BleepingComputer.com: can I extract single files from a backup?

EyeBaller, on Jan 4 2007, 11:38 PM, said:

I have used FAST to transfer files to an external HD because I was reformatting my COMP.

OK so what I got was a bunch of 2GB files in usmt2.unc on my external drive e:\
IMG00001.DAT
IMG00002.DAT
IMG00003.DAT etc... all the way through about 16 of them all together 26 GB

I used rmv2opq on them. It seems to have put everything in one giant archive IMG00001.DAT
(BTW I was getting this error each time the program reach a new IMGxxxx.DAT file "The header of the source file is corrupt.
The source file C:\old\usmt2.unc\IMGxxxxxx.DAT is not the right one or the header
is corrupt." but I ignored it since the program continued despite the error.)

Now I am working with that one large 26GB archive with fastcov.exe

I tried to extract the archive using fastconv /s:c:\new1 /d:c:\new2

worked ok for a while. Then I got the "can not read images error" on some dat file. OK so i run it with the exclude switch (/e)

/s:c:\new1 /e:xxxxx.dat /d:c:\new2

I continue in this manner for a while, each time it runs into an error I add the specific file to the exclude switch. works ok for a few files.

BUT now there is one file. 0000356B.dat which fastconv just cant seem to digest. I get the message "skipping decompression for c:\myuser\local settings\temp\0000356B.dat" and the program just sits there. The cursor is blinking but it just gets hung up and wont move past this one file. it excluded the OTHER exclusions fine but when it hits this one it just gets hung up.

ANy ideas? I read this entire thread a few times to get me to this point/. I dont see anything on this erro I am getting...

I've read every thread about the FAST debakel and frankly i'm about to crush this PC.

I keep getting the Source Store is Invalid error regardless of line item and switch entered.

History.... backed up a friends lod work laptop to a removable HDD then transferred the .UNC file to her Hdd and the 1st Windows error is:
the location you entered does not contain... blah blah blah

It does contain the info only in 0001 - 00003.dat files all of which are about 2 gb.

My only concern is she was running SP1 on the old Pc instead of SP2 like the new pc.

I've tried every variant of rmvopq2 utility as well.

Any thoughts?

Much appreciato

D

jrd1mra, on Jan 12 2007, 03:19 PM, said:

I'm having the exact same problem,to a T. The file 0000018FC.DAT is huge. I can't extract it or verify it.
If anyone has a work around or any idea at all it would be great

I'm a computer tech, have been using FAST wizard for quite a while without mishap... until now. Helpful forum. My TRANS/DB.DAT file is apparently corrupt. There is a particular file that fastconv gets stuck on, eventually just erroring out without being able to skip that bad file for some reason. My syntax is correct, rmv2opq and fastconv work correctly with test FAST files, and will correctly skip another corrupt dat file. So I was left with converting and extracting the 2Gb files one at a time. I had hoped that by completely bypassing the corrupt files I would at the end be able to run the wizard with the extracted files - but alas the wizard says no go.

I opened the TRANS/DB.DAT in a hex editor (XVI32 is the name) and started searching for the important files. The naming structure is spaced with NULL (00 in hex) which means if you search for ".PST" (case sensitive) you will find nothing. You have to input your search ".PST", convert it to hex "2E 50 53 54", then insert NULL (00) between each character - so you end up with "2E 00 50 00 53 00 54" as the search string. Once you find the file name take a look around and not very far away will be a .DAT file name. For example, "8-4-06 (1).jpg" was the name of the file I wanted and "0000547A.DAT" was the name right below it. I navigated to the temp folder I indicated in the fastconv command and went into the "00005" folder and looked for the "47A.DAT" file. I renamed the extension to "jpg" and opened it to make sure I had the right file. Once I knew the file was the right one and opened correctly I renamed and moved it to another folder. So far it would appear the files are kept in order by folder/name, so continuing on with file "47B" was in fact the next file I was looking for. Searching through certain file ranges where I knew the beginning was I was able to retrieve 1500+ mp3's in a few minutes. Using a small program called MP3 Tag & Rename I was able to rename all the files that had ID3 tags very quickly. Shame all the documents and pictures don't have the same kind of tags!

I know this sounds difficult, but when it comes to losing someone else's data or spending time deciphering the database index and recovering the files manually... well, he paid me to help him, not to lose all his data.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I am a computer tech, it's what I do for a living. This forum has been around quite a while and most people that have posted here are long since done with looking at it. But if someone comes across this thread in need of assistance like I did, and wants hands-on help, let me know. This has been a very time consuming and difficult task that I would wish upon no one.

Ted
tecsupport.biz

EyeBaller, on Jan 4 2007, 08:38 PM, said:

I also had the same messages, but I was still able to run fastconv on the new usmt2.unc folder. I eventually had to rmv2opq first then fastconv second one file at a time, but I got the important (and not so important) files back.

I'll still use FAST, it's been too good of a tool not to, but I'll never use it for the documents again. Manually move all the docs to a new location then run the wiz. Don't forget the fav's and pst's!

Ted

Can I extract my backup from .MIG file that use Windows Easy Transfer in Windows Vista???

live2bfree76 .... THANK YOU SO MUCH. I managed to extract my files the FIRST time reading and following your exact instructions.

At the moment it is unpacking and extracting everything. So hopefully in a few hrs i should have access to all my stuff.

Once again, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

If i was a girl i woudl kiss u, so i wont but thanks!

Goodevening,

I had the same problem with FAST. The file IMG00001.DAT seems to be corrupt. So first i used rmv2opq to get it from the removable media, then i used fastconv. I discovered the corrupted file, skipped it, but get the error TRANS/TRANS.db is corrupt. And could not extract the file, the trans.db file

So still got a lot of .dat files in my temp folder. discovered that i can open the files in wordpad and did get a lot of jpg files back. But i cant find my .PST file. Because i don't have the TRANS.db i can't open it in a hex editor en search for the string. I looked if 054.dat was the file, but that was a bookmark.

Does anybody know if there's an other way to find the .PST file.

Offcourse it is really inportant that i get my emails back. I work as a freelancer (webdesigner) and all of my contacts and workfiles are in there.

Can please somebody help my out.

Mine os is Windows XP and i worked with Outlook 2003.

P.s. sorry for my englisch, I'm from amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Thanks ezipc for post #94

I had lost my data to the dreaded FAST wizard a few weeks ago and tried everything from post 1 to 93 at least 3 times (as well as anything and everything that could be searched in the top 3 search engines and at least 50 other boards. The USMT "loadstate" worked instantly and I got everything back.

Some history for others with similar problems.
I had backed up about 10GB+ of data using the FAST wizard to a 300GB external drive. When trying to restore my files I got the error "The specified ... does not contain files...)

I did find one other useful freeware program called "FMV-EXTRACTOR", it will extract any image files by simply dragging and dropping the IMG0000#.dat file into it.

Please don't ever close this thread. It is the most complete resource available on the net regarding FAST recovery

I tried "FMV-EXTRACTOR" but no success for .pst files (mail MS Outlook)


I found all my files back(jpg, psd, gif, bmp) using fatsconv, and guessing what kind of file it was, and finally renaming, but still didn't found my mail file .pst.






(transdb.db is corrupt and like a ghost for me, never saw it : )

Yeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!

After trying Fastconv and rmv2opq (i had both corruption and the removeable media issue in one blow) and experiencing all of the errors described in this thread, I succeeded using the 'loadstate' tool as detailed by ezipc in post #94 - thank you immensely!

It was a slow process (I had 20GB of data to get back) but it worked. Thankyou to all for the help and I re-iterate what others have said:

A. Don't give up, it is possible to get this data back as long as you have the .DAT files

B. DONT EVER EVER EVER USE THE FSTW TOOL TO BACKUP YOUR DATA!!!!!

Thanks to all.

First: Thank you all so much for providing so much information on recovering FAST backups. I have fooled around trying to get my corrupted files back for such a long time without success. Reading your posts finally enabled me to do it, thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I ended up with 3000 dat files, with no clue as to which program they were created in. I found that the
TrID- File Identifier freeware identified all but 70 odd files that are still a mystery. It can be found at
http://mark0.net/soft-tridnet-e.html

There are two forms of the software. The one called "TrIDNet" has a user interface but only one file can be identified at a time.

I used the one simply called TrID. It is a command line program like fastconv. With it you can identify as many files as you want at one time. Also you can have it amend the file name with the file extension so that you can easily group them. TrID has over 2000 file types it references.

Again this is the only site I found that enabled me to recover my files. Thank you.

I've read the items here, and hope some of these solutions work. I've not seen my situation, so I'm unsure what to try first.

WinXP home SP2 computer was very weird, worked on it for hours, finally decided to reinstall OS XP.
Backed up FAST files to a 20GB USB hard drive. I see now that the drive was preformatted in FAT32.

Reintall disk for XPHome was broken, so I have a XP Pro disk for a dead computer. Installed that, registered, activated, and eventually 100 or so updates later, I have XP Pro SP2 installed on my 'new' computer, which drive was reformatted.

Tried to run XP Pro 32bit SP2 FAST to restore all the previous settings. Got error message something like source does not contain backup files. i look with explorer, and the HD has 9 2 GB files .dat

So, what do I try first? Copying .dat files to another HD, reformat USB drive to NTFS, and copy the .dats back to it?
use loadstate?
fastconv?
rmv2opq?

Thanks in advance... computer is my wifes home computer, worked until after midnight on Monday morning, and then I had to leave town for the week on business.... My butt is in BIG TROUBLE. Need a good fix when I get back in town!
Thanks so much

This is great to see so many new people helping new people and so on so forth!

But I wonder...don't you think people would learn their lessons from others seeing how many people have had problems with yet another Microsoft blunder? I'm not insulting anyone, I'm just saying. I know I found this helpful in learning never to use FAST, so thank

The best of luck to all of you!

TheYoda, on May 18 2007, 03:51 PM, said:

How many people go research the software before using it? When I got a new PC FAST worked fine for me, so I didn't hesitate to use it again..... as I had fine success before.

I'm not an IT professional, and don't have time to read up on everything out there, so I start searching for help AFTER I'm up the creek.

Just my situation anyway