Restoring files and resuming download in uTorrent

[Zinedin]

Back on thrusday I got a virus on my Windows Vista computer when I downloaded an audio software. Even thou I suspected that it contained some virus and other people told me that it had virus in it I decided to test it anyway. Kaspersky Internet Security reacted on it automatically and upon a computer restart it had deleted most parts of what is shown as "Trojan-Downloader.MSIL.Agent.bb". But there was still one DLL file in %Userprofile%\AppData\Local\Temp\ called kvjs... something .dll tat was not deleted and that affected Explorer. It was almost impossible to open a Explorer window to go on and delete it, I only got some error message when i tried to do so, telling me about the DLL file I mentioned above. Since I couldn't delete it because Explorer wont work properly, it only opened up sometimes. I decided to try to delete it through Command interpreter, so I started cmd and tried to delete it but it wouldn't co-oporate, it said I was not allowed to do so. So I started Windows Vista in safemode with Command interpreter and got rid of it.

To make sure there was nothing left I decided to format the systemdisk and reinstall Windows. A huge work had to be done to back up everything. I started Windows in safemode once again and copied to another partition all my importent files, bookmarks from Firefox, Outlook settings and e-mails, and of course the uTorrent download folder and the torrents.

http://www.utorrent.com/skinning.php

In the Skinning and customizing µTorrent guide above I found the address %AppData%\uTorrent where I had previously been adding some custom icons and things like that. So wanted to keep this. So before formatting the systemdisk I navigated to thatt location and copied the files I found there.

The files I have copied from %AppData%\uTorrent are as follows.

dht.dat

dht.dat.old

resume.dat

resume.dat.old

settings.dat

settings.dat.old

toolbar.bmp

utorrent.lng

When I had reinstalled Windows I downloaded uTorrent again and installed it. The files I found in %AppData%\uTorrent are as follows.

dht.dat

dht.dat.old

resume.dat

resume.dat.old

settings.dat

settings.dat.old

As you can see some files are missing there. Is that normal that tollbar.bmp and utorrent.lng is not there? And why are there both .DAT.OLD and .DAT files? What are they used for?

I had both my downloading folder and my finished and unfinished torrent folder at one location, at C:\Downloads. Here are the locations.

(finished) Downloads folder: C:\Downloads

Unfinished downloade: C:\Downloads\!Unfinished downloads!

Finished torrents: C:\Downloads\!Torrents!\Finished torrents

Unfinished torrents: C:\Downloads\!Torrents!\Unfinished torrents

The finished downloads would normaly go to C:\Downloads and the unfinished, while downloadin will go to !Unfinished downloads!. In the C:\Downloads\!Torrents! are only the .torrent files.

I have restored the whole C:\Downloads\ folder now. I had some torrents that were not finished when I decided to format the disk. Hod do I resume the download without having to download the whole thing from beginning?

How do I restore everything now?

http://www.utorrent.com/migration_guide.php

I have followed that guide about migrating the files but it doesn't seem to be so relative for my situation. But I have made the RENAME.BAT file as the guide suggests. Will I be needing this to resume my downloads in uTorrent? Note that I am not migrating from another BitTorrent client or other P2P software, that's why I mean that this guide may not be realtive for my situation.

Can someone give me some hints on what to do?

Thanks in advance!

[DreadWingKnight]

The migration guide is client-nonspecific. The new install is considered to be the destination, and your previous incomplete and/or seeding files are the source. The guide DOES apply, but the rename.bat is not always required. If you don't use the .ut! extension on incomplete files, that batch file (and its step) are not required.

toolbar.bmp and utorrent.lng are optional parts for skinning the toolbar and multi-language support.

The .dat.old files are backups of the .dat files for automated configuration recovery purposes.

[Zinedin]

"The new install is considered to be the destination..."

What do you mean by that? Destination for what ...? Are you talking about the %ProgramFiles%\uTorrent folder where the uTorrent executable was copied during installation?

"... and your previous incomplete and/or seeding files are the source."

What does that mean?... I'm sorry, I'm not following.

I do use, and I did use the .ut! extension on incomplete files. So do I need it then?

It was a very long time ago since I installed uTorrent client last time, so I don't really remember how I set things up back then. I was expecting the language file to be pre-installed. So, you're saying that it's not pre-installed?

If I copy the settings.dat and the settings.dat.old from my back up to the current %AppData%/uTorrent folder, will my settings in the uTorrent preferences be reset as they were before?

I should mention also that most of the files I seed are not located at C:\Downloads. They are on drive D:\, so how do I tell the uTorrent to look for the torrent data there insted of C:\Downloads?

There should be a more automated way of exporting and importing torrent files, and torrent data to and from uTorrent client for the purpose of reinstalling Windows. At least, there should be a well explained guide specifically for that purpose. I suggest that some of the current guides (perhaps the migration guide) should be used as starting point and rewritten to be more general and to include several important notes and information on importing and exporting torrent files and data.

Updated 2008-07-26, 21:30

I have sorted it all out by now. Here is the solution for anyone interested.

I tested copying back my DAT files I mentioned earlier to %AppData%\uTorrent, which is exactly where I copied them from prior to formatting the systemdisk and reinstalling Windows. I also copied over the toolbar.bmp and I downloaded an updated version (505 KB) of the language file utorrent.lng and moved it also to this folder, insted of my old file (~480 KB). But it was the DAT files that made the magic.

By copying my old DAT files to %AppData%\uTorrent all my settings were set back as they were prior to reinstalling Windows. The location path to the folder where to put my completed downloads, uncompleted downloads and the torrent files were the same as before.

The torrents were also listed in the program window. But they had a red X icon attached to them on the left side of the names meaning error. But when I hit the start button they got checked and some of them were reseeded, while some of them started to download from beginning even thou they were completed before. So some of the files didn't know where the complete files of some torrents were. That information for some of the torrents in the list got lost somehow. But all I had to do was to hit stop button to stop those downloads, and point out the location of the files by right-clicking on the torrents one by one and selecting Advanced from the pop-up menu and then "Set Download location... " and browse to the location of the files, then hit start again. And that's it, they were reseeded properly.

My labels were preserved also.

I think this method should be included in the Migration guide at http://www.utorrent.com/migration_guide.php

The Migration guide as it is today should be reviewed and edit because it contains some misstakes and the instructions are not so easy to follow. You'll see what I mean if you take a look at it. I honestly didn't have much help from this Migration guide, but I'm sure it can come in handy in some cases.