Creating DVD restore point.

[Carl Gross]

I have XP Pro SP3. I would like to make a DVD that would make a restore
point (ie. resurrect the computer's system from the DVD).

How can I do that?

 

[Leonard Grey]

You are looking for a product known as disk imaging software. Some
popular examples are (in alphabetical order):

Acronis True Image
Norton Ghost
Paragon Drive Backup
Terabyte Unlimited Image for Windows

A disk image is, basically, an exact copy of a hard disk (or a disk
partition.) You can use an image to do what is called a 'bare metal
restore.' This means that the entire disk (or partition) is replaced by
the image. It's like going back in time.

Disk imaging has a learning curve, but it's a very worthwhile investment
of your time.

You will find it quite inconvenient to store disk images on a DVD. An
external hard drive or network drive is a much better choice.

 

[peter]

What Leonard failed to mention was that an image of your HD does you no
good if you have no means to restore the image...If XP is so corrupted the
system wont
start!!
Most of the programs that Leonard mentioned let you create a bootable
rescue CD/DVD with which you would boot the machine.
I know Acronis does I am not sure about the rest as I have never used them
but you can google them to see if they have that capability
peter

 

[Leonard Grey]

Apparently peter doesn't understand that a disk image includes all disk
metadata, such as the Master Boot Record and the Master File Table.
Thus, the image is bootable. No additional boot CD is needed.

 

[peter]

Its extremely hard to place a disk image on one CD usually the info stored
on a HD is a lot larger than a CD can hold.
and most of the time a DVD will fall in the same category.
Acronis,which I am familiar with will create an .tib file which needs to be
opened with Acronis.

A cloning operation would create a bootable copy of the HD.

peter