Question Restoring backed up files to a different drive, file system ?

[Persister]

[Modertor edit: moving post from Windows 10 to Storage. More applicable category.]

I created a one time backup of folders and files on an external drive which is exFAT . Now when I want Windows to restore to a different location on that drive, I get error, "Destination must be NTFS".

The backup was created on the exFAT and is visible in explorer but not in usable form. Since the creation worked I am skeptical about this issue. I could try restoring to a different NTFS drive but not convenient. Also, if I do that, does the backup folder remain unchanged?

 

[CountMike]

I created a one time backup of folders and files on an external drive which is exFAT . Now when I want Windows to restore to a different location on that drive, error, "destination must be NTFS. " The backup was created on the exFAT and is visible in explorer but not in usable form. Since the creation worked I am skeptical about this issue. I could try restoring to a different NTFS drive but not convenient. Also, if I do that, does the backup folder remain unchanged?

How did you back them up, just copied or used some program ?

 

[faalin]

I actually just made this batch file over the weekend to copy files from a computer to the server at work. One of our cad guys likes to only work local and then not save any of his work back to the server.

@Echo off
if not DEFINED IS_MINIMIZED set IS_MINIMIZED=1 && start "" /min "%~dpnx0" %* && exit

XCOPY /c /d /e /s /i /y "C:\content\*.*" "H:\USERS\JKB\content\"

Exit

/c Ignores errors
/d only copies files that have changed
/e Copies all subdirectories, even if they're empty. Use /e with the /s and /t command-line options
/s Copies directories and subdirectories, unless they're empty. If you omit /s, xcopy works within a single directory
/i If source is a directory or contains wildcards and destination doesn't exist, xcopy assumes destination specifies a directory name and creates a new directory. Then, xcopy copies all specified files into the new
directory. By default, xcopy prompts you to specify whether destination is a file or a directory.
/y Suppresses prompting to confirm that you want to overwrite an existing destination file.

and i will normally throw in a /q Suppresses the display of xcopy messages. but i wanted to see what was bing copied.

I have this tied to task scheduler to run every night at 6pm on his computer so i makes sure new files are on the server before they themselves do backups for the night.

 

[Persister]

How did you back them up, just copied or used some program ?

Thanks. I'm a Mike myself but maybe more a Knight than a Count. 😉

This was all W10, me just using its prompts, unplanned. I didn't know what would happen when I replaced mobo (not hdd) but I had to use oem dvd to validate or "restore" the os. Was not complete new install but I was prompted to back up files as precaution. In fact many files were not affected but some disappeared from C and went into this folder in external drive, which I chose for backup destination. A one-time thing, as I said.

This is unfamiliar terrain for me but I see from web research it is not at all what people think of. Backup is now synonymous with settings for scheduled periodic. Hard to find reference to anything else. But afaik you can still get prompts to backup when trying restore or repair of Windows itself.

Explorer shows the folder`is not mirror copies but mostly zip files,, 81 of them, many Russian doll oddities. Why restore should be much easier than reconstruction.

Meantime I've made space on the C so I tried it as target for restored files. At this the ex-FAT error is gone, replaced by different but common one [so I learn], "The MediaID.bin file in the backup is invalid."

Working in this . . . TBC.

 

[CountMike]

Thanks. I'm a Mike myself but maybe more a Knight than a Count. 😉

This was all W10, me just using its prompts, unplanned. I didn't know what would happen when I replaced mobo (not hdd) but I had to use oem dvd to validate or "restore" the os. Was not complete new install but I was prompted to back up files as precaution. In fact many files were not affected but some disappeared from C and went into this folder in external drive, which I chose for backup destination. A one-time thing, as I said.

This is unfamiliar terrain for me but I see from web research it is not at all what people think of. Backup is now synonymous with settings for scheduled periodic. Hard to find reference to anything else. But afaik you can still get prompts to backup when trying restore or repair of Windows itself.

Explorer shows the folder`is not mirror copies but mostly zip files,, 81 of them, many Russian doll oddities. Why restore should be much easier than reconstruction.

Meantime I've made space on the C so I tried it as target for restored files. At this the ex-FAT error is gone, replaced by different but common one [so I learn], "The MediaID.bin file in the backup is invalid."

Working in this . . . TBC.

I'm afraid it's not much of a backup. MS has disused and abandoned proper backup in favor of 3rd party since Vista/W7.
Modern programs like Macrium Reflect, Acronis True Image and EAsus ToDo, are there to do much better job, offer many choices and automatic backup from whole disk/partition to just folders or individual file and types of files.