Hi, folks, On September 22, 2005 I suffered a severe hard disk crash and lost all data on that hard drive between that date and my previous backup (on April 16, 2005). (Silly, lazy me!). However, I see that I have file called Backup of System State data, 18-04-05.bkf, though its Properties show it as created on 17 August, 2005. It's 21.6 GB, so it's probably a backup of all of that failed disk. ;o) Now, I can't restore that data, for some reason. I follow the normal XP procedure, but the file doesn't seem to open. I appreciate that this is a bit of a diagnostic without seeing the patient, but does anyone have any ideas, please? Thanks, John. My setup:- PC (not MAC) WinXP Pro AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (1.83 GHz) ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard Tascam US-122 1.00 GB of RAM 200 GB HD

Try this. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/library/Operations/5870556f-be04-4345-acb8-60c6c540f690.mspx http://computervitals.com/

Also here. http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=739600&page=1 http://computervitals.com/

Thanks for your valuable help, per - the problem is solved. Great! Have a good day, John. :o)

Dare I open the C: disk part of the backup? This is the new question. I've restored what was my old F: disk, and it simply 'threw' all the old F: disk folders into my current F: disk. Fine - I can sort that out as, by chance, all the folders in there were from my previous H: disk, so I know what doesn't belong. Now, if I open the C: disk part of the backup, will it restore my C: disk to what it was, i.e. all my main Windows settings? Obviously, I don't want that, as I've started again from scratch with a new installation... Or will it simply copy the restored folders into the new folder called Restoration that I've created on my C: disk? Should I create a System Restore Point before doing anything? Will it save me if things go wrong? I'm not doing anything till I receive some views from other (more expert) members. Over to you, folks... Thanks, John.

Suggest you make a new post with a full explanation. You will get more responses that way. http://computervitals.com/

Thanks, per, I've been playing around with the .bkf file (having backed it up, of course!), and I've learned that it seems to restore files to where they were, if that disk partition still exists. So I'm being very careful with what I do re my C: disk. I've just managed to restore my IE Favorites, which is great. So I'm getting used to using it. At the moment, I don't need to re-post this question, but I'll bear your good advice in mind. Thanks, John.