Ubuntu

I want to restore backup info from a Western Digital external hard drive.

Asked by canon

I want to restore the data that I have saved on my Western Digital external hard drive from when I was using Windows XP. It came with a software called Retrospect Express version 6.5. I just installed Ubuntu 8.10 and this is my first experience with Linux. When I connected the WD-HD to my computer all of the files had .rdb extensions with a closed padlock next to the icon. There is no application listed to read the files. My computer couldn't run either the software that was on the WD-HD or from the Retrospect cd. I have tried searching around for comparable linux programs, but haven't seen anything that seems to apply to my situation. I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

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nhasian (nhasian) said : 		#1

sounds like you have three options:

1) install wine and see if that backup software will install and run okay. if that fails...

2) install your backup software on a different computer with windows. see if you can extract your files then move them to ubuntu.

3) install virtualbox on your ubuntu computer. then install your Windows XP/Vista inside of virtualbox. you must use the Virtualbox from their website as the Virtualbox OSE (open source edition) in the ubuntu repositories doesnt have USB support.

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canon (exactam) said : 		#2

Step 1 did not work. Even though I got the setup.exe to run, I could not get past the first menu. After I would click "Install Retrospect" a window would pop up and then immediately disappear, which I interpret to mean it cannot install.

As far as the other two options, they seem to defeat the purpose of installing Ubuntu; I guess I will have to buy a Mac after all. Hopefully some new answers pop up, but if they don't, I would hope that some bright people figure out how to solve the problem in the future. Ubuntu cannot "simply work" if I can't transfer my files.

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juancarlospaco (juancarlospaco) said : 		#3

Try if you can extract your " .rdb" files with PeaZIP, it supports handling +79 standard file extensions :
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/peazip/peazip_2.5.LINUX.GTK2-2_i386.deb

Try ReactOS, an XP clone:

ReactOS ready to run on Ubuntu (Qemu VM):
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/reactos/ReactOS-0.3.8-REL-qemu.zip

ReactOS ready to run on Ubuntu (VMWare VM):
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/reactos/ReactOS-0.3.8-REL-vmware.zip

Ubuntu just work,
the program refuses to work, how many Linux software you can run on Windows for example.
You have discover something interesting, you are not the owner of your data, if its not saved on Standard formats.
:)

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