TI Home Restore Question

Hi. I'm a new TI user so sorry if this is a dumb question. I have corresponded with Acronis tech support a couple of times, but am not sure I am understanding the response correctly. I'd be very grateful if someone could shed some light on this.

I use True Image Home 10. I made a complete disk image in July, but unfortunately, have not made any incremental backups since then. My PC recently seems to have gotten some malware that I have not been able to get rid of, and it is becoming increasingly unstable.

It appears that Acronis will not let me restore just my registry and system files from the July disk image without restoring the older data files as well. (I was told attempting to do this would make the operating system unbootable.)

However, this seemed to me to be a possibility: 1) make an incremental backup to capture all of the changed and new files since my July disk image (application data files only - no system files), 2) do a whole system restore using my complete disk image, 3) then, restore the data files from the incremental backup in step 2. Seemed reasonable to me, but I was told that...

"In this case you are able to restore only the specified files and folders. The applications will become unbootable. You are able to restore the application to the same place where they were installed."

I do not understand the response or why the proposed solution would not work. Can anyone explain why I can’t do this? What if my incremental backups were simply drag and drops, and not made with True Image? Would it work then?

Bottom line: how can I use my July True Image disk image plus current application data file backups (made with True Image or not) to get back to a stable system?

Thanks!!!
Denis

 

Sounds like your plan should work. Do you have a spare hard drive to try it? What did you use to try to get rid of the malware?
You can also simply copy your data files using Windows Explorer on to another drive/flash drive or burn to cd/dvd.

 

Hi DenisK,

Before you go for an updated restore it may be worth trying you malware removal tools while booted in Windows safe mode. It is sometimes a good way to catch the bad guys unawares.


Xpilot

 

A comment. This case demonstrates why it is a good idea to keep data files on a partition separate from the OS/Apps when imaging.

 

Folks - thanks for the helpful replies. My two external drives are pretty full already - I may need to pick up a third so I can experiment. Xpilot - I seem to have some kind of issue with RUNDLL32.EXE repeatedly trying to install something as a browser helper object. And RUNDLL32.EXE or something else keeps trying to make me access a website called SILLAPTAK.COM, which is supposed to be a known spyware site.

Webroot SpySweeper blocks the installation, but it appears to have messed up SpySweeper (which is now unstable and crashes some - I uninstalled and did a clean install of SpySweeper but that didn't help). The folks at Webroot had me run SmitfraudFix - which didn’t help, and ComboFix.exe - which really hosed my system. Had to do a restore which worked, thankfully. Nothing has helped. (I did run both SpySweeper and NOD32 in Safe Mode.) I’m open to other suggestions, if any or I will try to restore as described in my post since seems like this might work. Suggestion noted seekforever. - Thanks again.

 

Might be something in the Temp or Temporary Internet Files folders regenerating the malware. Try running CCleaner (www.ccleaner.com). It's free and it is good.

 

You might also try the "hijackthis" program to find the malware, do a search in google and go to the hijackthis forum and read how to send a log of the readings. The people there are quite knowlegable and helpful.