Transferring settings from an unbootable computer - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: hkBattousai
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 11:41:24 am
content: I have an hardware problem on my PC, an it is currently unbootable. I have access to every file on the harddisk. How can I transfer the settings of Altium Designer to another computer from this unbootable harddisk?

author: jeremy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 11:58:42 am
content: If you're lucky, you may be able to pull the hardrive out, plug it into a new PC and boot the windows install using VMWare. Then you can copy out everything you like.Sorry, don't remember the exact steps, it's been a while since I've done it.

author: IanJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 12:36:11 pm
content: Copying the settings would depend on where they are stored........if it's in the registry then you have a hard, albeit not impossible but would be geeky job ahead.If Altium stores all settings in a file somewhere then you are a lucky guy.Failing that, you would have to boot the original hard disk on another MB and run your software in order to be able to see your settings and copy them across to your new PC.First question though........why is it unbootable?......there's usually things you can do to fix this.Ian.

author: hkBattousai
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 12:46:04 pm
content: Quote from: IanJ on November 25, 2014, 12:36:11 pmThe PSU died and took the motherboard with it.I will buy a new motherboard soon. I made a google search and learned that Windows 7 doesn't boot up when the motherboard is changed. So I decided to start salvage of the files today.I had exported preferences to a file and I have access to it. But that doesn't contain the latest changes I did. I will import the settings from it in the worst case. Though, it will be best if Altium is storing the settings in a specific location (like AppData or installation folder) and I can directly copy some certain files to other computer.

author: 8086
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 01:02:19 pm
content: I don't believe that Win7 won't boot with a different motherboard...it might complain about the change and get you to re-activate windows, but I wouldn't have thought it would fail to boot altogether...

author: gnif
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 01:05:00 pm
content: Quote from: hkBattousai on November 25, 2014, 12:46:04 pmI feel for you... I mean, I really feel for you! This has occured to me a few times in recent years, ended up spending some cash any buying a PSU that was well made and over specced for the PC... then going a step further and getting a high end fully online rack mount UPS. Since then seen two surges, one of which killed my daughters PSU, but the UPS saved the rest of the equipment down the line from it and even kindy emailed me about the event, best $350 I have ever spent.Quote from: hkBattousai on November 25, 2014, 12:46:04 pmReally? Normally when Windows 2K onwards installs it chooses between two HALs, one using ACPI and one without... I would assume windows 7 does similar based on the hardware, I know that it was possible to switch the HAL to get 2K/XP/Vista to boot on different hardware. At a minimum it should be possible to boot into safe mode to recover data from the running system. Obviously this will 'de-activate' windows as the hardware is so different, but it should still allow a few days of use before forcing re-activation.An alternative option is to source a motherboard from eBay or somewhere else that has the same chipset, this pretty much always works, even with Windows 7.At a guess (never using Altium) I would say that the data is stored in C:\Users\<YourAccount>\AppData\ somewhere... dig around in there for it. It might be stored in the registry and if so there are ways to get to this data still also, but due to the amount of information stored for an application like this I highly doubt it.

author: nitro2k01
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 01:08:45 pm
content: Quote from: 8086 on November 25, 2014, 01:02:19 pmWindows is very picky about how it boots. The first hurdle is that the partition identifier might end up being different, which may prevent the boot loader form loading the OS in the first place. The second hurdle is that Windows tries to load drivers for the old chipset, which will likely crash on the new one. There are ways around this, even just booting into safe mode might work. As long as the disk itself isn't damaged, you should be able to recover the data, though.

author: gnif
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 01:13:54 pm
content: Quote from: nitro2k01 on November 25, 2014, 01:08:45 pmIncorrect, windows like all other modern operating systems check the PCI Vendor and Device IDs for drivers it needs to load, even early in the boot sequence. The only issue that can occur that early is loading of the wrong HAL for the motherboard as the installer detects this and pre-configures it for your PC. IIRC there is a boot arg "/detecthal" you can specify using BCDEdit that will force this to be re-detected on the next boot.Edit:Here is info about 'detecthal'Edit 2: One other issue off the top of my head that might prevent boot is missing SATA chipset drivers for the new hardware.QuoteI have found you can work around this using a open bootloader like GRUB, a good disk to boot a disk with a missing/broken bootloader isSuperGrubDiskas it will attempt to detect your operating systems and chainload them with the correct parameters to get you back into a working environment where you will then be able to correct it properly.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 01:38:21 pm
content: Some image backup software supports a restore on a different mainboard taking care about drivers. You can also add additional drivers while restoring. For example Acronis with Universal Restore or Macrium Reflect with ReDeploy.

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 02:00:15 pm
content: Quote from: 8086 on November 25, 2014, 01:02:19 pmHeck, I smoked my laptop, took the drive out and popped it in a completely different laptop and Windows 7 booted far enough to run the driver wizard and fix itself. It needed re-activating, but no biggie.I hate Windows with a passion and I've been using Linux almost exclusively since 1996, but even I have to admit that with windows 7 they made great strides towards doing what other Operating systems have been doing for years.The only time you'll have an issue is if you move to a machine that requires a different hal, so things like ACPI and the APIC. Pretty much anything made in the last 5 years or so you'll have a pretty good chance of it just working and if it doesn't it won't damage anything in the attempt.

author: IanJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 03:33:01 pm
content: Quote from: gnif on November 25, 2014, 01:05:00 pmI don't, even despite a few knackered hard drives and motherboards over the years (although I will always try to advise/help folks though!).What I mean is, I just don't understand folks that don't/won't backup!I have been using IMAGE FOR WINDOWS for years and it saved my bacon only a few months ago when I had a catastrophic hard drive failure in my media PC. I was back up & running with a new hard drive, my OS and data fully intact in less than 40mins.http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htmIan.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2014, 04:27:03 pm
content: altium stores its settings inside \user\appdata\roaming\altium designer <key>just install altium on new machine then clone that directory over

author: gnif
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 26, 2014, 05:20:10 am
content: Quote from: IanJ on November 25, 2014, 03:33:01 pmI was not referring to data backup, I was referring to the cost in lost hardware and time to rebuild the machine. When your livelyhood depends on a working computer having an outage for even a few hours hurts.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2014, 05:23:43 am
content: Windows 7 will usually boot up just fine if you swap motherboards, as long as the new motherboard supports the same cpu brand as before (AMD or Intel) and a similar chipset.One exception is if you were running non standard SATA/PATA drivers, like if you were using onboard RAID or something. Then it just BOSDs on boot when it tries to read the drive.You can also try a repair install, (google for more details).It's basically a special re-install that doesn't wipe out your installed applications, drivers, settings etc..It replaces the generic windows drivers and OS files from the install CD and puts windows back into a bootable state.The repair install doesn't always work quite right though, sometimes things just wont run any more.