Re: Recover the system

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

Let me explain my sitation and why I absolutely know it works.

I am on my 5th hard disk and I have never done a recovery. Two of the hard
disks failed in identical ways... just wouldn't boot and nothing I did would
boot them, however, my files were still totally available. (The first HD was
failing and was replaced by Dell, the second hard disk was upgraded to my
third... and my third and fourth disk just failed in the identical way)

If the HD is in a caddy, then the files are just files. You can copy
everything. Copy, xcopy or even robocopy do not use shadow copy, so how have
I got my original system when I am on my 5th disk and I am supposed to not
be able to copy?

However, I booted up of a windows boot cd prior to the copy. Search for
ubcd4win to create your own windows boot cd.

I then robocopied everything. Nothing special. The drive had to be formatted
and made active prior to this.


The problem I had when I recoved my whole system was that the drive I used
had been used as a slave before (in a caddy, no jumper settings required),
ok, slave might have been the wrong word... a second disk. Because of this,
the drive ID was known to my copied OS. Have a look in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices and rename the ex slave drive
letter to C.

The problem above manifested itself as windows booting fine, but no logon
screen... or booted right up to the logon screen WITH the failed HD in the
caddy.


However, I have had problems with robocopy in vista, due to the damn linked
paths (can't remember what the are called, like a shortcut) and one of the
linked paths linking to its parent, thereby creating a recursive tree.

--
Best regards,
Dave Colliver.
http://www.AshfieldFOCUS.com
~~
http://www.FOCUSPortals.com - Local franchises available
"Twayne" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uDfLW7bHKHA.4024@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"David" <david.colliver.NEWS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uMahi5YHKHA.5256@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Why do you say that?

You can copy all the files from one HD to another and it will work. I
have done it many times after having 3 HD fail on me and an upgrade
process to a larger HD.

You can NOT copy an operating system's files; Copy does not use Shadow
Copy or any other method of backing up files that are "in use" so those
files cannot/will not be transferred, effectively breaking the entire
thing. Neither can Xcopy.exe accomplish it. You need a cloning, imaging
or other type of backup program to get all of the files so the operating
system will function.


One problem you may encounter though is if the HD you transfer to was
a slave drive to the one you are copying from. If that is the case,
you need to remove the drive that was a slave from your registry,
else it will boot but you won't get the sign-on screen.

Whatever; pretty poor explanation IMO. If a Slave drive is made bootable,
it must be jumpered to be Master and the other drive jumpered to be Slave.


What you might not be able to copy though is the recovery partition.

The recovery partition can be backed up using the aforementioned tools. It
should always be part of a backup. You can also simply "unhide" the
recovery partition in Disk Management. Disk Management will show ALL
partitions, hidden or not.
The recovery partition is very important to have on the bootable drive.
It should be copied to a DVD set and kept for later use just incase a
format ever trashes it/deletes it.

Manufacturer's of drives nearly all have a cloning program available
online that you can download. It allows you to make a clone of your drive
to another drive and of course is also free. If you can't find it, ask
them for it.

HTH,

Twayne`




"Rich Barry" <rbarry@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OLqPZOWHKHA.1376@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Scott, Compaq which is now HP probably has there own software to
use in conjunction with the Recovery Partition. The RP is usually
just a image of the OS as it came from the factory. You will not be
able to restore your system the way it was before you had the
breakdown. You can retrieve important data but software that you
had installed yourself will have to be reinstalled.





.

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