Thursday, June 24, 2010

How to Open Windows XP Backup File in Windows Vista?

NTBackup is a command-line tool included in Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 for backing up data on to storage media like, tapes, floppy disks, and ZIP drives. In Windows Vista and later operating systems, this tool has been replaced by Windows Backup and Restore Center. Unlike NTBackup, which uses BKF file format to backup data, Windows Backup and Restore Center uses its own proprietary file format - VHD (Virtual Hard Disk). Thus, you cannot directly open and access old backups created with earlier operating systems in Windows Vista. For BKF Recovery in Windows Vista, Microsoft provides a special tool, which has been mentioned further.

Before explaining the use of this tool, let's first consider a realistic problem. Suppose you use Windows XP and for future restoration purposes, you run NTBackup utility and store the backed up data on a floppy disk. Next, you perform a clean reinstall of Windows Vista and lose important data in this process.

Expecting that you can restore this lost data from the BKF file created in Windows XP, you insert your floppy disk in computer and try to restore the file. But you observe that you cannot restore this file and cannot regain lost data.

Solution
As mentioned, Windows Vista cannot restore the BKF file directly. To read and restore BKF files in Windows Vista (also in Windows Server 2008), Microsoft offers NTBackup Restore utility. This is a supplemental utility that can read backup file of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 and allows its access in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 computers.

However, if even NTBackup Restore utility cannot read the file, it could be due to corruption of BKF file. To read such files, you need to take aid of a third-party utility to Repair BKF File.

BKF Recovery software are exclusive tools built for repairing and restoring the corrupted BKF file contents at a safe location. Once installed, you can safely run these applications and read corrupted file without any hassle. However, keep in mind that the utility you choose must be compatible with Windows Vista or any other operating system you use.

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