XP Restore Points Missing

Thank you mazaprin for droping in.

I am liking this more and more.

That is why I DO NOT use SR to uninstall stuff. I use the program uninstall and many times even they do not remove all files and/or folders. Which I have to manually delete.

I also use RegSeeker-Find and have been absolutely amazed at what may be left in the Reg after the uninstall.

So again. If I have to go through all this time and work to get rid of something today that I installed 3 days ago but did not work properly, WHY, do I want yesterdays SR hanging around. ? Especially in case of a bad install which may have caused me all this work ?

Again I say SR needs to be handled according to the situation at hand.

BillyBob

 

System Restore

Hi billyBob I will clarify several things for you to understand better my point.

When I talk about Acronis being the leader on disk Imaging, that's what PC World, Fred langa amd many world recognized experts are saying. There is also Norton Ghost but it has a lot of incompatibilities and problems with Windows XP.
1.- Any Program or application or software is NOT perfect, even a 5 star software could have some bugs or problems on recent versions or updates that will be eventually solved. I have been using Acronis for two years and some versions or Builds have worked better than others at creating or restoring Full system Images BUT when you find the version or Build that works better with your system configuration, Oh brother... creating and restoring your system is a walk in the park!!
I have restored my system almost 5 or 6 times in less than 30 minutes with acronis (I create a backup Image ONCE a week) and i can say that Acronis never failed me. Also, I store all my Acronis backups on an EXTERNAL 160 GB HD (USB 2.0) and that's the best way to store backups (those backups zones inside your internal HD are worthless because if your system will not open or load you will be also unable to access that backup and will not solve anything). Also, the so called incremental backups are no good and it is a waste of time. the best course of action is always a FULL SYSTEM backup everytime (less than 15 minutes)

it is not the same to use SR to go back to a previous settings (it will leave duplicate files and only partial restorations and ONLY the most recent 2 or 3 restore points will work, if you go farther than a week you will loose whatever changes you made (or software you installed) from that period of time to the present). So... my point is that even for a small or trivial problem (like you say, the many gradiations that could happen) restoring your system with acronis to a most recently created image will take only 20-30 minutes and your system will revert to a very Clean STATE (the state when you created the image after Clean, Defrag and using chkdsk and defragmenting, etc to leave your system in optimuim conditions before creating the image like i do every week) and there is an enormous difference between that kind of restoration and the poor one bye System restore.

You can keep using System Restore if you like and that's your problem BUT my point is that you are giving SR too much importance when all the experts says that SR should not be depended on that is is a "band Aid" and if you want to have a CLEAN restoration you should go to Disk imaging (which one brand is a matter of taste or choice). The day your system crashes and it is unable to load due to some damaged vital windows .ini file you won't even be able to access SR to go back anywhere and then you will have to use the RECOVERY CD to rstore your system to 2 or 3 years ago when you purchased the PC and then spend a week or more installing all the windows updates and all the software that you bought since you got the PC and that's a mess of a job, but NOT FOR ME and my sidekick Acronis.

I am not trying to offend anyone there, I am only trying to OPEN YOUR EYES and save your PC system when it crashes.

 

http://www.acronis.com/mag/vnu-ati7

ATI is offering Acronis True Image 7.0 for Free for a limited time.

Considerations:
This is an older version - current version is v9.x

Anyone considering drive imaging software should also get an extra HD. The possibilities of problems go up with the use CD/DVD's.

This applies especially to ATI, which historically started out as a strictly HD to HD image application. A big % of the problems at the ATI forums (linked to in a earlier post in this thread) revolve around that issue.

Regards - Charles

 

Hi charlesvar, I concur with you about not getting ATI 7.0 (even if it is free) and go for the latest version 9.0 which is superior in all aspects.

I never used CDs or DVDs with ATI simply because I don't want to spend 8 or 10 CDs creating a backup to only discover later that one of them CDs is corrupted (goodbye backup!) nor I believe in those incremental backups.

FULL SYSTEM BACKUPS EVERY TIME is the way to GO (yto an external USB or Firewire HD) and the more frequent ones the better (I do it every week) or after installing some special software or several windows security critical updates. I don't use System restore anymore since I got ATI and it has proved good to me. People that depend on SR and waste their time trying to make it work the way they would like it to work should do themselves a big favor and go ahead with Disk Imaging which is a far better and superior way of backing up your entire system and everything inside.

 

I forgot to include in yesterday's post that along with a hard drive, users should also create OS only partitions - that's the partition that is imaged, and a data partition. At the top of the XP section is a sticky thread authored by Christer on how to move what are normaly OS folders under My Documents that can be moved to the data partition.

The OS is relatively static, while data is dymanic and should be backed up fairly freguently using either something simple as copying folders all the way up to synchronus always on backups or RAID.

Hi mazaprin,

That's a consideration. For anyone that wants to get their feet wet, I think v7 is just fine, it just doesn't have v9's options. But as a basic imaging application it is a good way to start off.

Regards - Charles

 

Thread started by Tony on ATI v 7.0

Free Acronis True Image 7.0
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=58471

Regards - Charles

 

Hi Charlesvar, I don't fully understand what you mean about to create "ONLY OS partitions and a Data partition ".

My OS has 2 partitions: C (system files) and D (software) and when I create a full OS image, the full HD is covered (with all its partitions, as opposed to Image only one partition).

regarding the data being dynamic it is of no consecuence to me simply because I create a full image EVERY WEEK (and in-between after installing some special software or security updates) so i am covering almost all my data on these images.

besides, if someone is always making new documents or adding pictures or music files to his PC they can just backup the entire "My Documents" folder into a DVD or even store it on the external HD as an added precaution.

With Acronis Images, if I accidentally delete some picture or document and it is also deleted from trash bin (unrecoverable unless you have a "file recovery software ") I simply go to EXPLORE my last Backup Image (a virtual HD from that backup will mount) and simply copy that document or whatever and Paste it on my desktop and then unplug the virtual backup HD) and Tha's it in less than 5 minutes.

I store all my digital camera family pictures (or camcorder videos) on the external HD (and also on DVDs) so i don't have to worry about losing them.

I started with ATI 7.0 and served me well but then there came a moment when I added some harware to my laptop for which ATI 7.0 was not very prepared to deal with, so that's why it is important to get the latest version which will be more compatible with the new hardware that is released on the market so it will do a better job at creating and restoring images.

If some people still want to use System Restore, that's OK but i warn you all that SR is already becoming OBSOLETE.

 

Below is a picture of the C partition. That's what gets imaged. D partition/drive has an OS on it as well and that gets imaged. The "live" Documents and Settings folder is on the E partition containing My Documents/Pictures/Favorites and so on - the one on C is the default users. When I click on My Documents from the Start menu, it goes to the one on the E partition. For the OS on D, similiar - the data is on the G partition.

The way you handle data is ok for you - wouldn't be for me and others. That gets backed up every day.

Regards - Charles

 

WoW Charlesvar... why do you complicate your life and your OS with so many unnecessary partitions? it will not make your system more efficient, on the contrary it will make your system work harder going from one partition to another and jumping to the other and that takes a toll on your Hard drive which will not last a regular lifespan (apart from Acronis having to work harder to create images of all these partitions separately and restoring them one by one, will take extra time).

I have heard about peole that also have two systems, Windows and Linux on their HD and I wonder why people complicate things that way if one system is more than enough to cover all what you want to do.
there is a motto that reads KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) because the more complicated a system the more prone it gets to crashes.

I have all my things neatly stored between C and D and I don't need any motre partitions for anything because for that i have 2 160GB external HD to store all I want from music files to puictures to a collection of wallpapers of all kinds and even the installers or many softwares, so... why would i need additional partitions for???

Look how complicated and confusing is that I had problems understanding what you said about creating image of the OS only or if the data partition is or not included then the anothe partition for gaming that is inside the other partition for music and pictures that connect with the other partition.... who understand that???

 

H & I are external drives - they are my old internal drives that my now 5 year old system came with.

I don't know what to say about HD lifespan, but H & I are now five years old

Imaging is done of C or D seperately from the live OS - image C when in D's OS and D when in C's OS. They are seperate image files written to H or I.

Operating this system is no more complicated than someone on a single OS system. Its like having two seperate systems with the added advantage of instant file access across partitions from either OS and being able to do things like delete the other OS's files from the live one that others have trouble doing because of "access denied" messages - or being able to image/partition etc w/o having to have to use boot discs - or running different security software and being able to cross check AV's/anti-spyware apps - or etc.

Edit: Some more of etc - another example of where the multiple OS's come in handy.

Run IE7 on one and IE6 on the other. Ran into this problem with IE7: http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?p=312401#post312401

Yes, the upkeep is more - lots of updating.

Regards - Charles