Restore event on external drive

September 18, 2007

Greetings.

Now that I have a full system restoration program, I was wondering if the

external drive files would be affected. The reason I'm asking is my concern

of files no longer being identified as when I use System Restore feature to

an earlier point. Since System Restore is monitoring all hard drives, plus

external drive, would restoring to an earlier time also affect the external

drive's files? If so, I would think a full system restore would also not

identify files created after that point. I'm reluctant to keep my external

drive on to find out. Thank you.

Rgds,

Kevin

September 18, 2007

Re: Restore event on external drive

General Mailbox wrote:

> Now that I have a full system restoration program, I was wondering

> if the external drive files would be affected. The reason I'm

> asking is my concern of files no longer being identified as when I

> use System Restore feature to an earlier point. Since System

> Restore is monitoring all hard drives, plus external drive, would

> restoring to an earlier time also affect the external drive's

> files? If so, I would think a full system restore would also not

> identify files created after that point. I'm reluctant to keep my

> external drive on to find out. Thank you.

What 'full system restoration program' do you have installed/configured that

you are referring to?

"System Restore" only manages 'system' files - it is not a backup solution,

nor would I suggest it be your only solution...

--

Shenan Stanley

MS-MVP

--

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

September 19, 2007

Re: Restore event on external drive

Shenan Stanley wrote:

> General Mailbox wrote:

>> Now that I have a full system restoration program, I was wondering

>> if the external drive files would be affected. The reason I'm

>> asking is my concern of files no longer being identified as when I

>> use System Restore feature to an earlier point. Since System

>> Restore is monitoring all hard drives, plus external drive, would

>> restoring to an earlier time also affect the external drive's

>> files? If so, I would think a full system restore would also not

>> identify files created after that point. I'm reluctant to keep my

>> external drive on to find out. Thank you.

>

> What 'full system restoration program' do you have installed/configured that

> you are referring to?

>

> "System Restore" only manages 'system' files - it is not a backup solution,

> nor would I suggest it be your only solution...

>

And just to add to Shenan's good advice, there is no reason to ever have

XP's System Restore monitor any drive except for the system drive

(usually C:\, the one with the operating system on it). It's a waste of

system resources and hard drive space since there is nothing on your

external drive that System Restore concerns itself with.

See MVP Bert Kinney's pages about System Restore for more details:

http://bertk.mvps.org

Here is a list of files and folders System Restore monitors -

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/filesfolders.html

Malke

--

Elephant Boy Computers

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com

"Don't Panic!"

MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

September 19, 2007

Re: Restore event on external drive

>> General Mailbox wrote:

>>> Now that I have a full system restoration program, I was wondering

>>> if the external drive files would be affected. The reason I'm

>>> asking is my concern of files no longer being identified as when I

>>> use System Restore feature to an earlier point. Since System

>>> Restore is monitoring all hard drives, plus external drive, would

>>> restoring to an earlier time also affect the external drive's

>>> files? If so, I would think a full system restore would also not

>>> identify files created after that point. I'm reluctant to keep my

>>> external drive on to find out. Thank you.

>> What 'full system restoration program' do you have installed/configured

>> that you are referring to?

> "Shenan Stanley" wrote

>> "System Restore" only manages 'system' files - it is not a backup

>> solution, nor would I suggest it be your only solution...

>>

>> --

>> Shenan Stanley

>> MS-MVP

>> --

>> How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

>> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

General Mailbox wrote:

> Thanks to both of you, Shenan and Malke.

> Sorry I blended full system restoration with System Restore. It was bound

> to be confusing.

> Malke, you wrote on 8/21/07 to RBB "Roxio is not an image creator like

> Acronis or Norton Ghost."

> Taking that idea, I've downloaded Acronis and made a few full system

> restoration files (one for each partition rather than one large file

> containing all partitions on a drive).. I plan on monthly such full backups

> with weekly differentials. If I am needing to back up to a point since the

> last differential, I hope that System Restore will suffice. A downside of

> System Restore is that all the files I have placed in a folder I created in

> the root directory of C drive, vanish from being listed only for those

> created after the restore date chosen. I understand that if I want to

> protect files from Systen Restore, I would need to place them under My

> Documents folder. This is the reason for my quesiton. It was a default

> setting of System Restore to monitor all drives including the external one.

> I can change it to monitor C drive only. I didn't notice about Systen

> Restore monitoring everything until after the backups were done. In a test

> of Acronis to recover the OS system, the question came to mind if I should

> turn off the power of the external drive so that files don't vanish as they

> do in the C drive. The external drive wouldn't be protected from changes as

> it isn't under My Documents folder. Like you suggest, from now on, I'll

> only have the C drive monitored. With this vanishing files thing happening,

> I was wondering if using System Restore and/or Acronis would also have

> missing file listings happen on the external drive. I had to test Acronis

> in Safe version using the backup file on a separate partition of my local

> drive because Acronis did not recognize my external drive using the Full

> version as it was suppose to. I've written to Acronis about this yesterday

> and no answer just yet. It is my wish to use the external drive for storage

> of backup files.

> But, can you imagine this: There's a program needed to read certain

> filetypes. You can't find it anywhere to install again. Knowing that you

> have a full system restore file newly created, you go to a full system

> restore point from last months backup file. After using the program and

> decide again not to keep it anymore, you want to restore back to today's

> newly created one. But will it be listed on the external drive as a choice

> since the computer's restore points, registery, or whatever doesn't show

> files that was created of a later date?

> This is more of a discussion than a current problem. I'd like to know what

> to expect before proceeding with just about everything. "An ounce of

> prevention is worth a pound of cure."

>

> Rgds,

> Kevin

Hi Kevin,

You're over complicating things here. Let me help explain. :)

System Restore is designed to restore a core set of system files and folders

in the event one or more of these file becomes corrupt, or incompatible with

the system do to a newly installed application or device driver.

System Restore is not a replacement for backing up files!

Here is a description of System Restore:

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/description.html

System Restore will provide best results when used ASAP after a problem is

detected. Restoring a system back more than a week or so can often cause

more problems than it solves. For example, any application installed after

the restore point you are reverting to may not function. What happens is,

System Restore only removes monitored files for the installed applications

and the rest are left behind. This can cause the application not to

function. And in some cases, can also cause the uninstall and reinstall

process of the partially removed application to fail. It is recommended to

uninstall any applications that was installed after the restore point you

will be restoring to.

And as Malke suggested, set System Restore to *only* monitor the

drive/partition Windows is installed on.

Should I let System Restore monitor my external drive?

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/tips.html#11

So for short term problems System Restore is the best choice. All data and

image files will be left intact.

Erunt is an excellent tool for backing up the system registry ONLY. This can

be useful when a system will not boot to normal or safe mode and when System

Restore cannot be accessed.

ERUNT: The Emergency Recovery Utility NT - Registry Backup and Restore for

Windows NT/2000/2003/XP

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt

Imaging software such as Acronis creates an exact copy of partition being

imaged. This is a longer term solution used when System Restore and other

troubleshooting steps fail. The down side in restoring an image is all

changes made after the image was created will be gone. This is where a

backup strategy comes into play.

Backing up your computer or your data:

http://computerhaven.info/Backups.aspx

Regards,

Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User

http://bertk.mvps.org

Member: http://dts-l.org

September 20, 2007

Re: Restore event on external drive

"Shenan Stanley" <newshelper@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:uXtCf5k%23HHA.4712@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...