My manager had a Vista box and he ran a backup of his files and such before wiping the drive. Well, those files are still stored on the drive but he needs for me to get them off so he can have access. I am using that drive as an external drive to an XP box but he gave me a Vista disc saying I could use that to be able to restore anything from that drive. I was wondering if that is possible if someone could assist me in trying to complete that process?

why didn't he just plug it into his matching vista machine and access the files? Makes sense to me. Some HELP in posting on Computing.net plus free progs and instructions Cheers

Because aftewr he removed the drive, he upgraded to Windows 7 so now he needs for me to try and restore those files for him on another box not being used. I dont know if I have to build the box back up as Vista or could I just use the Vista disc to restore, I dunno, any thoughts?

WOW, I'm stumped on that one, but you would think that windows 7 is an upgrade from vista so he should be able to use that for retreival. Sorry, that's about it for me. Some HELP in posting on Computing.net plus free progs and instructions Cheers

I understand. Well, I think it might be possible, like I said, I can see it if i go through the Vista setup, when i get to the point of choose drive location, it appears with the folder of Vista folder backup on it so i know its there but :0/.

" he ran a backup of his files and such before wiping the drive." That is conflicting information. It doesn't make sense to backup to a drive you intend to wipe. Did he wipe the drive? If so get data recovery software BEFORE you install anything else. If not then bootup with a knoppix cd and leach off the backup folder.

You should be able to boot to Vista and access the external drive. Don't use install but use recovery tools. I have never done this exactly but the restore tools ought to be available and you should be able to network them off or on to a usb flash or to the external drive. Othewise you'd have to install physically or in a virtual machine to remove files. Not sure if there is a vhd explorer as such. Otherwise we'd need to know how your manager saved the data, you can look at the files to tell most likely. See these to start. http://www.goitexpert.com/disaster-... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/... http://www.microsoft.com/protect/da... http://www.microsoft.com/windows/wi... http://social.answers.microsoft.com... Playing to the angels Les Paul (1915-2009)