So you’ve had Arq installed for a while and it’s been backing up your key folders like Documents, Music, and Photos.
But your computer’s hard drive died. So you took it to the Apple store, and they replaced the hard drive. Now how do you get your files back? Here’s how:
Restoring with Arq
First, download Arq from http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/ and unzip it.
Next, launch Arq. It’ll ask you for S3 account credentials. Use the same S3 account you used before. If you don’t have your S3 credentials handy you can look them up at the Amazon web site.
Next, Arq will ask you for your encryption key. Use the same key; otherwise Arq won’t be able to decrypt your backups.
Once you’ve entered that information, Arq’s main window appears, and you’ll see a spinning progress indicator next to the title “Other Computers”:
Arq will download all the “index” files it needs to figure out the old computer’s backups. Once that’s done you can click on the triangle next to “Other Computers” to see the backups. Select a backup version on the left; then drag and drop the backed-up folder on the right to a Finder window to start the restore process:
Arq displays a progress dialog during the restore process:
And that’s it! If you wish you can drag and drop more backed-up items to restore multiple backed-up items in parallel.
Hi,
After the restore has been completed, are you able to continue backing up just like before the old computer’s hard drive failed? Or do you have to upload the same data from the new computer (as is the case with, say, Backblaze)?
I have sent you an email asking this question, but thought I would post the question here as well, in case there are other potential Arq customers like me who are wondering the same thing.
Regards,
Tim
Comment by Tim — August 15, 2010 @ 7:31 am
EDIT 22 September 2010: This comment did explain how to “take over” another computer’s backups, but it’s critical that you restore the files to your new computer first. If you don’t do that, you could lose your backup data. I’ve deleted the previous contents of this comment so that doesn’t happen.
If you want to “take over” another computer’s backups, please email me at support@haystacksoftware.com.
- Stefan
Comment by Stefan Reitshamer — August 15, 2010 @ 7:36 am
Stefan,
I’m impressed, not having to upload my files again was the answer I was looking for!
Also, I hope everyone else was as impressed as I was with the speed of your response (see time question was posted and the response).
Goodbye Jungledisk.
Comment by Tim — August 15, 2010 @ 7:49 am
I have a more general restore question. I just finished backing up a “Pictures” folder, which contains my 100GB+ iPhoto library AND a lot of other images which are not in iPhoto (including an Aperture library). The large backup took place over more than one Arq session. Now as I contemplate how I would restore my iPhoto library, or find a particular photo file in the library, I’m not sure how I would go about it.
As I understand this blog post, I could restore the entire Photos folder by dragging it to a folder on my Mac. But I don’t see a way to do that to a subfolder (or an iPhoto library), assuming it’s been backed up in several sessions. Is there a way to restore a subfolder of a backup which will restore all backup sessions of the subfolder, and retain all folder structure?
Along those lines, if I was searching for particular photos in my Arq backup of an iPhoto library, is there any way to find it, other than searching through all the sub folders of each and every backup of my iPhoto library?
Along these lines (and I’ve seen this mentioned before), I wish interface where you review the backed-up files was much more flexible, and that there was way to help search this info.
I’m also curious when I click the “view results” button to review what files have been backed-up, where does this list come from? Is there a file stored locally? Or a file stored on the S3 server? Or does it actually look at all the stored files? I’m no programmer, so my apologies if this question sounds funny.
And my final restore-related question: I realize that I don’t need to enter a password to restore to my heart’s content using Arq on my main computer. I can’t help but wonder, is it possible to set-up Arq in a way that requires a password to restore files? I know the keychain is used with Arq, but I’m not sure if Arq can run in a way that it can backup continuously, yet still need a password to restore files (or perhaps even view files, for ultimate privacy of data). It might seem like overkill, but it would really add another level of security to one’s data.
Comment by Rob — August 17, 2010 @ 1:14 pm
Rob,
There’s no facility for searching backups right now. It’s on the to-do list for a future release.
To restore a subfolder (a folder within your Pictures folder) just “drill down” in the backups view to find the folder you want, and drag that folder to the Desktop (or a Finder window) to restore only that folder (and everything within it).
The tree of files/folders you see when you click “View Results” is the latest backup. The list of files/folders is part of the backup data and is stored in S3 the same way the actual files are stored in S3.
Regarding requiring a separate password to restore: I’m not sure which problem this solves. If your S3 account keys are stolen you can change them at http://aws.amazon.com/s3/. If you can help me understand the scenario you’re trying to address, I’ll try to come up with a solution.
Thanks
- Stefan
Comment by Stefan Reitshamer — August 17, 2010 @ 1:24 pm
Hi Stefan, wow, talk about quick response (sorry for all the typos, glad you were still able to make sense of it)! That all makes perfect sense, I realize I wasn’t interpreting the list of backed-up files correctly (fooled by some weird legacy folder structure in my iPhoto backup).
As far as the password for restores, here’s a scenario: You have very sensitive business data on your work computer. You delete it from your computer, because it’s so very sensitive, but keep the Arq backup on the S3 servers. You leave Arq agent running, to continue to backup your computer. Someone else at work gets on your computer and because Arq has no password to restore files, this unauthorized users can access your sensitive data. But having the option to password protect your data, even on your own computer, would make the backed-up data secure in this situation. I could give you more scenarios with spouses or the government gaining access to your computer, and thus access to backed-up files which you wish to remain completely secure. Perhaps the vast majority of people do not need level of security, but for those who do, it seems like it would be an easy function to add, and it would make Arq that much more attractive for the data-paranoid.
Comment by Rob — August 17, 2010 @ 1:53 pm
OK. Arq is a backup product not an archiving product, so backing up your files and then deleting them from your computer isn’t really the intended usage. If for instance you’ve set the budget to a low number, Arq may very well delete the backup version that had the files you’ve since deleted.
Arq does actually need a password to restore your files. It uses the encryption password you chose at setup time. That password is stored securely in your keychain.
If you leave your computer logged in and unattended, then someone could use Arq to restore your files because it’s logged in as you and can therefore read the password from the keychain. You could set your “Arq Encryption” keychain entry so that OS X asks you when Arq Agent wants to use it, but you’d be clicking “Allow” all day long.
Other systems like GPG/PGP have a passphrase feature as well (like the keychain does) but you have to type it in each time.
I think to do what you’re proposing would mean to use a public/private key pair. Arq Agent would encrypt the backups using the private key, and you’d have to enter the public key to decrypt the backups. My gut reaction is that this is more hassle than most people want, but I’m very open to making whatever it is that people want. Would anyone else like to give their opinion on this one?
Comment by Stefan Reitshamer — August 17, 2010 @ 2:47 pm
Fair enough, Stefan. I didn’t realize it was complicated to add the feature, and probably very few people would need it.
Comment by Rob — August 17, 2010 @ 5:19 pm
Hi Stefan..
I’m trying to restore to another computer (due to a drive implosion) so I’ve tried using your method of editing the plist files with the computer ID found on the S3 management console. It seems self-explanatory but I’m getting an error when I try to re-launch Arq. “Failed to load computer UUID”, “Line 1:Document is Empty.” I even tried deleting the Arq folder from the library (again), doing it all over, copy/pasting the new UUID that Arq created, pasting it back into the plist file, and it gives the SAME error.
What am I missing here? I’m hoping that my Arq backup will save me but this weird error is stopping it. Thanks for any help you can offer!
Comment by Jon — September 21, 2010 @ 6:37 pm
It sounds like your editor is messing with your file.
What editor did you use for the file? Try using TextEdit, and click the Format -> Make Plain Text menu option.
Also, you still need to restore from the other computer’s backups, whether or not you take over the other computer’s backups: http://www.haystacksoftware.com/blog/2010/08/how-to-restore-to-a-new-computer-using-arq/
Comment by Stefan Reitshamer — September 21, 2010 @ 9:12 pm
Thanks Stefan… I’m using the plist editor. Would that mess with things?
Comment by Jon — September 21, 2010 @ 9:38 pm
Same issue, still get the error. I am totally unable to access my list of backups.
Comment by Jon — September 21, 2010 @ 10:33 pm
I can actually get ARQ up and running by using a backed up PLIST file, but it wont’ show me a list of backups on S3 from the ARQ app. I can log in to the AWS console to see that everything is there, but ARQ won’t see it. I had already used the blog post you linked to try this, so that’s not it unless I’m missing something stupid. If I look in the AWS console, where would I find the index file? I don’t see one there and that could be the issue I supposed.
Comment by Jon — September 21, 2010 @ 10:40 pm
Jon,
Could you please email me the localcomputer.plist file please? Email it to support@haystacksoftware.com.
- Stefan
Comment by Stefan Reitshamer — September 22, 2010 @ 6:39 am
Other backup providers offer a service where you can have a disk with your backup sent to you in situations where you have a very large backup that you want to restore quickly. I’m guessing that it’s not possible to do something similar with Arq?
Comment by John Faulds — July 25, 2011 @ 10:56 pm
Not currently, no. It’s on my to-do list.
Comment by Stefan Reitshamer — July 26, 2011 @ 7:56 am
Cool, good to know.
Comment by John Faulds — July 28, 2011 @ 2:21 am
Thanks for the instructions.It helps us .thank you.
Comment by Mark Smith — September 10, 2011 @ 10:10 am