What do you guys think of the Stock XP Restore options?

pos_user · March 8th, 2005, 03:33 AM

Do you guys like the restore option in XP?

Is it like using ghost? It will recover all data from your daily restore point that you choose? I think thats a great addition...if it actually works.

If anyone has ever used it, i have a few questions.

If the system wont boot, and I can get the system to an A prompt, is there anyway to use the XP system restore...or will there always be an option to automatically restore from a save point that I saved manually?

Also, if something happens to my registry, a bad install, or even worse..but most important - corruption of files...will a restore point bring every file i lost back to normal? Say i deleted 40 gig of music by mistake (which i hope will never happen)...I can choose system restore from a yesterday point and all the music will be recovered?

if so, this is a great option that i've never really taken into consideration...

anyone else have any input or tricks with the XP system restore?

Also, i see the ASR - Autmated System Retore...I think that is a 2 part one right? Reinstalls windows and also reinstalls your computer files and software...

Thanks for your help in advance guys, i appreciate it...i ahve way too much stuff on my PC. Terrified of losing it...what sucks is taht i have about 80 gig of stuff on my computer...so it might be better to purchase an external 120g drive and be safer that way...

Or i could buy the external drive, and use ghost....that way i'd have everything, the programs and the files.

Dj-Icer · March 8th, 2005, 03:54 AM

It helps but for me it isn't always good

It hurts.

pos_user · March 8th, 2005, 03:59 AM

can you elaborate? I asked a few different questions....one about ghost, adn one about the XP backup utility...which one were you referring to ?

I'm trying to think of the easiest way to back up 80 gigs of data, while also saving all my installed programs....

What about this idea in addition to my other options...

I can install all programs to an external Harddrive - and also copy all the gigs of data to that hard drive...If i ahve a total system crash, or hard drive failure, i could just reinstall XP, and still run all my programs off the External Hard drive - unless there is a registry issue...but if thats the case, i can just back up my registry as well...

what do you guys think about my last approach, and the approach i listed above.

B71655 · March 8th, 2005, 06:02 AM

Pretty much count on a re-install of your programs. Ghost a drive and you get a snapshot of it. You can restore that snapshot with all programs intact as of that day. System restore does registry only I belive. If a piece of mal-ware gets you, restore points will have mal-ware also. Back-up your data. Keep all program disks.Most programs install a piece on the boot drive, no matter what you instruct. Others may help more. Ghost is not available to me now. Never had good luck with restore.

bazcor · March 8th, 2005, 01:35 PM

System restore doesn't back up user files etc, reasonable seeing as it would use huge amounts of disk space for a few restore points.

see http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...b_tol_fngj.asp

Best bet for saving a whole system is something like Acronis TrueImage and a large dedicated HD on a USB cable or similar.

pos_user · March 9th, 2005, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bazcor

System restore doesn't back up user files etc, reasonable seeing as it would use huge amounts of disk space for a few restore points.

see http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...b_tol_fngj.asp

Best bet for saving a whole system is something like Acronis TrueImage and a large dedicated HD on a USB cable or similar.

the only problem I see with that...is if my HD completely craps out, and I have it ghosted and backed up on an external HD...The external drive probably wont have DOS Drivers to load anyway.

So a ghost reimage on an external drive probably wont work.

I mean, i can probably boot from CD, but then it will ask for a ghost CD or Ghost image location, and the USB External Drive will not be recognized in DOS.

[Neo770] · March 9th, 2005, 02:23 AM

If you use the latest version of say Acronis it has its own mini OS it can boot (From floppy or CD) with support for things like USB mass storage.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...image/faq.html

says:

What devices can be used to restore a system partition if I'm running Acronis True Image 8.0 from a bootable diskette or CD-R(W)?

Acronis True Image 8.0 recognizes all hard disks connected to the PC, along with a wide variety of removable media drives with P-ATA (IDE), S-ATA, SCSI, USB, IEEE1394 (Firewire) and PCMCIA interfaces including: CD-ROM / DVD-ROM and CD-R(W)recorders and burners, magneto-optical drives, Zip and Jaz devices, and many others.

pos_user · March 9th, 2005, 03:20 AM

wow...sounds good to me. I'll move all my data to another drive, and just keep all installed programs to the C drive and try acronis tomorrow to test it.

I'll back up just the C drive and installed programs, and I'll see if i can image another PC with it.

Thanks for the assistance Neo.