Proper backup procedure???

[Ray Willingham]

Hi everyone,

Im seeking procedural advice and insight, I own a HP A1120N machine, 200gb with 2mb ram, running WinXP-MCE 2005.

What I did:
I made a backup of all my files and directories, instead of cloning the original "C" hard drive, because I was afraid If I cloned, I would be copying over some of the corrupted files bothering my winxp-mce system too.

What I want to do:
I want to conduct a destructive reformat and rebuild the WinXP-MCE operating system. The HP machine I own has a protected partition allowing me to rebuild the system should it be necessary.

Then I want to transfer back from my external hd, all my "preferred" software applications from where all the backup is stored, back onto my "c" hard drive.

What I'm concerned about:
If I do a destructive rebuild, back to the day I got the system, do I need to use the "windows update" feature to redownload all the operating sytem updates prior to transferring my applications back onto the "C:\" Drive?

The external hard drive is denoted as "K:\" and all "TIB" files reside on it, I did a search and none of these TIB files are on the "c:\" drive.

I noted that the destructive rebuild would overwrite the software applications, Im fine with that except fo rthe acronis software application itself.

Before I engage the destructive rebuild, whats the proper way to prepare to "reaccess" the "K:\" drive with the acronis software temporarily "gone"?

Help appreciated.... for preparing this... thanks in advance.

Ray - Oklahoma

[Xpilot]

Clever though the Acronis system is it will not repair any corruption in you existing system. You could use it to backup your data but you cannot use it to drop your existing programs back into a reinstalled operating system. These programs and Acronis would have to be re-installed form their original media.

If you use the HP recovery process this will revert your computer to its factory fresh status. The only way forward from there is to reinstall all your programs and run all the Windows updates.

It seems that you have run into a timing problem. If you had an image of your system before it became corrupted you could have been up and running again in a few minutes. But it is no help dwelling on what might have been.

There is quite a range of houskeeping and repair methods that you could try before you blow away your existing system and programs. These are best investigated in Windows MCE forums rather than here as they are not specific to Acronis.

Xpilot

[Ray Willingham]

You're right, Xpilot,

I was seeking to learn of a way to "drop existing programs back".... I was under the impression that when backups are made, a copy of Windows' registery was also made, thus ensuring the "drop back" feature being enabled when selecting individual files for necessary access.

for example, my "Roboform" has over a 100 passwords... I dread the thought of rebuilding them one by one after "reactivating" the software application.
In this example, there's no time saving feature when using Acronis?

Ive already looked at all other corrective possibilities as I was trying to avoid a destructive reformat... but it seems some necessary operating sytem files were either unintentionally deleted by some other software applicaton, or corrupted and a sure fire 100% solution was to start with a destructive reinstallation rather than to troubleshoot one by one, not really knowing what to look for.

So I take it, the best way forward is to gather all my applicatons and their registration codes into a safe place first, do a fresh destructive reinstallation and windows updates. After that, installing programs one by one.

what about the "data" created by these programs (ie., the roboform data comes to mind)... I assume that the files backedup onto an external hard drive prior to the destructive reinstallation are still accessible with the Acronis recovery manager or the bootable rescue media disk?

Thanks so much for your helpful insight, its saved me from making a serious mistake, I appreciate it.

Ray
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-{ Quote: "Clever though the Acronis system is it will not repair any corruption in you existing system. You could use it to backup your data but you cannot use it to drop your existing programs back into a reinstalled operating system. These programs and Acronis would have to be re-installed form their original media.

If you use the HP recovery process this will revert your computer to its factory fresh status. The only way forward from there is to reinstall all your programs and run all the Windows updates.

It seems that you have run into a timing problem. If you had an image of your system before it became corrupted you could have been up and running again in a few minutes. But it is no help dwelling on what might have been.

There is quite a range of houskeeping and repair methods that you could try before you blow away your existing system and programs. These are best investigated in Windows MCE forums rather than here as they are not specific to Acronis.

Xpilot" }-