Restore data from backup

In the event that data has been lost and must be restored from a backup, the program offers two options:

• The internal Restore function
• The additional program PbRestore

The internal Restore function

Clicking the button in the tool bar on the left will open a dialog window in which you can select which files and from which directory you wish to restore and to which directory the files are to be copied. These settings can be saved as task (<filename>.rsj) for use at any time.

Select the location of the backed up files for Restore

When restoring files, you must consider how the data was backed up (see Backup destination):

• The backup directory is on a local storage medium or on a network drive
  Data can be restored from single files or from zip files:
  • Select the root directory if the data was saved as single files (even if compressed and/or encrypted).
  • Select the zip file in the root directory if the data was saved as one zip file per subdirectory. All zip files in the subdirectories of the same name will be included automatically.
    You can use a file mask like PB-Bu*.zip instead of the filename. In this case, all matching zip archives will be scanned. If multiple versions of files are found, only the most recent will be selected for restore (see here).
  • Select a single zip file if all data was saved there.
• The backup directory is on an FTP server
  A direct restore is only possible if your data was saved as single files (even if compressed and/or encrypted). In all other cases you need to restore in two steps:
  1. First restore all required zip files including the directory structure to a temporary local folder. For this step you can use Personal Backup in Restore mode for single files or any FTP client such as FileZilla or Total Commander.
  2. Then restore the files from the local folder as described above.
  FTP settings for restore
  Clicking the button will open a dialog to configure the FTP server connection parameters (see here):
  
  After clicking the button, the program will connect to the FTP server and read the remote directory tree of the backup for the user to select a subdirectory.

Restore to

Files can be restored either to the original source directory or to any other location:

• Source directory: The source path will be derived from the pathname of the backup folder. A restore to source is only possible if you backed up the data with the option Drives separated, so that drive indicators(such as DrvC, DrvD, ...) are part of the backup directory path. In this case Lw? must be given as drive identifier. The question mark will be replaced with the respective drive letter, hence it is even possible to restore to source directories on different drives.
• Selected directory: In this case you must browse for the directory where the files are to be restored. Clicking the button will open a dialog where you can select the directory. In this mode, the restore function can be used to make copies of all backed-up files in their original directory structure at a different location, e.g. on another computer.

Uncompress gz/gze and zip files

If the backup was made into single compressed files, select the same mode as used during backup. So all files will automatically be unpacked on restore in the right way (default setting : gz/gze).
 

No decryption of enc files

Personal Backup adds the file extension enc for uncompressed encrypted files. These files are decrypted automatically on restore. If there are files from another application using this extension, the decryption will fail. You can prevent the program from decrypting such files by checking this option.
 

Restore empty directories

If this option is selected, even empty directories will be restored.
 

Reset archive bit

If this option is selected, the archive bit of each restored file will be reset.
 

Synchronize

If this option is enabled, all files in the destination directory that match the specified filter conditions (see below) and that are not existing in the backup directory will be deleted after restore. Thereby it does not matter whether the files were encrypted and/or compressed during the backup.
 

File filters

By using filename filters, filenames matching certain patterns may be included or excluded. Use the same rules as described for backup file filters (Standard file filter or Regular expressions).
 

File age

You can specify whether you want to restore only files newer or older than a given fixed or relative date.

• Relative to actual date: newer or older than the specified number of days, weeks, months or years
• Fixed date: newer or older as or exact thew given date

Overwrite

Here you can specify whether existing files are always to be overwritten, or only when they are older than those from your backup, or never.
 

Settings for time comparison

Comparing the timestamps of files is problematic when using different file systems. Adjust the settings to be system-independent (see here).
 

Restore of

Creation time
If this option is selected, the creation time of the files will also be restored.
 

Alternate data streams
If this option is checked, any alternate data streams saved with the files (see here), will be restored.
 

Document summaries
If this option is checked, the document summaries, possibly saved with the files (see here), will be restored.
 

File permissions
In NTFS file systems and network shares, an access control list (ACL) that specifies the permissions for each user is associated with each file and directory. If this option is set, also the permissions of files and directories will be restored (see here). For this to happen, it is necessary that ACLs are supported by both source and destination.
 

Junctions
If this option is set, the information about junctions saved during backup (see here) will be analyzed to recreate the junctions in the destination directory of the restore. Depending on the restore settings, the contents of the directories, to which the junctions point, must possibly be restored separately.
Important note: To restore junctions, administrator rights are required.
 

Take security copies into account

This option is disabled by default, but must be activated only if Security copies were created during backup.
Use this option to define how these security copies shall be taken into account during restore. The settings for prefixes and suffixes must be set in the dialog (see screenshot below) as used during backup to identify these directories and files. There are two possible selections:

1. Ignore: All directories and files matching these settings will be ignored on restore. Only the most recent files will be restored from backup (default setting).
2. Include: This selection is required if you wish to restore to the state as at a former date, as specified under File age - All before ..... All directories and files matching the settings for prefix and suffix will be scanned on restore to find the most recent file version matching to the selected time slot. The files will be moved automatically to their correct destination.

To facilitate this setting, you can click the very left button at the bottom to import the settings from the corresponding backup task. The settings can be specified separately for security copies from backup and from synchronization:

• Security copies created during backup
  The option Directory prefix is only required if the security copies were moved to a separate directory. If these copies are to be considered during restore, it is necessary to specify the same prefix which was used during backup.
  The option Filename suffix must be selected if the security copies were not moved to a separate directory, but created by renaming. You must select the same settings as used on backup. If placeholders were used on backup, clicking the appropriate button will insert the filter pattern needed to exclude these files. If a number of prior versions have been saved, use the upper right button to insert the counter placeholder (“#” character, e.g. bak-#).
  Should several statements be required, these can be separated by semicolons (e.g. bak;bak-#).
• Security copies created during synchronization
  The option Directory prefix must be specified to use the same settings as used for the security copies on synchronization during backup. This applies both to directories that had to be deleted during synchronization and to the optional selectable directory used to move files to be deleted. If security copies are to be be considered during restore, additionally you have to specify which directory option was used during backup.
  The option Filename suffix is only required if the security copies were not moved to a separate directory, but created by renaming.
  If placeholders were used during backup, clicking the appropriate button will insert the filter pattern needed to exclude these files.

Mail delivery after restore

Similar to the option for backups, a mail with status information and optionally a log file can be sent after performing a restore task. The settings are the same as for backup.
 

Password

Here you can optionally specify a fixed password to be used for decryption of files. In this case the user will not be prompted to enter it during restore. So a restore may be performed in background without user interaction.
By clicking the small button at the right, you can import the password from the associated backup task. Note that this option cannot be used if the backup task is protected.
The icon on the button changes to show whether a fixed password was specified or the password has to be queried on restore.
 

Log settings

Clicking the button will open a dialog to adjust the log settings for restore.
Click then button to view the current log.
 

Loading and saving restore tasks

Clicking the or button will save a configured restore task with all settings to disk. To load and reuse such a saved task, click the button.

A saved restore task can also be started from the command line. This makes it possible to use the Windows Task Scheduler to restore files at specific times, or to restore a directory (for example automatically on logon) by adding a shortcut to the Windows start menu (see All Programs ⇒ Startup):
PersBackup /restore <rest-task>

Automatic Restore using Windows Task Scheduler

You can configure a Windows scheduled task to carry out an automatic Restore by clicking the button. The configuration procedure is the same as described for backups.

Start restore

Clicking the button will start the restore. Before restoring any files, the program will create and display a list of all files that match the filter conditions. If the selection is not to your liking, you can cancel the restore at this point and adjust your settings. It is also possible to select or deselect files or directories individually by tagging the checkboxes.

Right-clicking a file will open a local menu that allows its contents to be viewed or compared with the source (if available):

• View file: If no special viewer such Lister.exe (see Total Commander package) was selected, the Windows default file type settings will be used to start the associated program. Compressed or encrypted files will be processed beforehand.
• Compare file: You can use the open source program WinMerge for comparing files. Compressed or encrypted files will be processed before loading.

To use these options, an external viewer and a comparison program must be specified. Clicking the button will open an appropriate dialog.

After this, all selected files will be restored. Any necessary unpacking and decryption will occur automatically. If required, a password must be entered by the user only once. If you wish, you can save the password with the restore task (more ..) to avoid any interaction during restore

The additional program PbRestore

The program can be started via the Windows Start Menu or in Personal Backup by selecting Control panel menu - Utilities - External Restore program in two different modes of operation:.

• Restore files - Restore data saved as separate files
• Restore from zip archive - Restore data saved in zip archives

You can copy this supplementary program onto a USB stick to restore files in emergency without installing Personal Backup in its entirety.

Restore data from backup into separate files

The program offers three options to restore data backed up into separate files (even if compressed as gz/gze or zip and/or encrypted:

• Restore selected files
• Restore all files from a selected directory and all its subdirectories
• Restore data from an alternating schedule

In all three cases compressed and/or encrypted files will be unpacked and/or decrypted automatically. The destination directory must be selected manually. In addition you can select, whether files already existing in the destination directory shall be overwritten or not. If only older files shall be overwritten, you can adjust the settings for time comparison (see here). Optionally you can disable the overwriting of write-protected files and reset the archive bit of each restored file.
By clicking the tool button at the lower right of the file list you can adjust whether you wish to associate gz, gze and enc files with PbRestore as the default application in Windows. Click the upper right button to switch to zip mode.

Restore selected files

First, on the left select the directory or if the option Uncompress: zip files is selected the zip archive, containing the files to be restored. On the file list at right you can select the desired file(s) using the mouse or keyboard (Ctrl-A for all or Ctrl-N for none) in the normal way. Clicking the Restore button will initiate the copying of files into the specified destination.
Uncompress: If the option Uncompress: gz/gze files is selected, the files will be unpacked automatically. The same applies to zip files if the option Uncompress: zip files is enabled.
Decryption: The program will automatically recognize if the files to be restored are encrypted (enc, gze or zip). In that case the user will be prompted to specify the password used on backup to decrypt the files during restore.
Double-clicking a file or the Preview button at the lower right will start the application associated in Windows with this file (e.g. an image viewer for jpg file).
 

Restore all files from a selected directory

First, on the left select the directory or zip archive, containing the files to be restored. After clicking the Restore button all files from this directory and optionally all its subdirectories or all files from the selected zip archive will be copied to the destination directory. Using a filter, the selection can be restricted to particular files. The directory structure will be retained. Unpacking and/or decryption is done as described above.
In addition, existing previous versions created with the Leave in original directory option can be taken into account:

• Ignore: All files found, including any existing backup copies, will be restored.
• Exclude: On restore, any Security copies found, that match the specified suffix will be excluded.
• Include: On restore, any Security copies found, that match the specified suffix will be be taken into account to recover the file state at the given date.

Restore from a schedule

If your files were saved using an alternating schedule (Full backup in conjunction with incremental/differential backups) the files will be distributed to several directories (e.g. BD01F, BD02I, BD03I,..). When restoring it is necessary to retrieve the most recent versions.
The user must specify the following items:

• Base directory: Select the directory containing the subdirectories of the schedule (see above) at the left
• Date: The latest version of each file relative to this date will be restored.
• Scan only matching subdirectories: Specify a filter pattern for the subdirectories to be scanned (e.g. BD* for the example above). You can use * and ? as placeholders.
• Only for this drive identifier: If the backup used the mode Separate directories for drives, you must specify the identifier of the drive containing the files to be restored, e.g. LwE for files that were originally on drive E. If the backup was made without separate directories for drives, this field should be left empty.
  After clicking the Start button the selected directories will be scanned to find the latest file versions. After confirmation, all files will automatically be copied to the destination directory.

Unpacking and/or decryption is done as described above.
Clicking the Preview button allows you to check in advance whether the selection of files has been set correctly.

Restore files from zip archives

If the backup was placed into one zip archive or into zip archives per subdirectory, the files can be unpacked using any popular file archiver such as WinZip or 7zip. This applies even to archives with encrypted data.
But if, in addition, also the filenames were encrypted (available since version 5.9.4), a full recovery of backed-up data is no longer possible using one of these programs (see here). The file data itself will be decrypted correctly, but the filenames cannot be recovered. In this case the use of PbRestore is required. The program will decrypt all directory names and filenames on reading the zip archive and will rebuild the original directory structure.
Depending on the settings during backup, the following options are available:

• Single zip archive: The directory structure found in the selected zip archive and all files of the selected subdirectory are displayed.
• Zip archives per subdirectory: Select the desired zip archive in the root directory. All zip files in the subdirectories of the same name will be included automatically. You can use a file mask like PB-Bu*.zip instead of the filename. In this case, all matching zip archives will be scanned. If multiple versions of files are found, only the most recent will be selected for restore.
  The directory structure and all files of the selected subdirectory are displayed.

Initially, all files are selected. By clicking the checkboxes to the left of the directories and filenames, they can be alternatively excluded or included. Using one of the two buttons above the file list, all files can be deselected or selected.
In addition you can select whether files already existing in the destination directory shall be overwritten or not. If only older files shall be overwritten, you can adjust the settings for time comparison (see here). Optionally you can disable the overwriting of write-protected files and reset the archive bit of each restored file.
After selecting a destination directory, start the restore by clicking the associated button.
Click the button to the upper right of the file list to switch to single file mode.

Command line options:

To control the operation mode of PbRestore, use the following command line options:

none

The program will start in the recent used mode

/dir

The program will start in Restore data from backup into separate files mode and will offer the selection whole directory (see above).

/sched

The program will start in Restore data from backup into separate files mode and will offer the selection files from schedule (see above).

/path:[Directory]

The program will start in Restore data from backup into separate files mode, directly select the given Directory and offer the selection selected files (see above).

/zip

The program will start in Restore files from zip archives mode (see above)

[Filename] or [File list]

If Filename is a zip archive, it will be opened to restore selected files. In all other cases (either one file or a list of files) the Restore data from backup into separate files mode will open and the specified files will be selected for restore (see above).