How can I recover Wish List from old hard drive?

[DrHow]

My Windows 7 computer broke, and I had to rebuild it. The system image will not boot on the new hardware. I have now installed Windows 7 on an SSD; but I do have the old hard drive in the system. I would expect that there is a file (or a few) in the Media Center installation that I could copy to the new system and such that doing so would restore my Wish List and perhaps my series recording requests.

I am actually less concerned about restoring the series recordings, as I can reconstruct that. (It might not even work anyway, since my cable provider completely rearranged the channel numbers for all stations during the interval I was without my Windows 7.) But there were a large number of movies that I had noted as something I would like to watch when and if they ever came around. I have no way of reconstructing that list from memory, but considerable effort had gone into compiling it. (I was always pleasantly surprised when one of those movies did show up among my recorded shows.)

I know the information is still there. I just don't know how to access it effectively. If anyone knows this, please share with me the knowledge or a pointer to it. Thanks in advance for any help.

[tony_park]

Try the following:

http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/03/backup-a ... edule.html

[DrHow]

Try the following:

http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/03/backup-a ... edule.html

I am concerned about the following comment there: "Assuming no hardware changes or driver changes between reinstalls we should be set to continue." This is a whole new motherboard and processor with Windows 7 (64-bit before and after) now installed on an SSD. The hardware is substantially different. I will have installed new drivers for my HDHomerun Prime. Same drivers for 2 Hauppauge 1250s. I was also hoping to add an EVGA inDtube USB ATSC tuner; but I may have to forget about getting that to work. (It did work on my Vista laptop.)

On the other hand, I do not see why hardware or driver differences should make any difference with respect to wish list or recording-schedules issues. It decides what device to use when the time to record happens.

[tony_park]

Try the following:

http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/03/backup-a ... edule.html

I am concerned about the following comment there: "Assuming no hardware changes or driver changes between reinstalls we should be set to continue." This is a whole new motherboard and processor with Windows 7 (64-bit before and after) now installed on an SSD. The hardware is substantially different. I will have installed new drivers for my HDHomerun Prime. Same drivers for 2 Hauppauge 1250s. I was also hoping to add an EVGA inDtube USB ATSC tuner; but I may have to forget about getting that to work. (It did work on my Vista laptop.)

On the other hand, I do not see why hardware or driver differences should make any difference with respect to wish list or recording-schedules issues. It decides what device to use when the time to record happens.

I've used these steps on different hardware, and so long as the channel numbers are the same, not had a problem, yet!

Take a backup before you import, then if you do have problems with the import, you can rollback.

[DrHow]

I am pleased to report that loadmxf.exe worked like a charm, in spite of the hardware differences (which I never really imagined could be a problem). It completely restored my wish list. It even did a good job on regular series requests. Most of those were "channel only"; but when it could no longer find the specified channel (which was the case for nearly all of them), it intelligently reverted to "any". Once it found one back on its new channel, I could change it back to "channel only". So, thank you, tony_park, for the pointer and reassurance.

(The EVGA inDtube USB ATSC tuner was an unbelievable disaster. The Vista drivers seemed to install OK. WMC found the device and successfully scanned it for channels. However, when WMC got to actually recording something from it, my computer crashed in the most spectacular way I have ever seen with any computer or any OS (and I have a lot of experience). There was no warning, no message, no blue screen. The system actually powered down abruptly, with the power light blinking as if it had gone into suspend mode. However, it was not really asleep, as it would not awaken. In fact, it would not even power down completely when I held the power button for 4 seconds. I had to unplug and wait for the power supply to discharge before it would boot up again. The point is that even the BIOS was impacted and had gotten itself into a locked up state in which it was not functioning at all. It is difficult to imagine how a USB device could evoke such chaos, no matter how faulty its drivers. I experienced 3 such crashes before I correctly surmised that the inDtube was the culprit. After removing it, I waited a couple weeks to post this just to make sure the inDtube had been causing it. I am wondering if I should also publish this word of warning under a more searchable topic subject.)

(When I was trying to set one of my Hauppauge 1250s up as a clearQAM tuner, weird wrong things kept happening with the channel lineup. So I gave up on that and I am using both as ATSC tuners, which is working smoothly.)

[DrHow]

It even did a good job on regular series requests.

Well, I spoke too soon. Though several of my series requests had resumed appropriately, there were two on which it has screwed up in a way that turned out to be more profound than one might expect.

When I learned (9 days ahead of time) that the next series of Elementary was starting up, I checked to see if the first show was scheduled to record. It was not. Oddly, the Synopsis page from the Guide did not offer Record Series. Instead the button said Cancel Series. I.e., it knew I wanted to record this series, but it was not intending to record this new show. I finally noticed that the Show Type was wrong. It should have been New, but it said Live. That would explain why it was not scheduled for recording, but it is not clear how this could have ever got into the wrong state. Nevertheless, I figured I could easily correct the situation. I changed it to New. When I hit Save, WMC crashed!: "Media Center has stopped running." "Restarting Media Center." That was surprising. So I thought I would try it again, this time accessing the program from the Series list. Same problem. Media Center bombed off. I finally just cancelled the old series request, made a new one from the Guide and all seems well.

A few days later, I noticed that my DVR was recording The Ultimate Fighter, but WMC was not. It was the same symptom. The series request was there, but Show Type was incorrectly Live. Again a crash on attempting to correct the type. (There was once a truly live show called "The Ultimate Fighter Live"; but plain old "The Ultimate Fighter" has never been live.)

I went through the entire list looking for series requests that I want and for which the shows are not currently occurring. There were several such, but none erroneously showed type Live. I wonder if the switch could be occurring when it actually finds an occurrence of the show.