System Recovery

[frenchie29]

Ok I had to do a system recovery for the first time. I was surprised to see all my ols softwares still working!!! isn't supposed to wipe everything out? my question is, now I have my bare system the way I want it. is there a way to make an image of my c drive so just in case I have another problem that I could wipe out my c drive and put that image on it and start with what I had before?

[gvblake22]

Yes, you can create what is infact called an "image" of the hard drive but you need special software to do it. Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image are two of the more popular methods. I've used both and found Acronis to be much more user friendly. It's a great application, I highly suggest you look into getting it. Here is a user review of Acronis True Image 9, but I believe the latest version is 11.

[frenchie29]

Ok cool I've heard of ghost. So if I would go with Acronis or Ghost do I have to actually installed the software? then unistall it I guess? and where does it save the image onto? I think I will go with Acronis since you said it's more user friendly and I don't really like Synmatec products anymore.

[Stormcrow]

I use clonezilla when needing to backup an image of a drive, it works fine and is open source. It's not as user friendly as Acronis, but it's pretty straightforward and explains everything on screen.
Clonezilla

[gvblake22]

You can save the image wherever you want (same hard drive, different hard drive, DVD, flash drive, etc) but just make sure the place you are saving it to has enough storage capacity to hold the image. The image file will be as big as the hard drive is full that you are imaging.

When I used it, I installed a small application in Windows and set up what I wanted to do (which was to clone a hard drive in my case) and then the computer rebooted and ran the operation outside of Windows. I'm not that familiar with the program, but if you really don't want to have to install it, you can probably boot from the disk and run the application on its own to create an image. You might want to try downloading a user manual or something from the Acronis website to see for sure though. You could also try the free trial version too...

[frenchie29]

I'm a bit confused. What is a system recovery supposed to do? I still have my music folders that was on my c drive. If I do an image would all the files be saved as well? like songs, pix etc or just the programs with their settings?

[gvblake22]

An image is an exact copy of your hard drive (including all files, folders, programs, settings, drivers, etc). Microsoft Windows System Restore is somewhat of a mystery to me, I really don't know exactly how it works. I've used it only once or twice and had the same results as you (it kept all files and folders created after the restored date). I don't really like using System restore just because I don't know exactly what it is doing under the hood; it's somewhat of a "black box" you might say.

[screwballl]

system restore within windows just reloads the basic windows stuff without getting rid of the programs and files...
system recovery from the windows disk usually reinstalls windows on top of the old one but sometimes keeps the old programs, but the files themselves (music, documents, etc) are rarely touched.

[frenchie29]

I taught it would wipe out everything except the OS So now my blue screen error can comae back at any time, as you said I have no clue what it changed.

[screwballl]

the basic OS stuff itself was cleaned up and reinstalled but if the BSOD returns fairly quickly then it is something within your system and not windows itself... if it only returns after you install certain programs then it is likely those specific programs causing a problem.
some options for security programs:
AVG and/or Avira antivirus
Comodo Firewall
Spyware Terminator
Spyware Blaster
CCleaner

These are the programs I have used for some time now and not a single problem, plus all of them are free unless you choose to pay for them... They work well, even on the wife's computer since she is a virus magnet...