Dave Flash wrote:
A recent startup of my windows 10 computer completely shutdown. Windows offered an attempt to repair itself but to no avail.
A windows boot disk was created to reboot windows and a clean version was installed. My data was spared, however all of the programs, specifically Lightroom 6, PS4, PS Elements now reside in a file named windows.old. Does anyone have a recommended procedure to recover my Lightroom organization or do I have to start all over?
A newbie to the forum so please be kind.
My condolences, just take this as a lesson learned (and I've
learned plenty due to
negative incentives).
For your reference, if a computer is POWERED off before a shutdown completes, disk corruption can occur (been there, done that). A boot disk will allow access to other recovery tools before a
nuclear clean install.
1. I recently found out that windows automatically creates restore points when it updates or when other criteria are met. It recently restored my notebook that I "fingered" somehow and while windows would boot, it said it didn't have
my profile so my personalizations (windows and programs) were gone. Jumping back to a restore point solved the problem rather quickly rather than a restore from backup (though I will say, from practice, I have LIMITED faith in restore points).
2. For the future (and perhaps the past), get a free copy of Macrium Reflect and create an image of your drive on another drive (external fine). Now the working windows is saved. Then see if you can go back to the corrupted version (undo the fix), and try restore points. However, if you did a clean install, the corrupted version might be gone. Hopefully you have your installation media and serial numbers available for the "old" programs. No disrespect, but a "clean install" is the solution of last resort.
Once you have an image, with periodic updates (Macrium does that), when (not if) a problem occurs, it's straightforward to reinstall the old image and everything is as it was, minus the changes since the last backup. Has saved my a** a number of times (even with something as simple as a config change that didn't go as planned - easier to restore than try and backtrack).
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfreeOnce everything is reinstalled, a number of programs that will collect your software keys, or at least a lot of them. I've used Belarc Advisor:
https://www.belarc.com/products_belarc_advisor