XP System Restore is the devil

[Wayne Bundrick]

In addition to taking space on the hard disk, in addition to bringing boot time to a crawl as it makes backup copies of critical files, Windows XP System Restore also manages to consistently pre-fragment the backup files. On my hard drive this morning there were three backed up versions of a 15 megabyte registry file, and each one was identically scattered into over 500 fragments.

All that, plus it probably won't save my ass if I ever have to do a restore.

 

[TedD]

Turn it off!

Use Ghost instead.

Ted

 

[Ronald Epstein]

XP restore has never worked.

Never.

You can also try Roxio GOBACK instead.

 

[Greg*go]

XP Restore has saved my ass a few times with my PC and my sister's laptop. But it was also pointless to me the last time I tried to "tweak" the registry, so I had to reinstall XP just a few weeks ago. It's not a cure all device like some people expect it to be, but it does have a purpose that I like. I've never used GOBACK or Ghost, don't they cost money?

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Oh I have Ghost and other means of backup. XP System Restore can't restore everything, nor is it supposed to.

I won't use Goback. They call it Goback because it makes your disk performance go back ten years when it's in use. For the same reason I have Norton Protected Recycle Bin turned off.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I use GoBack religiously.

When you turn off Windows XP restore and use
only GoBack, there doesn't seem to be any system
lag (with at least 512mb memory).

I can't tell you how many times GoBack saved
my ass. I install something that screws up the
computer? No problem -- I just date GoBack a
few hours prior to the install and the computer
is working like new.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Ron is Goback a commercial software package?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Yes it is.

It's usually packaged with Norton Systemworks.

Here is a review of the older version

http://www.activewin.com/reviews/sof...ck/index.shtml

I found it here sold on its own:

http://shopper.cnet.com/4014-3682_9-...95.html?tag=pl

 

[Jeff_HR]

You took the words right out of my mouth Ron, it has saved my ass more times than I remember. By the way, Symantec owns it now. And I was surprised to see that Symantec owned another favorite of mine: Partition Magic.

 

[Jeff_HR]

You took the words right out of my mouth Ron, it has saved my ass more times than I remember. By the way, Symantec owns it now. And I was surprised to see that Symantec owned another favorite of mine: Partition Magic.

 

[Chris]

And Drive Image, which has worked nicely for me. Having used both it and Ghost since way back (when Ghost was freely downloadable in 30 day segments, before it was bought by Symantec) that Drive Image does one thing that I wished ghost did: a full backup by image, in a compressed format to external USB/Firewire drives while inside of windows.. so you can get that full backup off without having to shut down, boot the dos program, etc.

I still keep Ghost 2003 handy as well, it's single boot disc support is nice, but having both is dandy

 

[Chris]

And Drive Image, which has worked nicely for me. Having used both it and Ghost since way back (when Ghost was freely downloadable in 30 day segments, before it was bought by Symantec) that Drive Image does one thing that I wished ghost did: a full backup by image, in a compressed format to external USB/Firewire drives while inside of windows.. so you can get that full backup off without having to shut down, boot the dos program, etc.

I still keep Ghost 2003 handy as well, it's single boot disc support is nice, but having both is dandy

 

[WayneO]

Yep, Drive Image 2000 rocks. I reinstall a compressed 5GB image in about 9 minutes. Do it once a month a so to have a prestine copy of my OS and then update to newest video drivers, etc. And Drive Image is much less flakier with my RAID setup than Ghost. Two floppy's to run the whole thing.

 

[WayneO]

Yep, Drive Image 2000 rocks. I reinstall a compressed 5GB image in about 9 minutes. Do it once a month a so to have a prestine copy of my OS and then update to newest video drivers, etc. And Drive Image is much less flakier with my RAID setup than Ghost. Two floppy's to run the whole thing.

 

[Michael Harris]

No offence Ron but one should not speak in absolutes. Restore has saved my butt when my browser was hijacked and nothing worked. Of course that does not negate your experience with restore.

 

[Michael Harris]

No offence Ron but one should not speak in absolutes. Restore has saved my butt when my browser was hijacked and nothing worked. Of course that does not negate your experience with restore.

 

[Diallo B]

xp's restore function has never worked for me either.

ghost has saved my booty plenty of times.

 

[Diallo B]

xp's restore function has never worked for me either.

ghost has saved my booty plenty of times.

 

[Ben LG]

XP Restore has saved my ass a couple of times too so I dont feel the need to look for another app although I heard Ghost is pretty good. The only thing I dont like about XP's restore is that you have to set a restore point beforehand.