browse the backup

seriously? that works? i never thought of anything like that. i'll let you know if it really works in this case.

I just tried to install Symantes Ghost, and it told me that it couldn't be installed on 95, 98, ME, or XP?? then what can you install it on? just 2000? but that was a good idea, if anyone has another one like that, let me know.

This problem has been solved, one of mmy friends finally got fastconv from someone that's had this problem too. Don't know where he got it. But anyway, i have to now and it works incredibly well. to download it yourself, go to:

http://www.geocities.com/bbacle2003/

spread the work that it's publicly available now and maybe we can rule out one more XP quirk. it comes with instructions too. Thanks a lot to everyone who helped.

Excellent.... thanks for the tip. Now we can hgelp others who may run into this in the future.

Have you used the program? Has it done what you needed?

Yes I just used it today and it works incredibly well. you can uncompress a 2GB file in about 30 minutes. It puts all the extracted files in whatever folder you want them in, and in exactly the same way they were before the backup. Now... if anyone has drivers for a Sony PEG-NR70V PDA, Sony seems to have quit supplying them. I know that's an unrelated question but I thought it was worth a try.

Thanks from me too Brion for digging that out.

I'll not have to slave a drive again (maybe).

For those who used FASTConv.exe:

I'm trying to use it to extract some corrupted stores, but when I get the command line correct it gives me the message, "Access is denied".

Have any of you encountered this? Or know what I might be doing wrong?



Thanks.

Are you logged in as an administrator? I am not sure if that makes a difference, but may need to be an administrator for that program.

Yes. I'm running WinXP; my account is Admin status, I even tried restarting in safe mode to use the Administrator account. Nothing works. I input my the command into C-Prompt, but tells me "access is denied". I don't know what to think. I don't have too much experience with DOS prompt, and I'm doing everything it says to do in the FASTConv instructions.txt notepad document.

Maybe koan can explain it a bit as I have zero experience with it

hrm...ok

you used Fastconv ...did you have to do anything which wasn't mentioned in that instructions file which came with it?

bump.

Yay!!! Thanks so much for uploading this utility, I immediately go and spread the word on many many forums about this where people have the same problem and can't get the utility. I called MS myself so many times they told me most of the time there is neither a public nore internal KB that says anything about a tool called fastconv. I am usually a MS fan but here they really made some CRAP lol, they should put this utility up for public download. If no one minds it, I'll up it on a few save mirrors too

Best Regards
Chris

MC when you run the program does it automatically fgive you access denied or only when you are trying to access the store?

it actually turns out I was typing the wrong thing into the C prompt

I talked to a friend of mine who knows DOS and neither of us could get any files back. We got the tool working, and it even extracted all the files, but it would stop there and not "restore" any of the files. Just for fun I used the FAST wizard to backup another computer and when I ran FASTConv on it, it worked just fine.
I think my TRANSDB database file is corrupted. My understanding is that this file is like the map to each of the compressed files inside the store, and if the map is scrambled, then the files are lost and I am TS (totally screwed).

Someone mentioned using Norton Ghost to make an image of the system, and somehow this might be able to crack the encrypted FAST stores. Do you or anyone else know anything about this/if it would work?

I think people were recommending the ghost program as alternative backup. Sorry to say I am pretty sure it will not be able to access fastconv files.

damn. damn damn damn damn damn.

for all that microsoft is you think that they'd at least have some sense to try and address this issue. Alas


looks like it's time to make a sarcafice to the God of Hard Drives.

I tried using this utility last night, after trying a bunch of different commands, (I don't know if I was typing in the right one), and this morning it had errored out. Can you please tell me what to type in? I have all of my settings from my old hard drive that I can't restore, which is now formatted. Thanks in advance for any and all help that you can give me.

Yes, I have at least 60 GB on my c: and d: drives. I have been trying to use the FASTConv Utility.

what commands have you tried putting in? Have you tried this one?


use the following command at a command prompt (where <files_to_include> are the files that you want to extract, <files_to_exclude> are the files that you do not want to extract, <source_store> is the source store, <destination_store> is the destination store, and <temp_store> is the temporary store):

" fastconv [/v] [/i:<files_to_include>] [/e[:<files_to_exclude>]] /s:<source_store> /d:<destination_store> [/t:<temp store>] [/k] " (without the quotation marks)

It looks like my thread has turned into quite a discussion. I've never used Norton Ghost myself, but i have talked to a few people that say it works, to make an image of the backup file, then uncompress it. I have no personal experience with that, so i con't say if it does work or not. Fastconv is a very basic program and I would guess that if you had a password on your computer when you backed it up, that would make it a whole lot harder to unpack your files. As far as your scrambled map file thing, I really am not a programmer, so I can't help there.

i managed to solve my FASTConv problem and get all of my files back. I think i can help you, but first i must know something.

Where are your file stores (the large .dat files that the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard created) stored? on an external HDD?

Q: brunt: Have you tried winrar?

A: Yes, actually, I tried that last night and it doesn't seem to want to accept either on of my .dat files. Is there anything extra that I have to do besides just unpacking the .dat files?

Q: MC427: I managed to solve my FASTConv problem and get all of my files back. I think I can help you, but first I must know something.

Where are your file stores (the large .dat files that the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard created) stored? On an external HDD?

A: They are stored on both, I copied them over to the C: drive, but they were on the internal D: drive as well. I just copied them over to the C: because I thought that the D: was the prob. However, when trying to use the FASTConv, I have been trying to unload them on the C: drive. Any suggestions? Thanks to you both, BTW.

alright: I managed to get every last file and or setting out of my stores about 2 weeks ago using FASTConv. It works, trust me. What you need to do is this:

-Run the FAST (Files and Settings Transfer) wizard again, even though it will eventually crash

-While it is running, it will create a folder in the root of your C drive called "temp". this is where it stores all the individual .dat files before they are "restored". In order to see this folder you will need to disable "hide protected operating system files" in the Folder Options menu (Tools-->Folder Options). Once you have enabled this view setting, sit back and wait for the FAST wizard to get as far as it gets.

-once the wizard gets as far as it does, go into that "temp" folder in the C drive and there should be several folders, ranging in size from multiple GB to only a few KB. You are looking for one called "TRANS". inside this folder is a .dat file called "DB". copy this file to your desktop.

-Now, make a copy of that DB file and rename it TRANSDB with the .dat extension. The TRANSDB file is the key to your success. Think of it as a map to all your files. In my case, FASTConv would extract the TRANSDB file, but not recognize it. Hopefully, you'll be able to manually get it to recognize TRANSDB.

-Once you have TRANSDB, run FASTConv again. Be sure to specify a valid Temp folder, as well as source and destination folders. Aim FASTConv and just the folder where your stores are, and not at an individual store. I don't know why, but it works this way. As FASTConv is going, it will create a bunch of .dat files from the file stores and place them in the Temporary Directory that you specified. Copy BOTH the TRANSDB and DB files into each and every directory that FASTConv makes. This includes every folder in the Temp directory. When FASTConv is done extracting, it should recognize the TRANSDB file, whether it's named TRANSDB or DB, and restore your files.


Depending on how many files you have, it could take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Keep in mind that this was what I did, and it worked....but something may be different with your situation. Give it a shot, and if it doesnt work let me know.



A few tips for using FASTConv:

--FASTConv is a DOS utility. This means that it is just a segment of code that you must tell the computer to use in a certain way. It helps if you do everything from the root of your C drive (meaning you have your source files, temp folder and destination there). That way it's jsut less to type at the command prompt.

--" fastconv [/v] [/i:<files_to_include>] [/e[:<files_to_exclude>]] /s:<source_store> /d:<destination_store> [/t:<temp store>] [/k] " (without the quotation marks)

This is the command line they (microsoft) tells you to use, but I got it to work using something like:

fastconv /i:c:\USMT2.UNC /t:c:\temp /k

The [brackets] around the different arguements as well as the < > marks are just there to throw you (or at least me) off. Disregard them...they are only to signify the different parts of the switches. <files_to_include> should really just be the direct path to the folder where your source store files are located (e.g. c:\USMT2.UNC). This same rule applies to the other switches too.

-Try everything twice. Even if you don't think it would ever work, try it.



Hope all of that is some help

Hello MC427,

I just want to say thank you for all of your detailed help. I think that I was missing the key, which was the TRANSDB. I am at work, but I am going to try it as soon as I get home. If nothing else, this was a learning experience. Thanks so much, in advance. I will let you know how it goes.

sure no prob.


I had the same problem as you and I went out of my mind trying to solve it. I hope you get your files back

SOL, I guess. Thanks to everyone for all of their help!

I got EVERYTHING back, Finally! I am very happy now. I had almost given up. Thanks to everyone for their help.

BOOYEA

I am having the same problem and Microsoft wasn't that understanding as I hoped they would been, since they caused all this mess.

I ran 2 backups with this wizard and none of them worked when I tried to restore everything.

I downloaded FastConv, but I have no idea how to use it.
I unzipped it and ran it(by pressing on it.). It poped up a small command prompt window and dissapeared again, and created 2 small files.

Having a hard time understanding the instructions in the site I found, http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/fast.htm , I opened my command prompt in Windows (my Dos window I think..) , and tried to write that line I was given.

But I only got a message saying that it couldn't recognize the command fastconv.
I have never used dos before so I really don't understand this.
I tried type this:
fastconv /i:d:\backup\USMT2.UNC\IMG00001.DAT .
And this : fastconv [/i:d:\backup\USMT2.UNC\IMG00001.DAT].
And some others where I included /d: and /t:
But none of them work. The same message came, invalid command. (I have Norwegian Windows Xp Home)

Can anybody help me fix this. I have a lot of emails and stuff which I need to get back, and the situation isn't looking good.

- kmbergem

You must type and enter the commands from the same exact directory that the fastconv.exe is located

Sorry for being slow at this, but what do you mean?
I have opened my folder USMT2.UNC and inside that I have my 2 IMG files, 1 status file, and the FastConv.exe file.
The I open the command prompt from the Start Menu and try typing it again, but still get the same error.
Difficult to understand what your meaning, since I am really bad with all this Dos.
I would really appreciate it if you could be more spesific.
Thanks.