How do I copy my registry to a disk.

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Hello, I just want to make sure that I know exactly how to back up/copy my
registry onto a disk and I want to make sure that I copy all necessary
information therein. That way incase my computer crashes I will be able to
restore it later.

thanks in advance,
Thomas
 
When you launch regedit.exe, you can just right-click on My Computer and
select Export, then point it wherever you'd like to save the filename.reg
you will be creating. This will back up the entire registry. If you're
going to monkey with just particular settings, you can navigate to that
particular key and export it as well.
 
Hi Thomas:

What if the crash has nothing to do with the registry?

A much better idea is to learn how to take an image of your hard disk.
Essentially, an image is an exact copy of your hard disk (or a
partition) that you can store on a DVD or (even better) an external hard
disk. If your system crashes and you are unable to repair it, just
restore the image and you're good to go like nothing happened.

Have a look at Acronis True Image 10 Home
(http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/)

or Norton Ghost 10
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost10.

Disk imaging is not that easy to understand, but for your efforts to
learn about it you will be rewarded with an outstanding backup solution.

Earl Grey
 
Thanks for the replies and help Joe & Earl. Joe, I will definitely do what
you stated.

Earl, I am not quite clear on the actual process of backing something up or
ghosting. I know what it means conceptually per se, I am just a little
leery/paranoid of the process because I am not sure if I actually have to buy
another HD to back my stuff up on or does the software do it internally? If
internally, how then will I be able to retrieve my old data if the system
totally crashes? I was reading over the links for both back up applications
and I am leaning towards purchasing the Acronis suite hopefully in the near
future. Is it really that easy to use? Keep in mind I am talking about
being able to retrieve all of my personal data with no problems and that, as
I am sure you can understand, is very important to me. My entire system
crashed almost a year ago due to a virus (much to my family’s dismay) and it
still ticks me off now. I had to recreate everything and I don’t want to
have to do that again. I have already figured out how to and have since
started copying all my family pictures, emails, IE favorites, music files,
ect, ect, over to individual CDs. I know it’s a bit cumbersome but for now I
feel somewhat satisfied that I can at least do that. And if I have to reload
everything back one disk at a time at least it is better than nothing, I
guess. So I just want to be sure about what actually goes into the recovery
process.

Sorry for the long winded explanation, I am just cautious and want do to
follow the process correctly while being pro-active and more responsible in
the care of my home pc at the same time.

Thanks again!
 
Yeah, I definitely agree with Earl that a backup solution is your best
route.

The benefit of backing up the registry is primarily if you're monkeying with
the registry in the first place. It's a general rule that before making any
changes to the registry (for example you're getting an error in an
application or Windows itself and a tech or knowledge base article suggests
you modify a registry entry) to back up the registry first. While it's
certainly possible that a system crash you experience could be
registry-related, it's much more likely to be a software corruption issue or
hardware failure, in which case a registry backup wouldn't do you much good.
Also if you restored your entire registry from the backup you create you may
overwrite other changes that have occurred since that backup was made that
you don't want to eliminate.

Programs such as Norton Ghost are popular because they can take a "snapshot"
of your PC in its working condition, and restore that snapshot at any time.
Whether or not you'd need an additional drive depends entirely on how much
space you're currently using. If you have a 80GB drive and are only using
about 8-10GB of it, then you could easily store your ghost image on your
drive--just be aware that if your system failure is caused by your drive
going ass over applecart then your ghost image will likely go with it.
Because of this it's fairly common for folks to pick up an external drive
with a capacity to back up whatever data it is they need (most of these
drives actually include software for doing the backup).

A pretty popular residential solution is the My Book series by Western
Digital. These drives have pretty simple instructions for backing up your
desktop and even scheduling backups, and are pretty reasonably priced for
what you get (I see a 250GB model on newegg.com for about $100).

So all-in-all you can't hurt anything by backing up your registry (as long
as that's all you're doing when you go in there, hehe), but the odds that
backup will save your behind in a pinch are pretty low--a backup is your
best bet.
 
Hi Thomas:

The topic of disk imaging is way too complicated for a news post, so let
me (try to) boil it down to basics.

The term 'ghost' is used by Symantec...it's their word for 'image'.

You can image to a second internal hard disk. That's the fastest way,
but it won't do any good if you're computer gets stolen or drops onto
the floor. Imaging to an external hard disk or to a DVD takes longer
(and backing up to a DVD is not terribly reliable) but you can recover
your system even if your computer is gone. Another good option, if it's
available to you, is to image to a network drive. A combination of
internal and external imaging could be a good idea.

Ghost is a solid program and it's often available for free or cheap
(after rebates), but support is truly awful and many people dislike
'Norton' programs. True Image is equally solid and the support is much
better.

Earl Grey
 
Hey thanks Joe for the explanation and reasoning. It is just my intention to
only back up my registry and nothing else so I can have it for safe keeping.
But like you said, it will probably be ineffectual if the new system from the
backup may have particular instructions that I may not want to overwrite. I
was just under the impression that the registry will help in re-building your
old systems utilities. Sort of like a lighter version of ghosting. Sorry but
this stuff is still a little over my head so I appreciate your patience.

Earl, I understand about the detailed process of trying to explain the
particulars of ghosting can be pretty involved. I apologize for not being
clearer before. I just wanted to know from a users/ non-techie standpoint
how I would ghost something and not make mistakes in the process. You made
some good points also and helped to clear up my confusion. I can now move
forward with a much better understanding of the process.

I was wondering if I could take an old drive from one of my older pcs and
make that my external one and copy over to it with the True Image? And I
believe, If I understand the Ad correctly, you can continue to copy/backup as
many times as you want over to the same external HD?
I guess my last question is: how do I actually attach an external HD to my
main desktop? Are there conversion cables, of some sort, that I can buy to
perhaps plug it into one of the external ports of my pc? All I have mostly
are USB cable ports. Off the top of my head, my keyboard, mouse, printer,
digital camera link, and iPod link all use the USB ports.
I know that I do have at least one serial port in the back. I am at work
right now so I will have to give my desktop a closer look later.
Thanks again for your patience.

Thomas
 
Thomas:

While it's possible to buy a drive enclosure into which you install your
old hard disk, I would not do that. Look around and you'll find that a
new external hard disk is well below $100. For your money you'll get the
latest technology and a warranty. I wouldn't trust my backups to
anything less.

External drives usually connect to your computer with a USB cable. Just
plug and play. Nothing to setup.

Earl Grey
 
I was wondering if I could take an old drive from one of my older pcs and
make that my external one and copy over to it with the True Image? And I
believe, If I understand the Ad correctly, you can continue to copy/backup
as
many times as you want over to the same external HD?
I guess my last question is: how do I actually attach an external HD to my
main desktop? Are there conversion cables, of some sort, that I can buy
to
perhaps plug it into one of the external ports of my pc? All I have
mostly
are USB cable ports. Off the top of my head, my keyboard, mouse, printer,
digital camera link, and iPod link all use the USB ports.
I know that I do have at least one serial port in the back. I am at work
right now so I will have to give my desktop a closer look later.
Thanks again for your patience.
Click to expand...
================================/

There are kits you can use to take a standard IDE hard drive and put it in
an enclosure that connects to your PC via USB, or you can just get a normal
external hard drive (like the My Book series I'd mentioned) and connect via
USB. Most external drives are USB, though you can find some Firewire ones
as well.

Joe
 
ThomasP said:
Hello, I just want to make sure that I know exactly how to back up/copy my
registry onto a disk and I want to make sure that I copy all necessary
information therein. That way incase my computer crashes I will be able
to
restore it later.

thanks in advance,
Thomas
Click to expand...
Using ntbackup to backup to System State saves the registry and other needed
files. Just tell ntbackup to save the System State to a file. You can copy
this file wherever you wish after ntbackup has done its work.

The Backup Wizard has an option to save just the system state.

Jim
 
Joe Grover said:
When you launch regedit.exe, you can just right-click on My Computer and
select Export, then point it wherever you'd like to save the filename.reg
you will be creating. This will back up the entire registry. If you're
going to monkey with just particular settings, you can navigate to that
particular key and export it as well.
Click to expand...

That will not produce a usable registry that can be restored.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
ThomasP said:
Hello, I just want to make sure that I know exactly how to back up/copy my
registry onto a disk and I want to make sure that I copy all necessary
information therein. That way incase my computer crashes I will be able to
restore it later.

thanks in advance,
Thomas
Click to expand...

Use ERUNT http://www.snapfiles.com/get/erunt.html or follow Jim's
suggestion re NTBACKUP.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
Thanks again for all the help everyone. After giving it some thought, thanks
to Earl’s and Joe’s input, I have decided that it would be best to just go
ahead and purchase an external HD and the necessary software (True Image) to
run the process for backing up my data. This is more efficient and well
worth the cost.

In the meantime, thanks Jim for the suggestion on using the “ntbackupâ€
command. I Googled “ntbackup†for more clarity and found this Microsoft
link.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...proddocs/en-us/ntbackup_command.mspx?mfr=true

It does seem like a handy and versatile tool.

Thanks for the “SnapFiles†link Ron but I think that just ghosting
“everything†over to a separate drive for safe keeping is the better option.
Plus, other than copying the whole registry, I am not that skilled or
experienced in knowing exactly what I need to edit. With my luck I will
probably hose something up big time. Although, I do like the easy to follow
User Interface.

Thanks again for the lesson and all the insight. : )
Thomas
 
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