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I recently had one of my Windows XP computers die on me. I had it's files set to automatically backup to another PC's hard drive using Norton.

I've tried using Norton to restore on the second computer so that I can recover some files (word documents, pictures), but when I try to do this, I get a dialog box saying that it "Failed to Restore". When I click to continue, it shows a list of the files I tried to restore, along with a status indicator for each file, which says "invalid file". How can I recover my files?

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    What are some files? Where are you trying to restore them to? If they are system files or files that are currently in use then you will not be able to restore them right now. You should probably expand on your question. Feb 3, 2011 at 23:07
  • Sorry for being so vague, I've updated the question. Feb 3, 2011 at 23:12
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    In my opinion, this question illustrates quite well how the process of backing up isn't nearly as important as attempting an actual restore from backup under reasonably life-like conditions. In the case of an individual user it doesn't need to be a full restore to bare metal (though it's nice if you can swing that), but restores should be tested and verified at least on a semi-regular basis to make sure the backups are working as they should. It makes a good recurring event in your calendar every few months or so. If you ever detect problems while testing, you'll be glad for it.
    – user
    Dec 31, 2013 at 0:08

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It's a corrupt catalog file. To fix this, go to your backup drive, go into the N360_BACKUP folder. Inside should be one or more folders with a long, ugly, alphaneumeric name.

(e.g. {5ABC34AE-1037-4f5d-BF93-B2B74C80B5F7})

Go into this folder, and remove the file backup.@db. You can put it on your desktop for safekeeping.

Now go back and run the Arestore.exe utility again. It will need to scrape each file in the back up set, one-by-one, so it could take a very long time.

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  • One reason I always use copy paste to back up my files, not as convenient as software, but I have never lost a file using this method. Nice info by the way, where did you learn this?
    – Moab
    Feb 4, 2011 at 0:16
  • Sorry I took so long to answer. I found out here: community.norton.com/t5/Norton-360/… Feb 6, 2011 at 16:16

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