Windows XP and Windows Vista are two workstation edition operating systems which are often compared on the basis of functionality, graphical interface, security architecture, management and networking technologies. Their professional and business and more editions respectively have provided never before features to the users. Windows Vista is better than Windows XP in terms of security and features. In order to benefit from added functionalities like Windows photo gallery, Windows Vista Sync Center Windows Sidebar and others, a user can upgrade his Windows XP system to Windows Vista.
During upgrade, if setup encounters any error, the system may come to a vulnerable state, which can be taken care of by reinstalling Windows.
Note: Windows reinstallation causes data loss, so this is recommended to backup all the important data. However, if backup fails, we can recover it by using Data Recovery utilities.
When setup encounters any error, a rollback phase is initiated, which attempts to get the system back to the previous Windows XP installation. So depending upon the operating system state a rollback can be successful or unsuccessful.
Successful Rollback
Rollback phase is meant for restoring all the original settings and data. The Windows XP system will start normally after a successful rollback operation. However, if any data is found to be missing, we need to check the following directories:
1 $WINDOWS.~QDATADocuments and SettingsUsername
2 $INPLACE.~TRMachineDataDATADocuments and SettingsUsername
3 UsersUsername
4 Document and SettingsUsername
Unsuccessful Rollback
If rollback phase doesn’t succeed in getting the system back to the original state, the system may not start at all. It may also prompt an error message about Rollback Setup or any Windows file which it founds to be missing. This particularly happens due to inaccessible or corrupt rollback data or incomplete rollback phase. Another reason could be that boot sector is using Bootmgr instead of NTLDR. To resolve this issue, we need to backup all the data and reinstall the operating system. If backup fails, Data Recovery Software can be used to recover lost data.
We need to check whether rollback phase was completed or not. So, we can choose ‘Previous Windows Operating System’ option through Windows Boot Manager menu, which appears when the system starts. If this works, we need to complete the rollback through Windows Recovery Environment. We can use Windows Vista installation disc, click to repair the operating system and restore the boot sector using command prompt.
However, if the previous operating system is not able to boot up correctly, we can either install Windows Vista or reinstall Windows XP in a new folder (known as parallel installation) and access the data.
We can carry out clean installation of operating system. But it is required to backup all the data first using Windows Recovery Environment’s command prompt. The reason behind is the same - clean installation requires format operation which leads to data loss.
Data Recovery
If you can’t access the data or the backup doesn’t prove to be productive, you can use Data Recovery Software to extract lost data. For better Data Recovery results, it is required that we should not use the same hard drive anymore post data loss. So, Data Recovery application should be installed on another hard drive to prevent overwriting. Data Recovery Software use safe and powerful scanning algorithms to recover lost data.
Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is the best Data Recovery Software which uses the most powerful scanning procedures to examine the hard drive for lost data and recover it safely. This Data Recovery utility is compatible with FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file systems. It supports Windows Vista, XP, Server 2003 and 2000.