access old workspace after hard disk reinstall

[ptc-4360891]

Hi, after a hard drive crash I managed to save my workspace data (.wf folder). It replaced the hard drive and copied across all data including the .wf folder. I then reinstalled creo2 on the fresh hard drive but now don't know how to access the old workspace. Any help much appreciated.

thanks

[BrianMartin]

Hi Padraig...

You cannot take your .wf from one hard drive and move it to another... at all. There's something in the way the workspace is created that's literally locked to your specific hard drive. We used to hit this problem all the time. Our IT folks were swapping out hard drives and simply copying over all user data to the new one... which made it impossible for our users to access their workspaces.

Luckily there are two techniques I can share to help you. First, it helps to know if you're working in Wildfire 5.0 or Creo. I'll assume Wildfire 5 but I'll try to give Creo guidance ,too! This does make a difference as the techniques are slightly altered depending on your version.

Option #1:

This first option is sort of a nifty trick we learned by trial and error. It works for most times when a workspace is corrupted (but not all). However, since your workspace isn't really corrupted, it should work for you in this situation.

1. Remove any workspaces except those that have work to be rescued. This is desirable but not required. In some extreme cases it’s not possible to even access workspaces. In those cases this step can be omitted.
2. Save the .WF folder to WF_Backup (no dot needed for the backup folder). Warning: Sometimes you cannot rename a file beginning with a “.” in Windows. In these cases you must open a DOS window and use DOS rename commands to complete this operation
3. For Creo only, to completely clear out your old cache, delete these directories if they exist **:
   1. C:\users\<your user name>\AppData\Local\PTC\Creo
   2. C:\users\<your user name>\AppData\Roaming\PTC\Creo
   3. C:\users\<your user name>\AppData\Roaming\PTC\ProENGINEER
4. Re-launch Pro/E or Creo and re-register your server. This will create a new .WF folder and repopulate it with all the workspace names that exist on the server.
5. Open the WF_Backup folder and navigate to .\WF_Backup\.cache2008\<your server name>. Copy all contents from this folder and all folders below it to the newly created .WF folder at the same location (.\.WF\.cache2008\<your server name>). Remember, a new .WF folder was automatically created when you performed step 4, you're basically copying the contents of your old workspaces to the new folder structure.The point here was to allow Windchill to recreate the entire cache folder structure coded to the new hard drive.
6. When copying is complete, go to the Workspace within Pro/ENGINEER or Creo. The files which were stored in the backup should now appear. Any files not previously modified in the old workspace should show as modified in this new rebuilt one. From here, you can return to work. I'd highly recommend checking in any work at this point.

Option #2:

The second option involves downloading and installing the Windchill Recovery Tool developed by Ron Thellen. He's shared this tool free of charge on the PTC/User website. You'll need to register to use PTC/User (it is an independent user group). You can find the site at ptcuser.org

Once you've registred and logged in, you can use this link to find the public downloads section of the site. Here you'll see both the 32bit and 64bit versions of the Windchill Recovery Tool. Here's the link: http://portal.ptcuser.org/p/do/si/topic=67&type=0

1. Save the .WF folder to WF_Backup (no dot needed for the backup folder). Warning: Sometimes you cannot rename a file beginning with a “.” in Windows. In these cases you must open a DOS window and use DOS rename commands to complete this operation
2. Extract and install the WC File Recovery tool. Go to Start->All Programs->WC_FileRecovery->WC_FileRecovery 2 User Guide to learn how to use the utility.
3. Run the WC_FileRecovery Tool against all files beginning with “lid_” in the WF_Backup\.cache2008\<your server name> folder.
4. Select the files you wish to recover and utilize the tool to rescue them.

I realize there's quite a bit of data here. By now you'd think someone would have asked this question and we'd have a document created just for this kind of occurrence. Please write back and let us know if this worked for you. I'm sure these procedures could help many other people, too.

Best regards,

-Brian