Dear Tweeters,

Thanks to all the Tweeters who got right back to me on this question.

I will never know how or why, but somehow I managed to move the data from my old computer to the new one last night, on about the 20th try.

I had followed the directions from the website, user's manual, and help menu each time on the first 19 tries, but would get odd error messages on some attempts. On all those prior attempts, I would see a red stripe going across the "progress" bar during the "restore" process, only to find that the copy of AviSys 6 on the new computer had no sightings on it.

I tried to do the restore from three diffferent sources. I tried with a brand-new flash drive, and also with an old flash drive. In each case, I had done backups to the flashdrive, then plugged the flash drive into the new computer. I also tried by attaching my AviSys folder to an e-mail and mailing it to myself, then opening the e-mail on the new computer.

I noticed something peculiar. Each time I'd do the restore, I'd get a message seeming to indicate that I'd succeeded--but then get another drop-down menu asking if I'd like to do a restore--all over again!

However, the last time I tried it, I did one little thing differently, and succeeded. After the restore, I got a screen saying "AviSys will now shut down." Instead of clicking "OK" on this after the restore, I just clicked the little red X in the top right corner.

I don't recall ever seeing such a difference between "red x" and "ok" in other situations in Windows, but here it may have made the difference.

Oh, one other possible explanation. On my old computer, I could not get the machine to allow me to "safely remove hardware." It would always say that a program was still accessing my flash drive, even after AviSys was closed. A few weeks ago, I downloaded "Process Hacker" in an attempt to find out what processes were working. I did notice on Process Hacker last night that AviSys was shown as still processing something, even when I'd closed AviSys. Maybe that was the problem. I simply shut down the computer after doing a backup onto a flash drive, then started the computer again. The "safely remove hardware" did indeed let me remove the flash drive this time.

Unfortunately, at this point I cannot even remember whether I did the successful restore from one of the flash drives or from the e-mail (I'd saved the attachment on my new computer's C drive, where it still resides). So, whether the "safely remove hardware" issue was involved or not, I don't know.

All I know is, my data now live on two different computers, which makes me breathe a sigh of relief. My old computer is beginning to show signs of silicon-dependent Alzheimer's syndrome.

Thanks again to all the Tweeters who wrote with suggestions.

I have CC'd Jerry Blinn, the AviSys developer, in case it is of any use.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch ? Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ? garybletsch at yahoo.com ? ?