My thoughts regarding: > As the result of a hard drive event <sigh>, I have had to replce my > hard drive. The technician was able to extract, among other things all > of theBat folders that are located in App Data, among them > autobackup.bak. > > I have downloaded the v 5.2 .msi file, and I have on my own backup the > The Bat! v5 Key Block. > > I assume that the steps are: > > 1. Execute the .msi file > > 2. Enter the license information > > 3. Invoke the restore prodedure that I have seen somewhere in theBat > (where is it, exactly).
IF the backup you have is mirroring the mailbox folder structure of your TB-installation at the time of crash you may want to consider two things: 1) Is the *backup* older than the mailboxes the technician saved? 2) Is the structure in the backup compatible with the rescued folder? If the answers are Yes, you CAN restore 100% by simply copy the data from the rescued folders and OVERWRITE the existing *.tb-files (!). I did just that a week ago - with great success. Here is a simplified re-cap: 1) I wanted to cleanstall my Windows system from scratch. I have TB installed on its own partition (M:\ - for mail). I also have a backup of TB, BUT the backup is of course not of current date - the mail I have received after the last backup is apparently not there. So... 2) I installed Windows, but before doing so I kept EVERYTHING from the old installation (in particular C:\; %WINDIR%; everything under Program Files (at least for reference; in some cases for easier installation); userdata related to my user (Documents and Settings). I also kept the partitions (J:\ (projects I am working on; G:\ - userdata of all kinds; M:\ - mail (TB)). 3) When I cleanstalled Windows I opted for Windows installation NOT to format the entire disk - I went with option "Format C:\ only" - this way the userdata residing in the partitions would be left as is - which is a HUGE time saver to me. 4) So I started to re-install everything, system and applications. After a while the turn had come to TB - I installed TB and rebuilt mailboxes from the backup. HOWEVER, after the installation, I simply copied the mailboxes (a 100% file (folder) copy) - I placed it where the backup had been rolled out - that is: The restored (and outdated) backup was replaced with the (current and of the partition) TB-mailboxes. 5) I restarted TB! - PRESTO - all was up and current! The 5 point "documentation" I have written here is what I was able to do. I must admit the real work is a bit more "moderated". You HAVE to keep track of Where-and-What you install - one key to my success doing this was that I was 100% faithful to the old folder structure. This is (probably) crucial as differences here might screw up with .INI-files or other files (address books?) that TB is relying on. Point is: If you would like to restore from backup (an older backup, yet with a compatible folder structure) and overwrite the restored backup with mailboxes from your most recent TB-installation, then make sure you replicate 100%. Initially I installed TB (the application) in its own folder (M:\Application) and mail in M:\Mailboxes. By doing this it is always easy to keep things in order. That made the file copying easy: 1) Install TB - rebuild mail from backup; rebuild mail to M:\Mailboxes 2) Exit TB - copy safety copy of mail M:\Application and M:\Mailboxes 3) Start TB - TB finds and accepts the safety copy Other thing to consider for my method to work well is that the TB safety copy M:\Application MUST (?) be the same version as the one you install. When I copied over my safety copy there was no doubt that the installed components would correspond well with Registry settings, for example. Neither was there any risk that any user buildable files (address books, for example) wouldn't correspond. It was a thrill to see the full success of my "Install; Restore; Copy"- thing. Absolutely ALL settings were intact with logs and all. It wasn't like I seemingly could continue from where I left before the cleanstall. I really DID continue from where I left before the cleanstall. (I haven't tested whether my method would work on TB installations where the structure in the backup file isn't compatible with the current TB installation - but I would think that SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+L would find the folders that the backup file structure wouldn't include. If the backup is less compatible - use it even so and try the safety copy trick - then perform SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+L at the end and TB should (?) discover any "lost folders". That is what I think at least - can anyone confirm this?) -- St - Musaic.Net <mailto:[email protected]> ________________________________________________ Current version is 4.2.42 | 'Using TBUDL' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
