Bob said:
I have an oem notebook computer with XP Pro. I can make an ASR backup, but do
not have the original restore cd for the notebook. Can I use the install CD
from one of my other machines to do an ASR restore on my laptop?
A restore/recovery CD would probably not work with ASR anyway, it needs
an installation CD because the ASR is invoked after booting from the
installation CD. Whether any particular installation CD will work with
your notebook I don't know. ASR starts by installing a copy of windows
on the drive, then restoring from the backup file. You could test it
and find out assuming you don't care if it doesn't work or have some
other backup to rely on.
A better backup strategy is to use a disk imaging program such as Norton
Ghost, Acronis True Image, Terabyte Unlimited's Image for Windows, or
BootitNG. Restoring the drive is much faster. Save the image file on
external media such as DVD or an external hard drive. ASR, even when
you can get it to work, is slow and clunky compared to imaging programs.
