Restoring a Windows 98 backup to a Windows 2000 OS

[anthony0494]

I recently backed up the my documents folder on a windows 98 SE operating system to four floppy disks. I then upgraded the OS to windows 2000 professional. When I tried to restore the data, I received an error message that said, "the file is unusable. it must be erased or choose a different file." The heading on the message stated "unrecognized media." I am wondering if I can tranfer the data from the floppies to a tape and then restore the data from the tape drive?? I really need this data. How can I get it back?????

 

[gwichman]

how exactly did you backup the data to the floppies? Just drag and drop? There shouldn't be any reason you can't simply drag them back to the win2k box that i know of. transferring the data from floppies to tape would serve no purpose but more information would be helpful. What are the files? word docs? text files? How'd you make the floppy backups? What exactly are you doing when you say "when i tried to restore the data". What application is giving you that error message?

 

[anthony0494]

I used the backup utility in Windows 98 to back up the data, (mostly word documents and a few excel spreadsheets), to four floppy disks. I know I could have just copied the docs to floppies, but I wanted to experiment with backup. After I upgraded to windows 2000, I try to restore the backup job using the backup utility again and it will not allow me to restore the date. It tells me that the file is unusable. Is there any way possible to restore the data? I am willing to do anything because these douments are important, (I know, I shouldn't have used backup for that.....you live, you learn).

 

[gwichman]

hmm good question.. the real question you're after is whether or not backup on win98 is compatable with NTbackup on win2k. It may not be and that might be the root of your problem. Unfortunetly i can't answer that and i doubt many in these forums would know. You might want to ask that question in the win2k forum to see whether it is. If you have microsoft support they could also easily help you or answer the questions you might have. Given your statement about the documents being important and all, i'd opt fot he microsoft route and stop messing around. The only other thing you could do is setup an alternete win98 box and test it yourself to see if you can restore the floppies to the original platform/configuration. It would also allow you to see if they're cross compatable with the win2k. If thats not an option you should contact Microsoft.