Newbie switcher - restore MS backup on Mac ?

S

swiss_tony

Registered
Help please - the (final) death of my XP box triggered me buying an iMac at the weekend - and so far am really pleased. Before the XP box died I got most data off using Microsoft's XP backup utility (compressed to .bkf format) and I'm now looking to see if there's an easy way to restore / open / uncompress these .bkf files on the Mac. Any/all help/advice on any utility I might use would be much appreciated ..... thanks
 
Well the Mac has an Intel chip and with Leopard Apple included a program called Boot Camp.

How Boot Camp works is it makes all a disk image you can burn filled with all the drivers need for the apple isight and other things that you can load into Windows once it installs. Boot Camp also will partition you Hard disk and for Windows. You decided how large you want Windows to have on your disk.

So get a blank CDR, launch Boot Camp Assistant (/Applications/Utilities/Boot Camp Assistant) and then follow the application to install windows (the windows disk MUST be XP Service Pack 2 or Vista (with Vista use the better version, you will not regret it).

Once you install windows and it boots, installed the burnt Boot Camp disk CDR drivers. This will make Windows find all the built in devices in the Mac. Once you do all the windows updates, treat it like Windows and install virus/spyware protection ASAP. In Windows Control Panel there will be a new control Panel called Startup disk. Startup disk is also in OS X at System Preferences->Startup Disk. Some people also use the key combo during startup by holding the 'option' key down and then selecting the startup disk.

Now if you want to run OS X and windows at the same time there are some third party programs that will let you it. They are VMware's Fusion and/or Parallels. So if you want to go this way it is your choice.


Also for some Mac relate sites take at look at one of my other posts.
Satcomer said:
Also here are some very useful Mac sites you should visit.

1) MacOSXHints.com - a great daily hints site.
2) Accelerate Your Macintosh.com - a great site for adding hardware hacks to your Mac
3) iFixIt Guides.com - a great how to install instructions for ram, hard drives and DVD/CD replacements in Apple portables
4) BareFeats.com - a speed testing comparison site for Apple related products
5) "Well Known" TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products - good Apple document for working with firewall/router logical ports
6) MacFixIt.com - read the fix it articles with a grain of salt but it can sometimes be informative
7) MacWindows.com - Reader reports of using Mac in Windows dominated enterprise world
8) MacMinute.com and or Macworld.com - Mac news sites
9) MacUpdate.com and/or VersionTracker.com - Mac software updates listings sites
10) OWC and/or Crucial - two sites that sell guaranteed RAM that works great with OS X machines (Apple charges WAY TO MUCH for extra RAM)
11) MacPicks.com - find most any Mac centric web site on the net through this site
12) VMware or Parrallels.com - programs that help you run Windows and OS X at the same time on Intel Macs
Click to expand...

So to know the differences from Windows I urge you to get David Pogue's book Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual. It is easy to read (with pictures even :)). You will not regret it and it will help you get comfortable with OS X.


Note: I found a cool site called Vista on a Mac that might help.

Plus on more cool Apple document called Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.
 
Free advice is sometimes worth just that -- yet what really, really can suck is looking for a simple answer, getting your hopes up by the first Google listing, and then seeing a verbal word salad when a simple appetizer would have worked splendidly.

I too just had a major crash. I too am trying to salvage a drive, with stuff on it from 1995. It's stressful right now. And I frankly expected more from a poster that has 4000+ to his credit...

The org. question is: What OSX utility can I use to open MS-Backups (bkf's)

Masturbatory Word Salad Reply: Well the Mac has an Intel chip and with Leopard Apple included a program called Boot Camp.

...this has Nothing To Do with the org. question -- Intel, PowerPC, Z80...chips be damned, it makes no difference...

More Word Salad: How Boot Camp works is it makes all a disk image you can burn filled with all the drivers need for the apple isight and other things that you can load into Windows once it installs. Boot Camp also will partition you Hard disk and for Windows. You decided how large you want Windows to have on your disk.

...buncha word salad deleted...

How in the world does a full blown Windows install correlate to opening up a file that there's surely an OSX utility for? We're talking at least an hour or two here, and even then, Boot Camp might not work. The answer is like giving A-Bombs to cavemen so they can hunt squirrels. 4000+ posts and that's the best you can do? Did you even read the org. question?

Look, I understand wanting to help, but really, a three-hour tour to install Windows and getting in running on the Mac is probably not the best solution...indeed, I'm going to try finding one and post it here.

If the answer wasn't #1 in Google, it wouldn't matter. But since it is, think how many hours...hundreds, if not thousands of people are going to spend to fix an issue that should take seconds?

Whew, back to getting up and running...after this latest crash, I'm done with MS...I know u can do better, Satcomer.

-osgo
 
Hi Osgo,
A simple way to do this? Use Fusion, create an XP image, and use the restore image inside the virtual machine to restore that to the backup. (and then do whatever you need to get your data to your host OS X).

To restore OS X to a Windows backup is about as natural as restoring your Linux to your last Windows system backup, or restoring your Windows to your last Time Machine backup.
 
Folks, I think we are all missing the point. The two posters want a simple OSX program that will read this proprietary back up file. They don't want to reinstall Windows. Hell, they are both running from Windows!

Now the flip side, I don't think there is a simple utility. The problem with proprietary files/formats is that they are...well...proprietary. Swisstony and Osgo, in the end, you may need to follow the advice above if you want that data.

But again, the primary question, is there a Mac OSX program that will work with bkf files?
 
hate registering just to post this but for anyone brave enough to untar their windows backup (is there a GUI for tar?), I offer an intel-only, Snow Leopard, command line binary of the mtftar BKF filter utility here:

http://esem.name/?p=273
 
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