So you all seem to be the king of backups! I've got a question.

I'm being driven mad by the "Found New Hardware Wizard" every time I boot. Now I could just let the PC run for weeks, months instead of rebooting every couple of days but it's the principle of the thing. I'm not sure exactly why this started or what it's seeing. A week ago or so I updated the Intel PCI Bridge driver but it ran for days without a problem. Searching this annoyance only serves to discover that it's quite common with most fixes failures. So to my question! Every few weeks I run a complete, new backup to an external HD with Norton Ghost 10. I've only ever opened the explorer tree in it and restored some individual files. What happens if I try to restore the whole C drive? Can that be done? Would I have to re-install all of my software? Thank you and if you know a fix for the F N H Wizard please share!

 

Assuming it's an image you're restoring, then yes, you'd lose whatever wasn't there on your restored image (as far as apps and data go). If you could restore an image just prior to your driver update, then that might be the best bet, then you'd just have to install anything since that last image, but you could skip that suspect driver update.

 

I don't have to add anything to what Kerodo already mentioned. It does sound though you have never performed a full restore of your system. If I were you I'd definitely try it once regardless of the original problem. It's not always guaranteed it will work, and unfortunately there is only one way to make sure: To try once. If it doesn't work, you will have to reinstall the OS from the original CD, and try another imaging program.

It's not a must of course, but trying a full restore is generally what imaging programs are designed to perform.

 

So thank you for the replies. Indeed, I wasn't sure if my apps (the already installed is what I was actually referring to) would still function. Sounds like they will if everything goes right.

 

Making that first restore is like jumping from a burning building into a safety net. You just hope it will hold. Thankfully, most do.

The imaging programs I've ran have always worked as advertised. But some don't. But as already mentioned, the only way to know is to jump...

 

Back up your critical data before you jump! I would do a simple copy of MY DOCUMENTS and data stored elsewhere in case your restore fails (mine never have) and totally clobbers your drive. The copy would be to another physically separate drive, e.g., an external hard drive.

 

Excellent, excellent point! I knew there was something I forgot to say...

 

Well first of all, I resolved the issue by disabling an "unknown device" under Network Adapters. Under Properties>Details the only thing listed is ROOT\NET\0001. Everything else in Properties is "unknown"! PC is working flawlessly, as is the wireless network, so for the moment it appears not to be necessary component. Happy to report reboots are normal without being greeted with the Found New Hardware Wizard. Being the obsessive PC person though, I decided I'd restore all the drivers in the System32 folder. Big mistake! Upon the first reboot the wallpaper was a complete crazy mess and icons were thrown all over the place. A safe mode reboot and restore has everything back to normal. Hate to think what would have happened with a complete restore. Anyway, thanks for the help!