I went to restore all of my files and settings to my newly rebuilt computer last night and I’m getting the message “please select a folder that contains files and settings”.  So I say to my computer, “I just did.  Let me try again”.  No luck.

All of the documents, OneNote notes, PowerPoints, development projects, and personal email that I’ve created for the past three months is locked up in two 4 GB .DAT files that I can’t seem to get the files and settings transfer wizard to recognize.

I’m presently seeking alternative ways to access those files.

This is the first time that I’ve done something like this without physically copying the files over to an external drive, so of course something would go wrong.

The main problem seems to stem from the fact that I created the files and settings on a domain-joined XP computer.  I’ve tried unsuccessfully to restore them from Vista and from a non-domain-joined XP computer.  The Vista problem I can understrand, because there’s a program that Vista creates for you that does a great job of migrating the XP settings to the Vista settings.  But the XP problem perplexes me.

Luckily, many of my important documents are saved either in a Microsoft Groove workspace, my email Inbox, my personal SharePoint site, or my “backup” computer.  However, I’m pretty sure I’ve lost all of my OneNote notes.

I hope today brings about some way of getting to those files.  If you have any suggestions on how I can crack open those .DAT files to get access to what’s inside, I’d love to hear about it.