Norton 360 Backup files corrupt and do not work

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
1

Please, I hope someone can help me.  I have read through the forum and seen what I think may be the same problem, but I am so afraid of somehow losing forever and not having any chance to restore my files, I am afraid to assume I understand.  

 

Here's my problem: 

 

I purchased and have been using Norton 360 a few months ago.  A couple weeks ago I believe it was, Norton 360 did an update but I do not recall to what version that was.  

 

I have faithfully run backups to my external iomega drive. 

 

This week my hard drive died.  No information could be retrieved from it.  So I purchased and had installed a new hard drive.

 

I came home, reloaded my programs and then ran the restore function in Norton 360.

 

I can see that files have been restored to my computer. 

However, Outlook Express cannot/will not recognize any of the .dbx files. 

My work files are all in WordPerfect format and WordPerfect will not open any of them - says they are in an unsupported format. 

 

Yesterday, I spent almost 3 hours in online chat with support people. 

The first 2, after I gave them remote access to my computer, just said they could not help me and disconnected. 

The third person was a little more interested, but also could not help me and seemed to have never heard of anyone having such a problem before.

 

These files are very important to me.  Some personally and some are very important to my livelihood. 

 

 I have not yet upgraded my Norton 360 verson 2 since re-loading programs onto this new hard drive.   I don't know if I should try to do that or just what to do. 

 

Please, please can someone help me with this.

 

Janet

 

 

 

 

2

I believe that my last backup prior to the hard drive crashing, was to version 3.  I've just been afraid to do anything more for fear of somehow making things even worse (though come to think of it, wonder if that is possible).

 

I will go ahead and upgrade now.    *Keeping my toes tightly crossed that maybe this will do the trick!*

3

Update -- I ugraded my Norton 360 to version 3.  Then I again ran restore.  My document files are now on my computer once again, but still not accessible.  Every one that I try to open gives me an "Unsupported Format" message.  My e-mail - the .dbx files are on my computer, but will not load into or open in Outlook Express.  

 

Please - any other suggestions on what I can do.  I really need to be able to access both my document files and my e-mail.

 

Thanks,

 

J

4

When you installed the new hard drive, did you keep the same file system format.  Did you go from FAT32 to NTFS say?

5

Can you try to import the dbx files into OE instead of opening them?

6

I'm having the same problem with version 3. My back-up drive is now filled with unreadable files that are organised in some fashion totally unrelated to what was supposed to be mirrored. Moreover the files have numbers, not English identification.

 

What is going on?

 

I had 360 v.2 but someone in India, eager to be of some service, took control of my computer and installed v.3.

7

I called the computer place that installed my new hard drive - they tell me that the new drive is set up just the same way the old one was.

8

The .dbx files are showing up in the folder when I go through Windows Explorer.  However, OE is not recognizing them.  I have tried to get OE to import them and that doesn't work either. 

 

My WordPerfect files all show up in their directories as they should, but WordPerfect will not open them and says that they are in an unsupported format.  I've tried using Word, IE, Notepad - everything I can think of just to open the files, all with no success.

 

I've also discovered today that although my IE favorites are all listed, none of the links work.

 

I haven't even reloaded my financial programs and checked those.

 

This is extremely frustrating and upsetting to me.  It was bad enough to have my hard drive crash and have to get a new one - but for my backup files to be corrupt and inaccessible is rather like insult to injury.  I won't even get started on the 3 hours I was in on-line chats or the promised phone call within 24 hours that I have not received.  There is information in my e-mail files that I need to access. 

9

jacat,

 

Are you backing up to a local drive or to online backup? I can most likely help you get things sorted if you have backed up online. I work for our online backup team. If you'd like, send me either a forum Private Message or an email and I would be happy to help you get everything sorted out.

 

~scott 

10

scoot_moen -

 

Thanks for coming by.  jacat states that their backups are to a local external drive.  Any thing else that can be done?

11

Thanks for the reply. That was unclear to me so I thought I would double check. I’m sure there is more to be done, I am just not the expert for local backups. A couple of Symantec employees who worked on the N360 backup interface and local backup frequent these forums. I know we have resolved a couple of local backup issues on the forums so hopefully things can be resolved quickly here as well.

12

Update – As of today (Thursday), I still have not heard anything from the online support people who promised last Saturday I would hear within 24 hours.  I have managed to restore my WordPerfect files.   Still unable to open the folders that restore loaded to my new hard drive with my Outlook Express files.  The files are on my hard drive, but Outlook Express does not recognize them or load them.  I’ve tried copying them into the folder where I see the current files are with the e-mails that have been coming in while I’ve been waiting and hoping for a solution, but still no luck.  Does anyone have any ideas of what else I can do? 

13

jacat -

 

Sorry for the delay.  See if this post will help you: LINK .  Look to see if there is a file named AResore.exe in the backup directory of the external hard drive.  You should be able to restore your files with this utility.

14

I am very happy to tell you that Friday afternoon I received a call from Symantec.  Within just a few minutes, a tech remotely fixed my entire problem and all of my files are now restored.  I am extremely pleased, of course, to have this fixed.  I only wish that the online techs could have helped me in the first place.  jacat

15

It sounds like they also had to find help from someone with a greater understanding of how to recover the files.  I’m glad that they went whatever extra mile was necessary to resolve the problem.

16

Hi jacat,

 

Very glad to hear you got your issue resolved. I wonder if you could post in a little bit more detail what went into getting your situation resolved? It might help some more people in the future.

 

~scott 

17

I have a similar problem.  I backed up my whole drive onto an external drive using norton 360 ver.3. A few days latter the system crashed and I had to reformat the hard drive.

 

Reloaded windows XP and Norton 360. Tried to reinstal the backup from the external drive and got a message" catalogue file corrupted".  When selecting the backup in Norton 360 it reports that the folder is empty.

 I can see all of the files on my external drive using explorer but can not access them as they appear to be encrytpted.

 

Have spent 6 hours on Chat Line help which solved nothing, and the 3 promised return phone calls within 48 hours never happened.

 

Norton 360 has made it all most impossible for me to do my job as all my data is inaccessable.

 

Norton help has been no help at all.  Is anyone able to help Please?

18

Hello Mutley,

 

That message occurs when the "Restore Files" page fails to initialize.  It is possible to restore your files without the catalog.

 

First,  make sure that your N360_BACKUP folder (on your external backup drive) has files in it.  if it is empty or has only a few kilobytes of files, you may be a sad situation.

 

If the N360_BACKUP folder has files, you can use the Arestore.exe tool to restore these files.

 

 

Here is a post where I explain how to do this:

 

http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=Norton_360&message.id=10959#M10959

 

Message Edited by Joel_Michel on 06-05-2009 10:37 AM
19

Thank you very much for your response. I have copied these files to the external drive. The problem I have now is that the ARestore.loc file is not recognized by Widows XP.  Do you have any suggestions how to correct this problem

20

I'm not sure what you mean.  The loc file is a resource file used only by arestore.exe.  Windows XP does not need to recognize it. 

 

if Arestore.exe runs, then arestore.loc is functioning properly.

 

If Arestore.exe does not run, what message do you see?

 

-Joel