Restoring to a different computer

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

My wife’s computer is running Windows XP. I used a My Passport drive to back up various categories of her files. Now her computer has died. Is there a way for me to restore her data to a different computer running Windows XP?

The manual seems to contemplate only restoring to the original location or to a different location on the same computer.

Thanks,

Leslie

1 Like
2

How were the files backed up? If you used SmartWare, you probably want to install it on the destination computer. It should allow you to choose destination folder(s).

However, you should also be able to use Windows Explorer to look inside the “WD SmartWare.swstor” folder on the My Passport. At the first level you should see a folder with the same name as the source computer. Inside that should be a folder for each drive on the source computer which you backed up files from. It (they) should have names beginning with “Volume.” followed by a fairly long alpha-numeric string. Inside that should be folders named as they were on the source machine. You can copy these directly wherever you wish.

2 Likes
3

You may need to check show hidden files. Sometimes you need to run another backup then look for a file

http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Book-for-PC/data-restore/m-p/161586/highlight/true#M5703

Joe

4

Those are some great points. Thanks, Joe! Good stuff to know.

5

Thanks so much for alerting me to how to find the files on the  external HDD using Windows Explorer. I can now get on with re-assembling my wife’s data.

6

You are very welcome!