RECOVERING FROM IMAGE PROBLEMS
by Mike Hogan
Okay, you accidentally used Norton Image to take a snapshot of the critical files on what you suspect is a damaged disk (whether a physical or logical drive). DON'T TRY TO REPAIR THE DAMAGE BY IMAGING THE DISK A SECOND TIME.
There's a more involved process for recovering from that circumstance, which involves renaming the backup copy of that snapshot and using it instead. You could destroy that too by mistakenly imaging a damaged disk a second time.
Norton Image saves critical information about each drive in IMAGE.DAT, which resides in each drive's root directory and is a read-only file to prevent accidental deletion. Hopefully, you have also chosen to keep a backup of this file, IMAGE.BAK, (by checking the box next to Create Image Backup File on the main screen of Norton Image). Another hidden read-only file called IMAGE.IDX, stored on the last available disk cluster, points to the locations of the IMAGE.DAT and IMAGE.BAK files.
To rename IMAGE.DAT and IMAGE.BAK, you must first clear their read-only attributes in Windows Explorer. Right-click one of the files, select Properties from the context menu and uncheck Read-Only. Repeat these steps for the other file.
If you can't find these files, it might be because they have the Hidden attribute checked and you have chosen not to display Hidden files in Explorer. To change this, click the View menu and select Folder options. On the View tab, under the Hidden Files heading, check Show All Files.
To swap the IMAGE.BAK for IMAGE.DAT and, hopefully, recover a good image of your disk, rename the IMAGE.DAT file, or move it to a different folder than your root directory. Then, rename the IMAGE.BAK file IMAGE.DAT by slowly clicking on it twice to get into edit mode and retyping the name.
Hopefully, this copy has the desired settings that can be used by Norton Disk Doctor or UnErase Wizard to recover files or a drive. |
