Question old system drive made back up.

[Dkoops]

I think I did something wrong when I reformatted my system drive from on old computer. It runs very slow and I cannot copy or move files from it.
It has a weird file in it that is called " boottel.dat". It is pretty big at 19GB. I suspect this is part of the problem however I cannot delete it. The drive runs so slow and I just get errors.

I have been thinking about reformatting and pulling the files off of the reformatted disk. I understand I may loose some data but I think I can get most off.

Any ideas?

 

[USAFRet]

reformatting and pulling the files off of the reformatted disk

Yeah, thats not gonna work.

You need to get the files off before you do any reformatting.

 

[Misgar]

Formatting a disk is the last thing you should do if you want to retrieve any files.

It has a weird file in it that is called " boottel.dat".

Chances are something went wrong with the system containing the drive and Windows attempted a repair.
https://superuser.com/questions/1341021/what-is-the-boottel-dat-file-in-windows

It is pretty big at 19GB.

This user claims the file is usually small. Obviously yours is very big.
https://www.solvemix.com/index.php/en/year-2020/boottel-dat-file-in-windows-10-meaning.html

I understand I may loose some data but I think I can get most off.

It's more likely you'll lose most if not all of the files after formatting. I hope you've been sensible and kept a backup elsewhere.