XP Recovery

Windows XP has many ways to recover from a crash, yes they do happen with XP

They include
Safe Mode
System Restore
Last Known Good Configuration
Back up Wizard
Automatic System Restore

It is not Win 98 anymore and I need some help in sorting it all out.
The more I use Microsoft Knowledge base the more confused I become.
They send you from one article to another, and you end up where you started !

DOES ANyONE HAVE A SIMPLE SOLUTION .

Thanks

 

Since you're obviously not new to Windows, you should know by now that there are no simple solutions.

That said, it all depends on what you're trying to do. I've been using XP Pro on a regular basis since March, and I have yet (knock wood) to experience a BSOD, although I'm told they can happen.

I've had to use Safe Mode a few times when I couldn't boot normally, for whatever reason. It allows you to do a System Restoration, if necessary.

System Restore, which takes snapshots of system files and settings at regular intervals (or on command) just may be the best thing about XP. I've used it numerous times, usually after I've tried to do something that the OS didn't like. I have yet to have a System Restore fail to work for me, so I try to remember to set a restore point before installing any new program, just in case.

Last Known Good Configuration "reverses changes made to the CurrentControlSet registry key (which defines hardware and driver settings) since you last successfully started Windows ". MS Windows XP Inside Out, Bott/Siechert, Microsoft Press, 2001.

The Backup Utility allows you to save some, or all, of your files either to a compressed file or to recordable media (to back up to a CD, you have to back up to a file, then record it to the CD). It utilizes the Backup and Restore Wizards, and there are lots of options.

BTW, System Restore sets a restore point when certain types of programs are installed, but it's a good idea to set your own, just to be on the safe side.

Hope this helps.

Jim

 

Hi rkissin1!

I'm happy that you asked that question so that it may possibly create a single source of information for those, like you and I, who are somewhat in the dark about the XP features of Recovery, Restore, Repair and Backup.

I will start the process by listing what little I think I understand and hopefully it will grow from there.

I have found that it makes a difference what brand of computer you have and how XP was supplied to you.

I have a Hewlett Packard Pavilion 540n and it came with XP preinstalled but without a software disk for the system. The install files are located on a hidden partition of the boot drive and can be accessed (f10 during boot process) for either a complete Reinstall (wipes out all user created files), a System Restore (replaces any protected system files, or a non-destructive system Repair (copies all new system files as needed, saves all user settings and files).

It will not allow me to replace a single file, which I find very disappointing to say the least.

I can also hit f8 during the boot process and get some options such as Safe Mode, Use Last Good Configuration, System Restore, and some others that have lesser value. The Recovery Console is NOT listed there.

I ran an experiment whereby I deleted the C:\Windows\System32\hal.dll file and tried to reboot. Following BIOS loading I immediately get an error message saying Windows\System32\hal.dll is missing and I will need to replace it by copying it from the Install disk.

Here's the rub; in order to replace a single file in XP (if using NTFS), you need to use the Recovery Console (MS feature). That feature is not available unless you have the XP install cd-disk. It is necessary to use the disk to enter the Setup mode wherein you can select the Recovery Console. I cannot use that feature since I didn't get such a disk. I would have been a dead duck had I not had GoBack install. GoBack is a nice third party proggy that allows rolling the entire drive back to an earlier time that predates any problems. Using it I reverted to a time when I hadn't deleted the hal.dll file yet. Good stuff!

Warning!!!! Don't delete the hal.dll unless you have all your bases covered!

I was surprised to learn that the hal.dll file is NOT one of the protected System files that XP automatically replaces. So much for the "foolproof" system. I would be interested to learn if one can designate which files to include as the "Protected System Files" and whether I can add to the existing. Anyone know?

I'm not even sure that if you have XP and use FAT32 whether you can access files for copy/replacement in DOS mode. Anyone know?

Continuing, HP had seconds thoughts after getting lots of flak from folks like me and agreed to supply a set of Recovery disks that would allow the user to Restore the system when his hard drive failed or something else prevented access to the hidden install files on the original drive. You have to order that set of disks (7 total) and the cost is $10.72. This still does not allow access to the recovery console but merely lets me Restore the system to the "As Bought" state, losing all my user created files. That's pretty disappointing when I may only need to copy one single file for a quick repair.

My option is to either purchase a full XP install cd or else use third party software to work around their poorly provided system.

I have elected to use a program called Instant Recovery which copies an image of the boot drive and stores it on burnt cd's. They can subsequently be used to do a full Restore. I realize that only amounts to a Backup system but since pre-installed XP doesn't include any Backup method and again, requires that you have the Install cd to get what they consider an option for "some users only ".

So that's where I sit right now. I have GoBack and Instant Recovery but still can't replace a single file. I would still like to be able to do that but I refuse to pay HP or MS for a feature that I feel should be standard. I will await a patch or look for yet another third party program. I would rather spend three times as much with someone else than to reward them for their lack of consideration of my needs.

I may have raised more questions for you than I answered but perhaps others will appear with better information and we'll both be smarter. I'm sure other manufacturers use a different approach when pre-installing XP and I'd like to hear some of those.

I guess the bottom line may well be, "No, there is no simple solution ", as you have asked.

Good luck.

 

Description of the GTW method

I'm going to give a quick run down on how XP is installed & recoverd on GTW systems (as of Jan /02) - at that point goback was not offered.

First the CD's:

1) Red - the (bootable) recovery CD - system drivers and install scripts
2) Blue - the O/S CD
3) yellow? - the bundled apps cd ( non- M$ )
M$ packaged items are on there own CD's

The Blue O/S cd is bootable and you can get to the recovery console or run a repair install which will not overwrite any user preferences or non system files.

To do a clean load - boot to the red cd - and delete the existing partition - then choose install.

It will fdisk and quick format HDD in a single FAT32 partition - then it asks for the O/S CD - it copies over the install files then reboots - on reboot it does a qwik convert to NTFS and the XP install continues - all drivers are preloaded as a hardware detection program decided which drivers were needed from the red CD.

AS to if you could extract a single file - maybe from the recovery console - as for the HAL.dll - If I recall correctly there are several files which could be the Hardware abstracting layer - during install the BIOS is probed to determine which you require - and the file is copied over to HDD as hal.dll - kind of like the way Vmm32 is built.

 

Profgab101,

Thanks for your input. I welcome more.

Your comments seem to validate what I said, the way you restore is dependent upon your particular system. That's a shame.

Re: your last comment about hal.dll being like the vmm32 monolithic file which contains the virtual drivers of W9X, you may well have drawn a valid comparison. My point though is, we can restore either of these files if we are allowed to access a backup that we have made. Some of us can't do that using the system as delivered from the box!

Thanks for your input. Others please....

 

My fairly recent purchase of a Dell with XP installed provides a reinstallation cd for the os on a Dell only, a cd for the drivers and other software discs.

Opening up the reinstallation cd and viewing the "Readme ", it comments that MS backup is not initially installed but as in ME it requires its own installation. Simple enough to install, but somewhat of a mystery why it is not installed with ME and XP. Additionally, there are numerous cabs where one can extract single files. At least it appears that way.

HP has been using different recovery procedures for years while other vendors were providing full installation discs. The old board had many complaints in that regard, and I made a mental note not to buy a HP computer.

My reference states all system files are protected and that would certainly include hal.dll as that not only shares files but has entries in the registry for the system hardware. There is a warning that deleting said file would cause a performance problem. Why would someone what to delete? Is an assumption made that because one is able to unwisely delete, it is not a protected file?

 

For backing up single files or selected groups of files, why not use a backup program, such as MackupMyPC and save them to CD?

I've always relied on tape and/or CD-RW backups, but I just got a new Dell XP machine and have also used "System Restore." I'd be interested in hearing from anyone about the differences between "system restore," "recovery console," backup programs and other means of saving our computing butts.

 

KenKeith,

When I attempt to delete the hal.dll file, I get nothing but the standard warning, "Are you sure you want to delete hal.dll?" and when I say "Yes ", away it goes. I just thought that if a file was that important, why wouldn't it be one of the "Protected Files" that XP can automatically restore?

I would think that if you provided a "Protected System File" restoration function, you would include any file that would prevent booting to Windows.

I reject any argument about why would anyone want to delete such a file. If that logic is valid, then why did M$ choose to make some files "Protected" since nobody would ever want to delete them either? This stuff just happens to a system, even with the best of operators. Murphy lives!

One of my questions was simply, if the hal.dll file is so damned important, why isn't it one of the "Protected Files" that would be found in the C:\Windows\System32\Dllcache folder, where I have been led to believe that all "Protected" files reside.

The second part of that question was, how can I designate additional files as being "Protected ", for instance, how can I make the hal.dll become a "Protected" file? Maybe it already is on your computer but it certainly isn't on mine. I have reviewed all the files contained in the dllcache folder and it's not listed. I have copied it into there and it still doesn't attain any "Protected" status. I can still delete it and it will not be automatically restored, as will all the others.

Moving along..

dkline,

Here's my understanding of the three items you mentioned.

1. System Restore. This Windows program can roll the system files back to some pre-recorded point in the past that you have either manually or automatically made a backup of "Certain" system files. It does not affect any other files on your drive other than "Certain" system files. You'll have to decide how valuable that might be to you and whether it's worth the large amount of disk space it requires. You can elect to turn it off if you so desire.

2. Recovery Console. This is a program that can be run prior to Windows booting and will allow you to do "Limited" repairs to the system such as copying files from a backup file to replace corrupt/missing system files so that Windows can be repaired when it won't boot. You must install the Recovery Console from within Windows while the system is healthy. If you wait until you have trouble, it's out of reach. It also isn't recommended for anyone except the experienced user. That leaves me wondering how the unwashed masses are supposed to help themselves and just how do we get to be an "Experienced" user if we don't have access to all programs so we can give it our best shot? Is this their way of saying, "Most people won't be able to figure it out." The Recovery Console is not available for installing unless you have the full install cd.

3. Backup. XP does have a backup program but it isn't available to you unless you have an "Install" disk. M$ has allowed some vendors to sell the XP Home system without such a disk, so some folks won't have any backup method unless they get a third party program. I should also mention that the "Recovery Console" is likewise not available to those same folks.

Even if you had the stinking backup system they begrudgingly offer, it wouldn't help you if Windows wouldn't boot. It runs in Windows only! If Windows failed to boot and you knew you only needed to replace one file to fix it, you couldn't do that using the backup method that M$ provides. You would need to use the "Recovery Console" that you probably failed to install prior to this failure, since you though you were well protected. (See first part of this post about "Protected Files" and decide how much protection you really have.)

If you did become so enlightened that you installed the Recovery Console when your system was healthy, you would need to have also previously backed up all the necessary files to some folder or diskette so that you would have them available for copying while running the Console. If you have any question about which files that would be, you have just joined a very large group of confused people like yourself.

My point is, don't think you're covered if you have some backup system that only runs under Windows. You'll learn a hard lesson that way when your system fails to boot.

The last option you mentioned, "Other means" is perhaps the best way to insure that you are protected from data loss. I have chosen that path. There are several good third party programs out there that will cover your risks and work around the limitations that M$ has chosen to implement in order to enforce their "One License Per Machine" policy.

As I previously stated, I use GoBack and InstantRecovery and I'm still looking for more.

I await further responses. I appreciate all comments and any software recommendations.

 

that there are no simple solutions

An that is an honest fact.

As I have Discovered several times in the last few days.

BillyBob

 

Zephyr,

Thanks for some enlightenment. Maybe my questions were not very precise. In my view a protected file is a file that will be changed automatically by the system if the change meets the criterion otherwise the file cannot be overwritten automatically.

I don't believe the "protection" feature should be or is designed not to prevent user interaction and that would enable a person to modify, hack or whatever; even delete.

Invoking Murphy's law that something that could happen will happen, and if hal.dll was deleted accidently, it seems to me the solution in this instance would be to roll back with s/r.

There may be a misunderstanding of termonology. For me, "protected" files cannot be inappropriately overwritten automatically, but the user does not lose control with the inability to interact. Restore means to me to reconstruct the system by rolling back to a prior date and files are not overwritten. If the protected feature were enabled during a s/r then by the very functionality of the protect feature the system could not be restored if there were earlier files in the restore date. You seem to imply there is a direct correlationship between protected files and system restore files. I don't believe that is necessarily true. My reference states all files except apps are restored with s/r and that would include hal.dll.

BB, you are correct, there usually are no simple solutions, but there are options available (known and unknown) and their applications are sometimes obscured.

 

Thanks Zephyr. I couldn't agree more.

As I mentioned, I've used "System Restore" to fix a couple of simple problems simply.

But I'm going to rely on BackupMyPc's ability to backupmy files, registry and "system state" to either a CD-RW or my 8 GB travan tape drive. This allows me to selectively backup files or groups of files in a situation where, say, a program has become corrupted or no longer works.

If Windows itself won't boot, BackupMyPC (formerly known as Backup Exec Dektop Pro from Veritas) allows a full system backup of all files, apps and system settings from a command prompt.

I should probably investigate GoBack and similar programs to see what they offer that System restore and BackupMyPc don't.

Anyway, thanks again for the explanation.

 

To provide some detail and give my understanding regarding s/r and protected files, it is given that the protection feature is working continously while in the running mode and monitors the files that make up the window's program. No one will disagree with that. Now my assumption is that it compares whether a newly introduced file meets the pre-determined parameters set forth in the flagged file. If the file is a later version, it moves the earlier version into a fifo structure, and overwrites the space with the later version. That is the "protection ". It does not permit an earlier file to overwrite the later file. I don't believe protected files are ever cached, but the replaced files are cached in a fifo structure. I'm not into system programming/design, but I would guess protected files are "flagged" and not cached.

When s/r is envoked the process is reversed and the earlier version is called from the fifo archives and overwrites the later version and moving the later version into a folder. (The protection feature has to be disabled to permit the earlier to overwrite the newer.) I don't believe that my comments are inconsistent with programming protocol.

 

Here's some further illumination on the subject of System File Protection as it applies to XP.


WFP Explained by M$

As I mentioned earlier, it protects "Certain" system files and this article implies that it may be possible to alter the settings so that more files are protected. It also states that "All" .dll files are protected but I can assure you that the hal.dll file is NOT protected on my XP Home machine. That is what got me started on this project.

I would be interested in hearing if anyone has the hal.dll file listed in their C:\windows\system32\dllcache folder. As I have stated earlier, my system does NOT have it listed therein and when I merely copy it into there, as the article above implies, it does not change the fact that it ISN'T one of the "Certain" protected files on my machine.

Thanks for all comments.

 

No hal.dll on my XP home machine.

 

dkline,

I hope you mean that you have it in your C:\windows\system32 folder but nowhere else. It must be there in order for the engine room to respond to booting.

 

yes, hal.dll is in my windows/system32 folder and nowhere else.

 

OK dkline, that fits what I have.

Now, I suggest that you NOT EVER delete that file nor should you allow anything to corrupt it (don't ask how you may prevent either of those things happening) since doing so will render the XP system unbootable.

I think that may well be when the moment of enlightenment dawns.

As for the M$ proponents, go ahead and delete it. I'll be interested in how you were finally able to repair your system so it would boot once again.

If you do decide to delete it, just for a test, let me know what software you used for recovery. I may want to get some since I have nothing but GoBack that can do that and it's crippled in XP.

So far all I have found that works is GoBack, but it is somewhat limited in XP due to excessive disk activity filling up the history cache and limiting the recovery reach.

BTW, let's not get into how the Recovery Console can repair such things (unless you know how I may access it) , since all of us don't have access to that by design of our systems. I'm more interested in what can help the unwashed masses. Beside, as M$ states, you probably don't undestand how to use that anyway. You need to be an experienced user. Who dat? It doesn't come "Enabled" and if you have it available you will be among the precious few who did so out of ESP and not because you got some guidance manual with your copy of XP. I'm appalled that we are apparently expected to find out this stuff on our own. What happen to the user manuals??

Let's also not discuss the possibility that some of us should have shopped more wisely since we had no way of knowing in advance that M$ would choose to mistreat us this way. I trusted these people and they dumped on me. I'm embarrased and ashamed for them since they don't seem to have the compassion and conscience to do it for themselves. The Windows XP system should work the same regardless of how you bought it! For them to allow a caste system of selling their product is a disgrace. Perhaps that's why they don't include a single page of instructions with it.

Someday the people will quit lining up at their door. The reason will be clear. I love them but I wish they wouldn't be so greedy and cruel.

 

XP Recovery - boot disks & DLLs

My $.02...

Q310994 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base provides links to obtaining a Windows XP Setup Boot Disk Set Creation Tool. Intended for systems without bootable CD support, it may allow recovery of critical system files backed up to CD. Also check the EXPAND command, available in both the command shell, and in the Recovery Console. Quick help at the Command Prompt: EXPAND /?, or simply enter HELP. (The DOS windows is scrollable, I LOVE that.)

I found Hal.dll in C:\Windows\System32; and also archived in C:\Windows\Driver Cache\i386\driver.cab. This may be yet another cache location for the protected files. ? ? ?

The beautiful Sandra Underhill in Windows-HELP.Net Newsletter has written a series of articles on cloning a copy of Windows XP to CD -- using third-party tools. Hopefully, that information might be adapted for use with some freeware third-party disk cloning tool.

 

XP Recovery - Hal.dll

I forgot to mention, if you enter HAL.DLL in the Help and Support Center Search window, you'll get a whole slew of links to Microsoft Knowledge Base articles on issues involving the Hardware Abstraction Layer. No help for those with no CD, though, I don't think.

The XP Help and Support Center is a significant improvement over previous Windows Help, btw, providing links straight to late developing support information. I have literally spent days reading though it. But the all-time best reference on XP Professional that I have come across so far is William R. Stanek's Microsoft Windows XP Professional Administrator Pocket Consultant ($29.99 retail.) You can get it at a substantial discount at

http://www.readmedoc.com/

It's even more useful than the WinXP Pro Resource Kit. I'm NOT affiliated with anybody I said anything good about.

 

The book is $19.49 at Readmedoc.com, but even less through resellers listed on Amazon.com. Amazon itself sells it for $20.99, but the resellers have it for as low as $15.50 (new, but shelf-worn) and $16.75 (brand-new).

Jim