Restore on different PC

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yomy
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 27, 2018 8:51 pm

Restore on different PC

Post by yomy »

Hello,

I've used FBackup for a couple of years, all worked well.
I had some mirror jobs without compression, and they were backed up to an external drive occasionally.

Now I got the new computer as the old one died.
I've successfully loaded the catalogs in FBackup, and successfully did a restore, but to a different directory then it was on old computer.
Now I would like to continue using FBackup to backup those "restored" directories, but the catalogs have their "source" pointing to a non existing drive.
I've removed the "wrong" path from the sources, and added the right path (the one I restored to), but now, doing a backup creates a full directory structure "inside" the original structure.
I was expecting it to just say there's nothing to backup, as the files were just restored.

So, my question is, how to change the "source" directory to the directory I restored to without having to re-backup the files to the external drive?
Thanks in advance.

Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1983
Joined: Thu May 23, 2013 7:57 am

Re: Restore on different PC

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

If you change the source folder location, the new folder will be backed up again. You cannot avoid that.

yomy
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 27, 2018 8:51 pm

Re: Restore on different PC

Post by yomy »

Perhaps I didn't explain the issue correctly. I'm not adding "new" folders to the source.

For sake of simplicity I'll try to explain with simple folder structure. Note the drive letters:

OLD PC:
G:\ForBackup\ - Source to backup
H:\Computer1\ - Destination on external drive

There's a folder G:\ForBackup\Subfolder\ which has File1.txt.
That was backed up to the external drive (H:\Computer1\ as root)
So now there's H:\Computer1\ForBackup\Subfolder\ with those two files.
And there's a catalog file in H:\Computer1\

NEW PC:
D:\ForBackup\ - Restore destination
E:\Computer1\ - External HDD with catalog

Now on the new PC I have the external drive as E:, and I'm restoring to D:
So after restore, I have D:\ForBackup\Subfolder\ with File1.txt as it should.

Now the restore worked well, but inspecting the job, says the source is (still) G:\ForBackup\, which doesn't exist on the system.
Destination is fine as E:\Computer1\
I then remove that source, and add D:\ForBackup\ (the one I've restored to)
Now when trying to backup, the structure gets nested in the original structure.
So I get E:\Computer1\ForBackup\D\ForBackup\ with SubFolder and the File1.txt inside.
So now I have two instances of the file
E:\Computer1\ForBackup\SubFolder\File1.txt
E:\Computer1\ForBackup\D\ForBackup\SubFolder\File1.txt

Shouldn't the backup software try and match the files to the destination as they are?
Can I do nothing else than format the external drive and re-run the backup to recreate the same files that were originally there?

Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1983
Joined: Thu May 23, 2013 7:57 am

Re: Restore on different PC

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

I understand the situation from the beginning.
The old source folder was: G:\ForBackup\
The new source folder is: D:\ForBackup\
They are considered different sources even if they probably contain the same files. FBackup does not try to compare each source folder with the others and you cannot change that in order to match the new source location and the destination.

yomy
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 27, 2018 8:51 pm

Re: Restore on different PC

Post by yomy »

Ok, indeed the source location is different as I no longer have the G partition, but why does it create a complete structure nested in the original structure? Why doesn't it just overwrite the files on the destination?
E:\Computer1\ForBackup\SubFolder\File1.txt
E:\Computer1\ForBackup\D\ForBackup\SubFolder\File1.txt
Is there a setting for this? It wouldn't create the second file (nested) if the destination was empty?
Or alternatively, is there a way to create "new" catalog files from the existing source-destination pair?

Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1983
Joined: Thu May 23, 2013 7:57 am

Re: Restore on different PC

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

In order to make these paths the same:
E:\Computer1\ForBackup\SubFolder\File1.txt
E:\Computer1\ForBackup\D\ForBackup\SubFolder\File1.txt
Please open Backup Properties->Type->Mirror.
Uncheck the "Create full paths" and "Copy files in a subfolder" options.
Press Save and run again the backup.

yomy
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 27, 2018 8:51 pm

Re: Restore on different PC

Post by yomy »

Thank you for all the help. :)

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