Member Avatar for lostinwindows

I backed up a Vista 32 bit system to 2 USB flash drives using "Windows Easy Transfer" After I had performed the backup, I re-installed Windows and installed all of the updates. Now I want to recover my user data. When I plug in Flash Drive #1 I get a message saying "There was an error reading all pieces of Media. Windows Easy Transfer will now be cancelled". This message sort of makes sense, I have the backup on 2 drives and the system never prompted me for the second drive.

To try to fix this problem, I copied the .mig file from both drives to a folder on my C drive called "from_old_computer. If I try to recover from this folder I get a different message. First it asks me "Where did you copy the files and settings you want to transfer?" Enter the path to your saved data:" I enter the path and click on Next. After about 5 minutes I get a pop-up window: "Please select a valid file where your data can be restored from. To select a file click Browse"

How do I restore my data?

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Member Avatar for davidchilders

I'm not sure exactly what's going on here - but the first thing I would try is connecting both USB flash drives to the system at the same time. Backups write what is called a 'catalog' file that keeps track of what was backed up and which device was used to backup your stuff.

Another (less happy) thought is that, if you removed your USB flash drives from your old computer without dismounting them using the 'Safely Remove USB Device' tool tray application, you may have caused some file corruption to your backup. In this case, you may never be able to restore your files and settings.

But try connecting both USB flash drives first and see how that goes.

I hope this helps -

Member Avatar for dee101g

If you don't have two open USB ports to do what David suggested, buy or borrow a USB hub to give that a try.

If someone is reading this post before using Easy Transfer, however, my anecdotal suggestion is that Easy Transfer seems to work more consistently machine-to-machine than machine-to-disc-to-machine in my experience. An alternative is a good backup of personal files and taking the opportunity to redo personal settings on new operating systems (assuming this is an OS upgrade).

Member Avatar for lostinwindows

I read that one of the ET problems is you need to restore to the same language version of that you backed up to. Do you have any idea how many versions of English Windows has? I am giving up on this

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