Strictly Windows backup. I separately used (or thought I was using) the Backup-Recovery button and then the Save System Image button back in June. Based on a dozen files generated from that exercise, and the small files sizes (biggest was 11G, smallest 2K), something went terribly wrong.
My thinking was that the System Image button saved everything on the computer, including system files, programs like Word and Excel, personal files, etc. I thought the Backup button just saved personal files like photos, spreadsheets, text, etc. So a portion of the respective backups overlapped but I wanted access to the smaller set of personal files.
This didn't happen last June so I'm apparently wrong. At some point yesterday, before posing my question here, my fumbling around resulted in a full system image, one file, 150+G.
I carefully read through the How-To-Geek links that B.F. provided and went to recover later in the evening using Windows Backup-Recovery again. But I didn't go through with it. I got a message when I tee'd up the program that listed about 20 programs that would get nuked and have to be loaded again after recovery. These included Word, Excel, some games, Schwab Edge, Adobe, computer games, others.
I'm only looking to recover two Excel files but I don't see that Windows Recovery provides anything but the nuclear option. I did notice a link in How-to-Geek to free-ware "Recovah" (i.e., Recover) that apparently does this sort of thing. Will try it next unless somebody points out that I must have been misusing Windows Recovery. |
