Outlook, Acronis, system restore, and back ups

[soyelmango]

Hi all,

I have a few questions due to an unfortunate chain of events!

Firstly, I'll give you my specs and what happened:
PC with AMD Athlon X2
2gb RAM
C: 80gb, OS and programs only
D: 2x150gb, mirrored hardware RAID, data only
Windows XP pro, SP2 and up to date patches
Antivir Personal Edition Premium
Spyware Blaster, Spybot S&D
Day to day running in a user level account

One day, my PC spontaneously rebooted. As it was starting up, the
system began to automatically check the disk, and made some repairs.
When I went to open Outlook 2003, it reported that the personal folders
..pst was not valid. It turns out that Windows had 'repaired' my
personal folders .pst my making it 0 bytes! Fortunately, I was able to
resync with my PDA, losing only a couple of days of changes.

Not wanting this to happen again, I ordered an external hard drive so
that I can have a back up - yes, I learnt the hard way that the
expense of a backup is nothing compared to what I could have lost!

In the meantime, I downloaded a trial of the backup software 'Acronis
True Image'. It began installing, then -BAM- Blue Screen of
Death!!! Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact details.
I restarted, and tried to go into Safe Mode, but, again - BSOD!
I restarted once more and chose to revert to the last good
configuration [I didn't know about 'System Restore' at the time].

There was no evidence of Acronis in the add/remove programs control
panel. I ran ccleaner which cleaned up some stray Acronis registry
entries, but left many of them there still. When I restarted, Windows
was really slow in logging in, switching users, shutting down, and
running programs.
I ran Windows Installer Clean Up, and that forced something to happen,
allowing ccleaner to remove a whole bunch of Acronis registry entries.
Things were a little faster, but still not like it was pre-crash.
I then installed User Profile Hive Cleanup Service, and that helped a
lot, though it feels like a bit of a kludge solution in getting my
system's speed back.

OK, the questions:
1: Does System Restore also store Outlook's .pst files, so that I can
revert to the good version I had before the crash?
2: Having done all that ccleaner cleaning, installing and running of
WICU and UPHCS, should I just leave things as they are now? - though
it's not as fast as it was pre-crash.
3: Or would it be safe to do a System Restore to before the crash
happened [2 days ago], given that I've since installed WICU and UPHCS
to get things back?
4: I'm staying away from Acronis as a potential back up solution now.
I need software that will do daily scheduled incremental backups of my
system and my data to an external drive. I'm certain that I don't
want to use Symantec Ghost, due to Symantec's poor rep! Paragon Drive
Backup 8 looks like something suitable. Does anyone have any opinion on
that choice?

 

[Kerry Brown]

Answered inline

(e-mail address removed) wrote:

OK, the questions:
1: Does System Restore also store Outlook's .pst files, so that I can
revert to the good version I had before the crash?

System Restore does not save PST files.

2: Having done all that ccleaner cleaning, installing and running of
WICU and UPHCS, should I just leave things as they are now? - though
it's not as fast as it was pre-crash.

No. You should fix whatever is causing the problem.

3: Or would it be safe to do a System Restore to before the crash
happened [2 days ago], given that I've since installed WICU and UPHCS
to get things back?

Once you have a good backup this is worth a try.

4: I'm staying away from Acronis as a potential back up solution now.
I need software that will do daily scheduled incremental backups of my
system and my data to an external drive. I'm certain that I don't
want to use Symantec Ghost, due to Symantec's poor rep! Paragon Drive
Backup 8 looks like something suitable. Does anyone have any opinion
on that choice?

I have used Acronis True Image for many years and not experienced the same
problem. From everything you describe I suspect an underlying hardware
problem, probably with the hard drive(s) where the PST file is stored.
Download the diagnostics from the manufacturer of the hard drive in question
and test the drive. If it's the mirror you may have to break the mirror to
test each drive individually. There are many other possible hardware causes
but that is where I'd start. The next thing I'd check would be the RAM.

 

[DL]

Also, Acronis will baulk if your memory is failing
But as Kerry says check the hd first

Hi all,

I have a few questions due to an unfortunate chain of events!

Firstly, I'll give you my specs and what happened:
PC with AMD Athlon X2
2gb RAM
C: 80gb, OS and programs only
D: 2x150gb, mirrored hardware RAID, data only
Windows XP pro, SP2 and up to date patches
Antivir Personal Edition Premium
Spyware Blaster, Spybot S&D
Day to day running in a user level account

One day, my PC spontaneously rebooted. As it was starting up, the
system began to automatically check the disk, and made some repairs.
When I went to open Outlook 2003, it reported that the personal folders
.pst was not valid. It turns out that Windows had 'repaired' my
personal folders .pst my making it 0 bytes! Fortunately, I was able to
resync with my PDA, losing only a couple of days of changes.

Not wanting this to happen again, I ordered an external hard drive so
that I can have a back up - yes, I learnt the hard way that the
expense of a backup is nothing compared to what I could have lost!

In the meantime, I downloaded a trial of the backup software 'Acronis
True Image'. It began installing, then -BAM- Blue Screen of
Death!!! Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact details.
I restarted, and tried to go into Safe Mode, but, again - BSOD!
I restarted once more and chose to revert to the last good
configuration [I didn't know about 'System Restore' at the time].

There was no evidence of Acronis in the add/remove programs control
panel. I ran ccleaner which cleaned up some stray Acronis registry
entries, but left many of them there still. When I restarted, Windows
was really slow in logging in, switching users, shutting down, and
running programs.
I ran Windows Installer Clean Up, and that forced something to happen,
allowing ccleaner to remove a whole bunch of Acronis registry entries.
Things were a little faster, but still not like it was pre-crash.
I then installed User Profile Hive Cleanup Service, and that helped a
lot, though it feels like a bit of a kludge solution in getting my
system's speed back.

OK, the questions:
1: Does System Restore also store Outlook's .pst files, so that I can
revert to the good version I had before the crash?
2: Having done all that ccleaner cleaning, installing and running of
WICU and UPHCS, should I just leave things as they are now? - though
it's not as fast as it was pre-crash.
3: Or would it be safe to do a System Restore to before the crash
happened [2 days ago], given that I've since installed WICU and UPHCS
to get things back?
4: I'm staying away from Acronis as a potential back up solution now.
I need software that will do daily scheduled incremental backups of my
system and my data to an external drive. I'm certain that I don't
want to use Symantec Ghost, due to Symantec's poor rep! Paragon Drive
Backup 8 looks like something suitable. Does anyone have any opinion on
that choice?

 

[Pop`]

Hi all,

I have a few questions due to an unfortunate chain of events!

Firstly, I'll give you my specs and what happened:
PC with AMD Athlon X2
2gb RAM
C: 80gb, OS and programs only
D: 2x150gb, mirrored hardware RAID, data only
Windows XP pro, SP2 and up to date patches
Antivir Personal Edition Premium
Spyware Blaster, Spybot S&D
Day to day running in a user level account

One day, my PC spontaneously rebooted.

Usually that's a sign of a hardware problem; what was the message when the
machine restarted?

As it was starting up, the

system began to automatically check the disk, and made some repairs.

To the System drive? Or if not, which drive?

When I went to open Outlook 2003, it reported that the personal
folders .pst was not valid. It turns out that Windows had 'repaired'
my personal folders .pst my making it 0 bytes! Fortunately, I was
able to resync with my PDA, losing only a couple of days of changes.

WAIT just a minute here: You have a RAID setup but you require an external
drive for archival purposes?
This indicates a serious communications problem either on your end or on
mine! If you have a RAID setup with two drives, why would you need your PDA
or an external drive for backups? 2 x 150 + 80 is 380 Gig you're going to
hve to potentially provide for. Are you SURE you know what you're about
here?

Not wanting this to happen again, I ordered an external hard drive so
that I can have a back up - yes, I learnt the hard way that the
expense of a backup is nothing compared to what I could have lost!

WHAT are the two 150 Gig RAID drives for?

In the meantime, I downloaded a trial of the backup software 'Acronis
True Image'. It began installing, then -BAM- Blue Screen of
Death!!! Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact details.
I restarted, and tried to go into Safe Mode, but, again - BSOD!
I restarted once more and chose to revert to the last good
configuration [I didn't know about 'System Restore' at the time].

Did you even try system restore? It might still work if you haven't frogged
too many things up!

There was no evidence of Acronis in the add/remove programs control
panel. I ran ccleaner which cleaned up some stray Acronis registry
entries, but left many of them there still. When I restarted, Windows
was really slow in logging in, switching users, shutting down, and
running programs.
I ran Windows Installer Clean Up, and that forced something to happen,
allowing ccleaner to remove a whole bunch of Acronis registry entries.
Things were a little faster, but still not like it was pre-crash.
I then installed User Profile Hive Cleanup Service, and that helped a
lot, though it feels like a bit of a kludge solution in getting my
system's speed back.

UPHClean was the right thing to do at that point.

In addition, try running regmon from sysinternals. It has a handy optimizer
for the registry hidden away in its features that I've found very useful
several times to optimize boot times, and for evaluating just what is making
the boot so slow.
Before you run the optimizer, run a couple captures of the reg during
boot so you can see/keep track of the changes it makes. Regmon does NOT
make registry changes; it will only monitor and rearrange run orders for
registry work, so it's safe to use as long as it's not interrupted while
it's optimizing.

OK, the questions:
1: Does System Restore also store Outlook's .pst files, so that I can
revert to the good version I had before the crash?

No, it does not.

2: Having done all that ccleaner cleaning, installing and running of
WICU and UPHCS, should I just leave things as they are now? - though
it's not as fast as it was pre-crash.

Possibly, hard to say; only you can judge that for sure. Try regmon
mentioned above; it might achieve "pre-crash" for you.

3: Or would it be safe to do a System Restore to before the crash
happened [2 days ago], given that I've since installed WICU and UPHCS
to get things back?

Still worth a try. You -should- be able to undo a Restore that isn't doing
any good, and bring it right back to where you started the restore from.
You may not have Restore Points that far back, but if you do, I'd definitely
try one of them and see what happens.
You will NOT be able to "restore" back to where you started though, once
you restore to an earlier time and close the program; it's a 1-shot deal.

4: I'm staying away from Acronis as a potential back up solution now.
I need software that will do daily scheduled incremental backups of my
system and my data to an external drive. I'm certain that I don't
want to use Symantec Ghost, due to Symantec's poor rep! Paragon Drive
Backup 8 looks like something suitable. Does anyone have any opinion
on that choice?

It's your choice of course, but Acronis and Ghost are both good programs
IMO. There is also BootitNG, which is pretty decent. I tested all three
and finally chose Ghost because of some of the bells & whistles it included.
Acronis and Bootit were $ten/twenty cheaper, than Ghost, but IMO it was
worth the extra cost.

WHATEVER you decide, BEFORE you install ANY program that delves that deeply
into the operating system, get your BACKUPS in order FIRST! That cannot be
emphasized enough. Back up FIRST!! At the very least, get the system drive
into a Full Backup and whatever you use to make that backup, be CERTAIN it
uses Shadow Copy or it won't backup the files that are in use!
Backup that's part of XP is prefectly fine for doing a backup of this
sort and does use Shadow Copy. So does Ghost; not positive but think
Acronis does too. Dunno about Bootit, but assume it does. You can NOT
backup a system drive without using shadow copy or another third party prog
for the same purpose.

If I were you, I would:
-- Get the system working as I can accept it.
-- Back up the system drive somehow, to an online freebie location if I
can't do it othewise. .
-- Back up all data on other drives.
-- Run AV and spyware checks; update EACH just before you run it.
-- Then retry Acronis again. AFAIK your machine should handle it just
fine. But, like I said, I use Ghost, not Acronis so I don't really have
much experience with it details-wise.

Regards,

Pop`

 

[nesredep egrob]

Also, Acronis will baulk if your memory is failing
But as Kerry says check the hd first

I can agree with that, you should run a memtest like www.memtest86.com/

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

Hi all,

I have a few questions due to an unfortunate chain of events!

Firstly, I'll give you my specs and what happened:
PC with AMD Athlon X2
2gb RAM
C: 80gb, OS and programs only
D: 2x150gb, mirrored hardware RAID, data only
Windows XP pro, SP2 and up to date patches
Antivir Personal Edition Premium
Spyware Blaster, Spybot S&D
Day to day running in a user level account

One day, my PC spontaneously rebooted. As it was starting up, the
system began to automatically check the disk, and made some repairs.
When I went to open Outlook 2003, it reported that the personal folders
.pst was not valid. It turns out that Windows had 'repaired' my
personal folders .pst my making it 0 bytes! Fortunately, I was able to
resync with my PDA, losing only a couple of days of changes.

Not wanting this to happen again, I ordered an external hard drive so
that I can have a back up - yes, I learnt the hard way that the
expense of a backup is nothing compared to what I could have lost!

In the meantime, I downloaded a trial of the backup software 'Acronis
True Image'. It began installing, then -BAM- Blue Screen of
Death!!! Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact details.
I restarted, and tried to go into Safe Mode, but, again - BSOD!
I restarted once more and chose to revert to the last good
configuration [I didn't know about 'System Restore' at the time].

There was no evidence of Acronis in the add/remove programs control
panel. I ran ccleaner which cleaned up some stray Acronis registry
entries, but left many of them there still. When I restarted, Windows
was really slow in logging in, switching users, shutting down, and
running programs.
I ran Windows Installer Clean Up, and that forced something to happen,
allowing ccleaner to remove a whole bunch of Acronis registry entries.
Things were a little faster, but still not like it was pre-crash.
I then installed User Profile Hive Cleanup Service, and that helped a
lot, though it feels like a bit of a kludge solution in getting my
system's speed back.

OK, the questions:
1: Does System Restore also store Outlook's .pst files, so that I can
revert to the good version I had before the crash?
2: Having done all that ccleaner cleaning, installing and running of
WICU and UPHCS, should I just leave things as they are now? - though
it's not as fast as it was pre-crash.
3: Or would it be safe to do a System Restore to before the crash
happened [2 days ago], given that I've since installed WICU and UPHCS
to get things back?
4: I'm staying away from Acronis as a potential back up solution now.
I need software that will do daily scheduled incremental backups of my
system and my data to an external drive. I'm certain that I don't
want to use Symantec Ghost, due to Symantec's poor rep! Paragon Drive
Backup 8 looks like something suitable. Does anyone have any opinion on
that choice?