My Windows system disk was blown away (may have been Malware or a rogue app install), After I've reinstalled Windows, I guess I'll need to reinitialize the 2 HDDs that were managed under FFS.
Before I go ahead and reinstall, I'd like to get a full backup of the FFS drive data, so I've relocated the drives to another computer but Windows Disk Management and other partition utilities indicate the drives are 'Dynamic' and 'Invalid'.
I've installed FFS on the temporary host system and FFS doesn't show these drives in the system view.
In other words, I can't get to the data on the FFS drives to be able to create an offline copy of the data before I replace the drives in the original system and go ahead with the O/S and App reinstall.
How can I get a copy of the data before I move ahead?
Update: Please forgive me if I seem impatient, but I was hoping to get some progress on this over the weekend. Any thoughts, ideas, potential solutions gratefully received.
Further update (rephrasing original request for help):
The situation as reported in my original post remains, however the original question may have set the wrong context.
In the absence of any clarifying information in the online manual about FFS file system settings, what I'm trying to understand is whether I can safely use disk management utilities, such as AOEMI or Mini Tool Partition Wizard, to change the status of a drive that was part of an FFS environment on another PC, without losing the data?
For example, AOEMI states that changing a HDD from Inactive to Active functions without affecting the data, but is there anything unique about an FFS set and its technology that would counter that AOEMI (or any other standard, reputable utility) claim?
Recovering after catastrophic system failure
- Posts: 17
- Joined: 8 Sep 2022
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- Posts: 2286
- Joined: 22 Aug 2012
FYI:
Adding editing an existing/previous post does not make the message appear as new or unread.
If there are updates to your your posting, it is therefore better to make a new posting in the thread.
That will show up as a new message, and may trigger forum members to read that new message.
On the topic:
Your original question was very unclear, and therefore did not trigger me to try and reply.
Your update seems a little bit clearer, so I'll give it a shot.
FreeFileSync (FFS) does not have any special file system or setting.
It simply synchronizes/copies files in their existing folder structure relative to the left and right base-location.
This means that there should not be any loss of data when using any tool other than FFS, as long as that tool does not change files or the folder structure they are in.
When using tools, the drive-letter of disks or partitions may obviously change, so the drive letters used in the FFS sync-configuration, as stored in *.ffs_gui or *.ffs_batch files, may need to be changed accordingly.
But the file content and folder structure should not be affected.
The only "but":
If you use a Two-way sync variant or have activated the Detect Moved Files option, FFS creates and uses a database (*.ffs_db-file). That system uses file-IDs.
If said other tools would cause the file-IDs to change, then FFS may not work as expected.
(Still, file content and data structure should be intact, prior to running any FFS sync)
You should then first run a Compare in FFS and critically review the proposed sync actions. Only if the proposed sync actions match your intensions, you should continue with the actual sync.
Adding editing an existing/previous post does not make the message appear as new or unread.
If there are updates to your your posting, it is therefore better to make a new posting in the thread.
That will show up as a new message, and may trigger forum members to read that new message.
On the topic:
Your original question was very unclear, and therefore did not trigger me to try and reply.
Your update seems a little bit clearer, so I'll give it a shot.
FreeFileSync (FFS) does not have any special file system or setting.
It simply synchronizes/copies files in their existing folder structure relative to the left and right base-location.
This means that there should not be any loss of data when using any tool other than FFS, as long as that tool does not change files or the folder structure they are in.
When using tools, the drive-letter of disks or partitions may obviously change, so the drive letters used in the FFS sync-configuration, as stored in *.ffs_gui or *.ffs_batch files, may need to be changed accordingly.
But the file content and folder structure should not be affected.
The only "but":
If you use a Two-way sync variant or have activated the Detect Moved Files option, FFS creates and uses a database (*.ffs_db-file). That system uses file-IDs.
If said other tools would cause the file-IDs to change, then FFS may not work as expected.
(Still, file content and data structure should be intact, prior to running any FFS sync)
You should then first run a Compare in FFS and critically review the proposed sync actions. Only if the proposed sync actions match your intensions, you should continue with the actual sync.
- Posts: 17
- Joined: 8 Sep 2022
Great! Thanks, that's given me great relief. I was just now looking for a utility to recover a temporary copy of the data I had previously stored on another drive (I'd deleted that a few weeeks ago as I was preparing to use FFS as my second copy medium, although in hindsight maybe not such a wise decision).
I'll still proceed with trying to recover the older (but still viable) deleted copy before I go to the step of reinstating the FFS setup.
I'll still proceed with trying to recover the older (but still viable) deleted copy before I go to the step of reinstating the FFS setup.
