Did you ever restore a backup?

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DelJo63

It's one thing to take all those backups, but it's another to actually using one to recover
a system, eg:
1- system is really corrupted, perhaps it will not even boot
2- the HD has eaten itself and had to be replaced.​
I have some pet theories on Windows backup/restore, but specifically I'm interested
in "(a)Did you ever successfully restore the whole HD or (b) restore the OS into c:\Windows?"

Success: rebooting the system and it was running without conflicts or new issues.
 
I have intentionaly messed up a small 2gig partition and restored it with Acronis 9.1 or something, it worked fine but it took ALOT of processing power from my cpu, but it was only a pentium 3 so....
 
As Acronis 9.1 is an HD imaging tool(like Ghost), I would expect that to work -- maybe the only way to get \windows recovered :)


I fully excpect that ntbackup on an image containing ONLY \Documents & Settings\ to work as expected

my concern is users relying upon \WINDOWS\system32\ntbackup thinking they
will have the same success.
 
what is nt backup? the standard windows backup agent?
wait, what are the ways that different backup software works?
HD imaging is one...(i think the most reliable)
 
Yes, ntbackup is the windows backup program.

There's lots of backup tools and techniques. Commercially, data centers perform
backups every night and save several 'generations' of them, eg
  1. one for every day this week
  2. one for every week (typically Friday's)
  3. one for every month (typically the last day thereof)

Clearly, on can not image that many HDs :) Other techniques are used
which have been outlined here
.

I've been using the differential technique since '89 for my wife's desktop publishing system
(a back) and there are tools that implement all of these techniques.

There's a big difference between backing up user data vs. getting a system
rebuilt.
The biggest issue is programs which are running can not be restored, so some
initial environment must be used to bring-up a basic system.
Then all the user data can be 'restore' and the system returned to the user.
 
Hmm... So... you have to use like linux or something and run the restor program from their??
or creat another partition, put windows on it then run it of the secondary windows or something like that? wait. If you have 2 windows XP's, do they share the same programs?
 
OK, you are headed in the right direction. Instead of a second partition, a CD with
a bootable XP image would be sufficient and less invasive. (google for SLIPSTREAM image)

The Linux (and Knoppix 5.1 is real neat here), will boot from CD and is able to
read/write NTFS files.
HOWEVER, there's no NTBACKUP.EXE, so the backup files could not be restored :(
 
Sure it is, but consider;
  1. it's only done to RESTORE a backup, not create one
  2. and most of us seldom if ever have the need -- it's a CYA activity :0
 
You know those disks that computer manufactures come with?
All you do is put them in and they will boot and backup you comp to the default manufacture state?

I remeber that Alienware has it they call it alienrespawn lol

How exactly can you make one? They seem pretty usefull.
 
hellokitty[hk] said:
disks that computer manufactures come with?
...they will boot and backup you comp to the default manufacture state?How exactly can you make one? They seem pretty usefull.
err; not backup but restore. The OEM CDs typically start with a reformat and then
dump the original image to HD. The consequence is nasty;
  1. you get a clean fresh system that works again, BUT
  2. you loose everything, eg your pictures, music, and accounting files!
If there's nothing of 'value' on the system then by all means use it.

Most of us however have important stuff on the hd and we need to backup our data
for the rainy day when we need a real restore (of our data).

How to make one: google for SLIPSTREAM
 
Oh thats cool, but everything seems to be on slipstreaming XP with service pack 2.

Im pretty sure their recomended by manufacture in case of virus attacks or something.

Anyway i was looking at this
and it seems that it just copies the files onto you HDD after wiping everything.
Does that mean you can put your own customized files into it?
 
hellokitty[hk] said:
Oh thats cool, but everything seems to be on slipstreaming XP with service pack 2.

Anyway i was looking at this
and it seems that it just copies the files onto you HDD after wiping everything.
Does that mean you can put your own customized files into it?

There are two facilities of Slipstream: 1) a CD bootable process 2) a data recovery
process. XP2 as (2) is just one option, ie it could be your data folders.

It is not at all clear the the target HD gets wiped clean prior to (2). It would be far
easiler to just loop thru directories on the CD and xcopy them to corresponding directories on the HD
 
How do you make a CD bootable?

I have software for it except that it keeps asking me for a file when i try to make a CD bootable.

This thread seems dead!
 
please read the instructions for using slipstream.

hum; the thread certainly went off in a direction other than I intended.
 
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