Re: Off topic: CD-R backup

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Patricia M Godfrey  on Tue, 17 Jun
2003 09:56:02 -0400


> Yes, well, backing up one's whole system would be lovely, but as far as I
> can see, Windoesn't won't let you.

Well, it depends (doesn't everything?). You _can_ do it. Really. I do it,
and I've restored everything to a (exact) replacement C: drive -- and restored
total 100% functionality. Take at look first at:

http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt.txt

Skim the first part, then read the section "Restoring the registry with ERDNT".
In a few paragraphs, he sums up the challenge and the solutions. His util,
ERUNT, which backs up the registry, is incredibly easy to use, and actually
works -- and, of course, it is freeware (as you may have gathered, I mostly use
freeware for everything, not because I'm a piker, but because I trust that the
authors are operating in my best interest, and not someone -- or some "thing"
-- elses. Which brings me to one of my pet peeves, how the Supreme Court could
possibly have extended to corporations "civil rights", or "freedom of speech"
-- as if they were people!). The registry files are really the only ones that
you can't reliably back up with system Backup (the util in Accessories ==>
System Tools). In a nutshell, I backup with system Backup and ERUNT, and I
feel covered.

Now, granted, you have to have Windows running to restore the system Backups.
And in a real disaster, nothing is running. The painful part is the
contemplation of even a bare-minimum OpSys reinstall, which can take hours, so
that you could then restore your backup (*.BKF) files (assuming they haven't
crashed too!). But there are ways to get around that. See, for example, the
following:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=u2Yu3SbACHA.1680%40tkmsftngp05&rnum=4

What this guy (echoing many others) is offering, basically, is an *unattended*
barebones installation of WinNT (2K|XP) from CD-ROM -- which is enough to get
functionality of System Restore -- and then restore your old system back to
exactly where it was (which is also an essentially unattended operation). So:
two unattended processes, and everything is back to normal. Not too shabby.
In XP Pro, you have ASR (Auto Sys Restore), which -- note well -- does
*exactly* the same thing: restore a basic OpSys, then restore your *.BKF
backups.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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