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pgrun
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎07-13-2012
Accepted Solution

Ghost and File/Folder Backup/Restore

As simple as it seems, the use of "Recover My Files" completely baffles me.  I must be misunderstanding something elementary.

 

I regularly run a file backup job.  The files being backed up are on an external USB drive, F:.  The backup destination is on a different external USB drive, G:.  The backup appears to execute normally, and I can see backup folders on the destination drive.  The files being backed-up are in a normal, hierarchical directory structure like:  F:\Cool Folders\Folder 1\File 17  The backu

 

To test the backups, I disconnected the original source drive (F:), and started up Ghost.  Using Tasks / Recover My Files, it appears that the only way to search the folder structure "Cool Folders" is if I know something about the names of the files (e.g. "File 17")

 

Is there no way to get it show me the directory structure beneath "Cool Folders'?

 

If I use "advanced search", and tell it to look in "My Passport (G:\) it either says, "please use a local drive", or it says "no results to display"

 

If I use "advanced search", and tell it to search for Cool Folders and to look in "Local hard drives (C:\,G:\), it reports "Cool Folders", but gives me no way to look inside the directory, or says "no results to display".

 

Clearly, I do not understand how file/folder backup works.  And yes, I have read the documentation, but with no success.

Phishing Phryer
DaveH
Posts: 4,717
Registered: ‎01-06-2010

Re: Ghost and File/Folder Backup/Restore

It's not you, it's the program.  The "file and folder" backup tool is not very robust to say the least.

 

You can't browse the folder structure because the folder structure is not preserved.  Only if you restore the files to the original location can you preserve the folder structure and that is because the structure exists on your system, it's not part of the backup.

 

See here for some more info about file and folder backups vs partition images.

http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Ghost-Image-Backup-vs-File-and-Folder-Backup/m-...

 

Dave

Visitor
pgrun
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎07-13-2012

Re: Ghost and File/Folder Backup/Restore

Dave - Thanks for the tips and the link.  That is exactly the information for which I was searching.  The long and short of it is that file/folder backup isn't especially useful in my environment.

 

My original goal was to backup some files being stored on an external USB driver onto a different external USB drive.  As it turns out, all the source files being backed up are contained in a separate partition on the source drive.  So now I am simply doing an image backup ("computer backup").  This allows me to use the Norton tools to browse the backups, which works beautifully.

 

Now if only we could get the Norton Ghost documentation up to date.  I wasted a ton of hours trying to figure out what should have been a very simple tool.

 

Thanks again!