Backup & recovery problem

[General Mailbox]

Greetings.
After losing over 500 images due to having a wildcard in my parameters
during a delete, I've decided to go the extra step beyond system restore
points and start using an automated system backup. My backups consisted of
copy/pasting files to a 2nd internal drive, but it was affected during the
deletion process. I now use an external USB HDD. Using WinXP built-in MS
Backup, I've made the two methods of creating a backup. One such backup
contains a
C drive, another very small C drive, and system state selection. I chose
all three boxes and it created a single file. I also did the other method
of using the ASR (Automatic System Recovery), which required a floppy disk.
My partition information is such:

Partition Information for Disk 1:
Volume PartType Status Size MB
============================================
:HP_PAVILION Hid.FAT32X Pri 68,460.8
C: NTFS Pri,Boot 17,046.9 (active)
ExtendedX Pri 12,956.8
EPBR Log 12,956.8
D: NTFS Log 12,956.8
Hidden NTFS Pri 16,005.9

There are now 4 primary partitions, one being an extended to contain a
logical drive. The 4th primary (16MB) was created to test the recovery
method. Operating MS Backup in my normal boot drive, I restored the .bkf
file to the 4th primary. Using a 3rd party boot configuration program, I
selected the 4th primary to be the boot partition. Rebooting starts the
splash? screen of Windows XP Pro, but before getting to the welcome screen,
the blue screen that would normally show up when a chkdisk is performed read
"autochk program not found - skipping autocheck" then the BSOD comes on for
about 1/4 second then the system reboots repeating this event.

It may quite be that I don't understand how the MS Backup is suppose to
work. The instructions are vague with no differences beting mentioned about
a C drive backup, a C drive & a mini C drive & a system state backup, and
finally the ASR backup if you don't use the wizard. It also didn't mention
about the full system backup would include the D drive (NTSF) but omit any
hidden drives. When trying to use the ASR, I realized that I needed the
installation CD and press F2 to get into the recovery mode. Doing it, it
determined that it would need to wipe out the entire 114MB drive in order to
restore it. I don't think so cause D drive was never backed up. I probably
would've lost my hidden drives and the D drive if I continued. I wish to
continue using XP along with the Vista Premium on another computer, and
thought that the built-in
backup programs would be sufficient. If someone can help me understand and
correct this problem, I may be able to use it. Otherwise, I would
appreciate some consumer advice on backup software. Many thanks!
B.rgds to all!
Kevin

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Greetings.
After losing over 500 images due to having a wildcard in my parameters
during a delete, I've decided to go the extra step beyond system restore
points and start using an automated system backup. My backups consisted
of
copy/pasting files to a 2nd internal drive, but it was affected during the
deletion process. I now use an external USB HDD. Using WinXP built-in MS
Backup, I've made the two methods of creating a backup. One such backup
contains a
C drive, another very small C drive, and system state selection. I chose
all three boxes and it created a single file. I also did the other method
of using the ASR (Automatic System Recovery), which required a floppy
disk.
My partition information is such:

Partition Information for Disk 1:
Volume PartType Status Size MB
============================================
:HP_PAVILION Hid.FAT32X Pri 68,460.8
C: NTFS Pri,Boot 17,046.9 (active)
ExtendedX Pri 12,956.8
EPBR Log 12,956.8
D: NTFS Log 12,956.8
Hidden NTFS Pri 16,005.9

There are now 4 primary partitions, one being an extended to contain a
logical drive. The 4th primary (16MB) was created to test the recovery
method. Operating MS Backup in my normal boot drive, I restored the .bkf
file to the 4th primary. Using a 3rd party boot configuration program, I
selected the 4th primary to be the boot partition. Rebooting starts the
splash? screen of Windows XP Pro, but before getting to the welcome
screen,
the blue screen that would normally show up when a chkdisk is performed
read
"autochk program not found - skipping autocheck" then the BSOD comes on
for
about 1/4 second then the system reboots repeating this event.

It may quite be that I don't understand how the MS Backup is suppose to
work. The instructions are vague with no differences beting mentioned
about
a C drive backup, a C drive & a mini C drive & a system state backup, and
finally the ASR backup if you don't use the wizard. It also didn't
mention
about the full system backup would include the D drive (NTSF) but omit any
hidden drives. When trying to use the ASR, I realized that I needed the
installation CD and press F2 to get into the recovery mode. Doing it, it
determined that it would need to wipe out the entire 114MB drive in order
to
restore it. I don't think so cause D drive was never backed up. I
probably
would've lost my hidden drives and the D drive if I continued. I wish to
continue using XP along with the Vista Premium on another computer, and
thought that the built-in
backup programs would be sufficient. If someone can help me understand
and
correct this problem, I may be able to use it. Otherwise, I would
appreciate some consumer advice on backup software. Many thanks!
B.rgds to all!
Kevin

I think some clarification may be required.
- System Restore is meant to restore the operating system.
You cannot use it to restore data.
- ASR is equally useless for data recovery.
- While you can use ntbackup.exe to back up your data
files, there are far better ways to do this. If you don't want
to spend any money, put some xcopy.exe commands into
a batch file. If you're happy to buy a commercial product,
use something like Acronis.

Note also that your partition structure is not quite the way
you see it. It is probably like this:

Primary Partition HP_Pavillion Hidden FAT32 68,460 (GBytes?)
Primary Partition C: (Active boot) Visible NTFS 17,046 GBytes
Primary Partition Hidden 16,005 (GBytes?)
Extended partition, containing
EPBR Hidden? Visible? FAT32? NTFS? 12,956 (GBytes?)
D: Visible NTFS 12,956 (GBytes)

In other words, you probably have three primary partitions plus
one extended partition. Inside the extended partition you have
two logical drives (maybe . . .).

It is not clear from your post if your system is currently bootable
or if it suffers from a persistent BSOD.

 

[General Mailbox]

Hello, Pegasus.
It's late, or early should I say, and hard to keep both eyes open *smiles*
My partition information is correct to the best of my knowledge and
reasoning.
It's like this:

Hidden drive C -- contains WinME OS on FAT32. It is primary with +64
thousand MB = 64GB
Unhidden drive C -- contains WinXP on NTSF. Primary active boot (defaulted
in boot config) = 17GB
Hidden drive C -- contains restored WinXP on NTSF. Primary so it can be
bootable. = 16GB
Unhidden *Extended primary partition to contain possibly numerous logical
partitions = 12GB
Within this primary, there is a EPBR logical partition. I did not
create this. I think it's like an envelope that surrounds the useable
logical partition. Notice it's the same size as the primary. Also within
this Extended primary is the logical drive I created which is formatted in
NTSF. Being that it is also 12GB, there is no more room to place more
logical drives in this Extended primary partition. This uses up all 4
primary allocations that the OS gives us.

I know that a 1.44MB floppy diskette (the ASR) cannot hold all my data
files. Thinking more about this, it appears to have taken a snapshot of the
number of partitions and their sizes, so that information can be used to
recreate the whole disk drive's partitioning information. Seems rather
useless to me unless the hard disk has no room to spare in any partition and
you need to be precise in partition sizes. I just figured to make sure that
the partition I created was large enough to contain the backup file with at
least 50MB free working space in the same partition.

Thank you for the information on the executables, but unfortunately, I'm not
familiar with writing batch files. MS Backup said it can do Full,
Differential, and Incremental backups, so why buy 3rd party software? But
with this problem and lack of instructions, they are pushing people like me
to go and buy other software.

On the last topic, thanks for asking. The system is bootable as the boot
manager program I have selects any of the partitions I have it set for to
boot from. I just switched back to my working OS partition. Maybe there's
a limit on how many bootable OS's a person can have on a single HD? Just a
thought as there are many excuses why things don't work.

Goodnight!
Kevin

 

[Plato]

After losing over 500 images due to having a wildcard in my parameters
during a delete, I've decided to go the extra step beyond system restore

In the future, make it a habit of backing up your most important data to
CD-R on a regular basis.