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I have a situation that I need help with. I backed up my Files on Windows XP using the System > BackUp utility/wizard, and then Installed a new operating system on the machine. Now I want to restore my old files via the .bkf file but it is not being recognized at all. Did I do this wrong or is there a way to still get back my old files on my new OS ? Thanks in advance!

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Are you sure its a "bak" file? you might need to rename it to "bks" instead, thats the NTBACKUP fileformat.

You could post the contents of the ntbackup log file: 

 C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows NT\NTBackup\data\backup01.log

"obviously", remove anything personally identifiable..

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When I did made the back up, I saved it to my harddrive... I then formatted my C Drive so I could install the new OS. Not sure how to get that file you requested. Oh, by the way, the extension is .bkf, and not .bak. I have editted the entry there. – Kobojunkie Apr 7 '10 at 12:52
Do you mean, that you saved it to another partition? or you formatted the drive you saved it on.. if the latter, there is not a lot you can do.. you have probably overwritten it with the new operating system. Unfortunate. – Grizly Apr 7 '10 at 23:01
No, I saved the backup file to my external harddrive. And then I installed a new OS on my machine and formatted the drive on the machine. Now I want to open/restore the backup file on the machine which now has a new OS installed. Only I don't seem able to do it usng the NTBackUp utility. What else can I use? – Kobojunkie Apr 7 '10 at 23:22
There appears to be some tools that you can buy to do it.. but the consensus is that if the file is corrupt, then there is nothing MS tools can do to open it again for free: support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;269826 If you just want some text-files from your backup, you can open it with vim/notepad++ etc to view the contents of it.. that worked for me.. but it seems to use its own "tape-emulator" format.. so bin files will be corrupt. – Grizly Apr 8 '10 at 0:21

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