'System restore' questions

Hello All -

I have encountered a problem recently and I need to get it resolved ASAP. I don't have the luxury of time to look for the cause or work my way through possible solutions. Being as pressed for time as I am, I'm thinking a 'system restore' is the fastest and simplest way out.

My dilemna is that I have created several very important documents since this problem began and I don't want to lose them and have to start all over after a 'system restore'. I have a partition ( "E ") on my hard drive that was created for storage of such things as these documents.

My question is: If I move all of my recent documents to the "E" partition and then do a 'system restore' will I be able to move them back to "D" where WinXP and my other programs reside? If all of these things are on a different partition, will the 'restore' affect them in any way?

I'm relatively new to XP and, being the dummy that I am, the learning curve for it hasn't been crested yet. My biggest problem with XP is understanding its way of doing what I considered "simple" in 98SE.

As always, any and all help will be greatly appreciated. TIA


Mike

 

I am going to take a wild guess or two here and say that it may depend on how you have SR setup.

1--If you have SR set up on all drives ( partitions ) then I would says YES it would not do any good to move the files.

2--I f you only have SR set on D: and move the files to E: then they should not get hurt.

This is the main reason that I have the OS ONLY on C: and everything else on D: thru H: And SR is only done on C: But I have always done this way since way back in the days of Win95. OS ONLY on C:

I also download NOTHING to the C: drive.

BillyBob

 

Hi Billybob -

Thanks for the reply. I should have mentioned how I have this thing set up.
Dual boot with 2 physical hard drives.
C: = Win98SE
D: = Win XP Pro with E: partition

I don't have a clue what caused my original problem but all I have done recently is update Office 2K. Reverting back to the original version will also be a +. I don't much care for the update because on my machine at least, it isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I do like your idea of having nothing on a drive but the OS. May do that later - when time isn't quite so tight.


Mike

 

Well Dual Boot does make things a bit different. But I still think that moving them the E: drive still should be OK.

OR !!

You also might be able to do what I do with at least one program. Mostly my Quicken. When I tell it to backup I can defind the location. Defalut is a re-writable CD. Then I change it back to D: where actuall program is.

ALSO !

If you have one, I think you should be able to but yours files in question on a re-wrtiable CD.

By doing that the data should be ( lets make that WILL BE ) much safer from and OS crash.

BillyBob

 

If these files have .txt or .doc extensions, then SR doesn't monitor them.

List of file extensions that SR monitors:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/sr/sr/monitored_file_extensions.asp

Right click My Computer > Properties > SR Tab and check to see what partitions/drives are monitored and if by chance the 98 partition is being montored > settings and check "turn off System Restore ".

Regards - Charles

 

indutch, the System Restore DOES NOT backup or restore any user data file. It monitors only Windows and Program Files folders and only critical files. If you don't have any data in these 2 folders, you can do restore any time without worrying about a thing.

 

Hi rsinfo,
Ah, no.

For example, if you look at the file extensions monitored, .exe files are one. So any "user" program in the programs folder will be "restored ", whether that's on the System partition or not.

I have a OS partition only, my setup exe's are on another partition which SR is disabled on. If it were enabled, SR would monitor those as well.

Another file extension monitored is .pdf files no matter where they are as long as the partition is monitored.

SR does ignore anything in the My Documents folder - no matter the file type.

Regards - Charles

 

charlesvar, I had indicated that SR is not going to touch any user data file and that it monitors only Windows and Program Files folders. I don't know about the .pdf as I don't personally use SR.

 

Hi rsinfo,

I don't personally use SR.
Ok.

So one more time, SR will monitor the file extensions mentioned in the msdn reference whether they are in Windows or not, with exception of anything in My Documents - that it leaves alone.

Regards - Charles

 

Thank you all for your input! Especially Charles, who's link led me here. All of my questions have been answered - for now, anyway.

If I step on my own tail, I'll be back. Thanks again.


Mike