Looking for help recovering .tib files on external hdd from XP

Doom1609

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A few days ago my dad offered my brother and I 200 dollars to find pictures of a pool job he had done years ago on an external hard drive. There is 28gb worth of pictures etc on the hdd and they are recovered from my moms old xp computer. My brother jumped at the oppurtunity downloading a trial software called acronis true image and tried recovering 6 or 7 large .tib files from the harddrive. The laptop he was using restarted after recovering the files and could not boot windows 7 anymore. I gave it a shot on my computer thinking he must have ran out of hard drive space to recover the files. the same thing happens after i restart the computer. Since it cant boot windows 7 for some reason i put in a cd with a different linux type os. I find that the recovery deleted my old user and EVERYTHING else on my computer and put the recovered files in its place. Not sure why it did this but i delete ALL the recovered files so i can install windows 7 again on my computer. Does anyone Know a solution to this? Mabye i need to have windows xp installed to correctly recover without errors? I feel like the reason it didnt boot was because i needed windows xp. Is there a way i can install both windows 7 and Xp and use Xp to recover the files?
 
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That would work, don't bother with the Updates or drivers, just use whatever is installed however, you might have to update the vga driver otherwise the program might not work, and the reolution might be less than 800 x 600.

Set your current resolution to 800 x 600 using your Windows resolution adjuster. Install the Windows XP, away you go.

If you don't reduce the screen resolution with your current OS, you might have it set at 1900 x 1500 (whatever), windows XP might not recognise that resolution in vga Safe mode and all you will get is a fuzzy black monitor screen.

AutomaticCoding

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[strike]A. Windows allows you to modify directly to files? Since when? I swear Microsoft completely bulldozed that entire thing due to MBR rootkits infecting PCs before they even booted up.
B. Your software was probably trying to write an image directly to the drive as a raw partition, however, refer to A, wat?
C. I'm confused what you're asking, if you just want to recover the newly created data (.tib files, apparently) just load up any OS that can read NTFS filetypes, which, is piratically anything post 2000, if not before. Ubuntu would probably be your best bet here, just mount the drive and copy it over; unless I'm not understanding something.[/strike]

Reread your post, seems to make a lot more sense this time round, no idea what I was reading the first time round.

I have no idea about your software, but:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronis_True_Image

They released a patch in '10 to support Windows 7. Can I ask why you have to image the drive? Are the files corrupt or something?
 

Doom1609

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Sorry if you didnt understand my question, basically i need to read these .tib files from the external hard drive to find pictures. I used acronis true image because a google search told me i could view the files that way... is there an easier way to do this?
 

AutomaticCoding

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What's stopping you from just plugging it and using windows explorer/finder/whateverLinuxsVersionIsCalled to browse it? Is the file system corrupt? Is it just not showing up? Has it been quick formatted? What?

Just "We felt like using some other software" doesn't really help.
 

AutomaticCoding

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So, why not just ctrl+c the files to somewhere else? Why image the hard-drive? What you're trying to do is attempt to use a cup to empty out a flooding boat when you have all the tools required to fix the hole next to you, E.G. pointless.

If you honestly do want to image the HDD though (Why? You've already said it's all working fine and you can access the files), and you've already fucked your windows build to hell:-
http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Ddrescue
 

TenPc

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tib files are images of the OS not images like gif or jpg. Acronis a disk image software that takes "pictures" of your system for RECOVERY purposes.

Images of your dads old job would be most likely be jpg or jpeg types as that format is often used with photograhs, they are rarely larger than 5mb, depending on the size.

A tib file could be as large as 300gb or possibly even higher depending on your total used space of your hard drive.

The reason the laptop didn't boot is becasue the tib file used up all the remaining hard drisk space.

Basically you have used the tib files as a replacement of your current operating system. You need to do a full install
 

Doom1609

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they are recovered files from a crashed computer. Im not sure if they are quick formatted or not, they are large files about 1-3 gb a piece and they are .tib files. when i try to open it asks for a program to use to view them and i used true image, which was definietly the wrong software. Can you elaborate on the easier ways to browse the files, thanks.
 

AutomaticCoding

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Am I the only one confused about how using up hard drive space makes it unbootable, I understand it'd probably crash when it tries to write any log files/etc, but, I can't work out how it deleted active files in the sys32 file & MBR & the rest.

Mind = blown, it's like 1990 again with MBR deleting viruses.
 

AutomaticCoding

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You just said that the files weren't corrupt and you could access them, or, am I miss understanding again? Can you go ahead and take a screenshot of what you see when you go to the drive letter (Assuming it mounts)?

How to do that:-
A. Plug in HDD
B. Go to "my computer"
C. Go into the one that is the HDD you just plugged in (Probably D? E? something in the first half of the alphabet, although, I doubt it's A/B/C)
D. Take screenshot
 

TenPc

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Oh, I see, the image of the drive that stored the pictures is inside the tib file.

I'm not sure whether you can extract files from a tib file even though you could view the pictures, you'd need a capture program to recreate the pictures.

You have to consider the size of the tib file, whether your OS, ram, cpu can handle opeing such a large file and also for viewing, and whether you would need the same versionof acronis to open it.
 

Doom1609

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Yes I Thought that is why it wouldnt boot in the first place, I did a full install last night and i have 230gb of free space now. the whole total of the .tib files on the external hard drive are around 28gb. The true image has the option to recover the files and thats what i tried to do. if i try to recover again would it still replace windows 7?
 

TenPc

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As per the Acronis forum
You can't "necessarily" use a different versin Acronis to open a tib file created in another version.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5974
Archive Compatibility Across Different Product Versions
http://kb.acronis.com/content/1689


Personally, I've never done this type of thing, all my backup files are copied to external hard drives, or burnt to CD's or data dvds. Sure, I got aabout 500 data cd's and data dvd's but I don't have to rely on zip programs or archive programs to view the files, and I've been using computers for more than 20 years. I still got about 300 3.5" floppies of copied data in the drawer, which I have copied to disks just in case they become corrupt.

Of course, what I do is a bit late for you, you need to extract, or at least be able to view the files.

Out of curiosity, what is the actual size of the tib files?
 

Doom1609

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okay i will put a screenshot up as soon as i can. The files were only accessible when i put in the disk for this mini os made for password recovery because i couldnt boot any other os and that was my only option to try and somehow format the hard drive.
 

TenPc

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The tib files might just be a capture of the My documents folder, you need to find out from your dad what the tib file actually consists of like the OS or just folders of the photos.


If it is just the My Documents folder, the "extraction" might actually work because there is no My Documents Folder in Windows 7, it's called "Documents" however, the structure of the tib file is x32 and you use x64 Wondows 7, I'd hazard a guess (as I usually do with all my answers) that you might experience some issues, the registry might kick up a stink.

As long as your current Pc is not being used for anything, you just reinstalled, try it, if it wrecks the OS then you know it wasn't a good idea. :)
 

Doom1609

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there is 9-10 2-3gb sized tib files. I think it contains pretty much everything in the computer
 

Doom1609

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i actually found what it consists of yesterday when i was viewing alot of it, although i couldnt print or burn the pictures like i need too. Its pretty much everything, alot of them are documents and then there is Alot of System files and OS files which is why i think it messed up windows 7.
 

TenPc

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That would work, don't bother with the Updates or drivers, just use whatever is installed however, you might have to update the vga driver otherwise the program might not work, and the reolution might be less than 800 x 600.

Set your current resolution to 800 x 600 using your Windows resolution adjuster. Install the Windows XP, away you go.

If you don't reduce the screen resolution with your current OS, you might have it set at 1900 x 1500 (whatever), windows XP might not recognise that resolution in vga Safe mode and all you will get is a fuzzy black monitor screen.
 
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Doom1609

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Recover the files?
Or recover from the crash?

If you're in the same situation I was in just install windows xp to finally recover the backup, that's what worked for me. Then once you have the backup files you need (not system files..) Dual boot windows 7, transfer the backup, and you can delete windows xp again. There might an easier way to do this but it finally worked. I never got the 200$ Either lol