Restore Backup4all backup and recognize old backups

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Hikari
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 6:17 pm

Restore Backup4all backup and recognize old backups

Post by Hikari »

Hey all.

Doing backups is useless if we can't restore them when needed. I've recently installed a clean Windows on my PC and started doing some actions to make it more stable and last longer. One of these actions is having backups of my apps, using Backup4all, and another is having backups of Win partition and restoring it frequently, so that Windows configs remain fresh.

Well it happens that on the last backup I did I haven't installed Backup4all yet, so this time I had to reinstall it. It has a plugin for backup of its own configs, so I expected to have it back and running quickly upon reinstalling. But I had a few troubles on that.

First one is that its plugin creates a handful of 7 zip files. I had to create a new job to figure out where each file belongs. Second one is that the app was unable to recognize its own files, created on the previous install. Third one was the worst, after I manually restored its backup, I lost the trial period and had to quickly purchage the licence. Previous install was on its 10th day and it was really frustrating to lose the remaining 20 ones and be rushed to buy it.

Ok let's detail the issues. I think I succeeded on manually restore its backup, but I definetely don't wanna do that again in a case that I have to reinstall it. See, Backup4all should be the main bacup-restore solution. If PC is compromised, it's gonna be the first app one will use. At that moment everything will be a mess and the guy be very stressed, wanting all his apps back working. The backup solution must be easy to use and reduce the existing stress, solving it and getting everything back working ASAP. If Backup4all has trouble to restore itself, how will I expect it to restore other apps? I expect it to be the easiest app to backup and restore!

So, consider the situation that I have Backup4all's latest 7 zip files, and I just installed it. How to restore its backup and have all its jobs back?

Second issue. Upon restoring its backup, its jobs are available. Usually I just need to hit a job's Restore link to have it restored. But, because B4a was just installed and (manually) restored, it doesn't recognize any job's files. It thinks they are brand new. OF COURSE I don't wanna manually restore EVERYTHING as I had to do with B4a!! It's the backup tool's job to restore everything for me!

I assure all apps were installed and jobs' files were on the same place as before. Still it didn't recognize these files. So, how do I make it recognize them, identify the latest one, and automatically and properly restore them?

And in the case of those backup files being on a different place, as some network path or pendrive, how to point the new location for B4a?

Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1914
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:46 pm

Re: Restore Backup4all backup and recognize old backups

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

First, please note Backup4all was not designed for system backups, but for data files backups only.

You tried to manually restore the Backup4all configurations but you did that incompletely as there are also registry entries involved.
That seems to be the cause of the expiring trial as not all program information was restored and date back seems to be detected.

The easiest way to restore the Backup4all configurations, as described in our tutorials, is to simply open the .bkc catalog file for that job in Backup4all. The backup job will be recreated and you can easily run the restore.
So there are only 2 steps:
1. Open the .bkc catalog file
2. Run the restore.

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