Simple Restore Question - Yeah, right!

I was running Vista Ultimate 32-bit and decided to change to 64-bit because
of the support for more memory, etc.

I did a complete backup of my system, formatted the drives and did a fresh
install of the 64-bit OS and tried to recover my files, etc. Not a chance,
because I'd done a full backup and I can't recover individual files from it.
Fortunately, I kept additional copies on the most critical files on a USB pen
drive - except some thieving bathcube stole it.

I've tried several data recover software products, but nothing has enabled
me to recover the two really critical files. The only option left to me was
to reinstall the 32-bit version from the backup, restore the files and then
restore to the 64-bit, so I tried to do so. And failed. I booted to the
console with my 32-bit disk and tried to recover the system but the only
available backup was the 64-bit - which had written over the 32-bit version
on my remote (USB-connected) hard drive. Brilliant.

Anyway, I cancelled the restore and stayed with the 64-bit version, but now
the startup has slowed down considerably - and it's only since I tried to
restore the system - it hangs for about a minute at the Ctrl I option for the
RAID controller, then continues to boot properly in to Vista, and my question
is this...

Why goes it stop for so long, and what can I do about it, other than
reformat and reinstall.

Any help would be appreciated, as with all the other issues, I'm beginning
to lose the will to live - and it's only a bloody computer!

Thanks in advance,

Pete