Restoring a MS Windows System

Hi all,

I am sorry to post a Windows question over here, but, this is currently the only forum that I visit and we do accept Windows questions on general, so

So here is the issue: I never, ever needed to restore any Windows sytem at home. If I have to reinstall the system, I simply reinstall it. I can probably do it with closed eyes by now. Needless to say, my knowledge in this area is none.

What I mean with restoring, is something simple as HP and Dell does:

- They create a new partition on Windows with a restore point;
- While booting Vista/XP, you can press F11 and you get a restore menu, where the system is "restored" to the exact same way as you bought it.

This sounds like a good way when setting up computers to friends/relatives. If they screw things up, they can simply press a button and restore the computer to the exactly same way it was when I first installed it.

So how do I go by accomplishing this? Free programs would be great but not really a requirement. So I am open to suggestions. The easier it is for my relatives/friends and for myself the better.

Thanks in advance!

They are basically using a hidden partition and using an imaging program. I was reading how to do this once and came across this site. I know you said free tools but they looked promising. I think the program is called True Image. Also here are some links. They should help.

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=37939

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=26185

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=43610

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/

Let us know how you do it. I would like to do this for my parents but I just don't have the time to experiment right now.

Don't know if you can get that fancy, but something simple might be to create a small Linux system (you've got DSL listed, that should do - I might use Arch, or Slack, or Debian, or ... ). Use ntfsclone to create a compressed clone on the Linux partition.
Add that system to boot.ini and provide a script to do the restore. The tell them to pick the "Restore" option on boot and run the script. Easy.
Mmmm - afterthought: maybe you'd better convert them to grub as well in case it really goes to hell.

Of course they'll have to re-add their favourite spyware, virus(s), whatever themselves after the restore ...

Originally Posted by Mega Man X What I mean with restoring, is something simple as HP and Dell does:

ntfs partitions can be backed up and restored with ntfsclone+bzip2 (or p7zip, gzip, etc). Making backup might take hour or two (compression, etc), restoring will take minutes. Using ntfsclone is better idea than saving raw image, even if raw image is compressed. If you want boot menu with "restore" option, then you might create hidden partition with minimalistic linux(or any other) system which will restore windows partition once launched. This is not a tool, of course, but you'll be able to write few scripts to make this.

They don't want to "restore it" and lose all their baby-pictures (of you... ). What they want are automatic backups, and even though MS doesn't talk about it, their backup-program is quite capable of the task. USB disk-drives are cheap and plentiful.

Backup tools like these are wonderful because if you lose something, you just get it back. If you screw-up a file, you can get any earlier version of it back. And since the backup volumes are well-protected, "you have nothing to lose." So to speak.

Thanks everyone for the replies (you guys sure are quick ). I am looking into everything, plus a few commercial programs I found with Google. Some have trials, so what the heck, I will give it a shot.

I will ask tomorrow to the guy at work responsible for the backups to check how he does it. I know for a fact that he does not have anything similar to it on the developers machine, because once I had a HD failure and he replaced the disk, installed the OS and I had to configure everything from the beginning (download Eclipse and other programs, etc).

Anyway, sounds like a cool thing to research and definitely worthy the investment (if its not like 1000 bucks, more like 100 is fine, hehe), because seriously, I can't take it anymore. I've re-installed Windows for God only knows how many times. I don't want to do it again, if possible

Oh, and for the record, the suggestion made by sundialsvcs was good, but I really am only interested in restoring the OS (with the drivers and everything loaded). Personal files, well, I taught everybody how to store this kind of things online or to an external HD, so that is not a problem . I myself don't have a single important file on my computer these days (documents, source code, pictures, bookmarks, contacts). Everything is either online, on repositories on a remote server or to an external HD .

Originally Posted by Mega Man X I can't take it anymore. I've re-installed Windows for God only knows how many times. I don't want to do it again, if possible

If you just want to restore it, and "backup partition with boot menu" isn't necessary, then ntfsclone will be easiest(or cheapest) way to do it. I've been using some time in situations when I need to format windows partition in ext3, use it for few hours, and then return windows system back.

how about an option in grub that boots to dsl then within dsl you can run a dd script that basically does

dd if=windows-factory-default.iso of=/dev/hda1

that autoruns it when need be.

Originally Posted by schneidz how about an option in grub that boots to dsl then within dsl you can run a dd script that basically does dd if=windows-factory-default.iso of=/dev/hda1 that autoruns it when need be.

I never thought about doing this, but if that works, it sure would be an awesome way to restore a system

Thanks!