Question about creating an ASR set

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike

My system froze on boot... something was corrupted which wouldn't allow the
system to get past the Windows startup screen. I didn't have a current
backup, but everything was still on my system. There was just some little
corruption preventing me from getting to the logon screen. Luckily I was
able to connect via my home network, and recover most of my data... the
stuff that was in shared directories. Windows, rejected my Administrator
password (for reasons unknown) when I tried the recovery console (I've never
been able to get that to work). The frustrating part was that, I saw no way
to get to the rest of my stuff without reinstalling Windows. Windows
Installer did give me the option of using an ASR diskette to fix things, but
I didn't have it. Windows Installer didn't give me the option of installing
windows in the existing directory, instead insisting on reformatting the
drive. I wound up losing some data.

I'd like to create an ASR set, to prevent this from happening in the future.
According to microsoft.com, when I choose the ASR Wizard in the Backup
utility, it will only backup what is required to rebuild the system, and not
backup my data. That's great! Exacly what i want. For some strange
reason, however, it's not working that way when I try it. I go into backup,
enter Advanced mode, and click the ASR Wizard. ASR Wizard then scans my
system and creates a list of over 85,000 files/18gb of data to backup. When
I look at the file list, it's listing all kinds of stuff that I don't need
.... especially for an ASR set.... things like applications which I can just
reinstall. I was expecting to be able to burn a CD and create a diskette.
If I cancel it, it looks like it's selected the My Documents directory and
some other stuff. I really don't want this. I just want the ASR diskette
and the minimal data to restore my system. Am I doing something wrong?
What do I need to do to tell Backup not to create an 18gb backup?

Thanks!

Mike
 
That is how ASR works.

It creates a .bkf file for the entire system drive. When ASR is run from the CD the first thing that happens is that the system disk is formatted, a new copy of XP is installed, then all of your "stuff" is put back on the drive.

It puts you at speed right where the system was when the ASR wizard was run. Do NOT change any partition sizes without creating a new ASR set!

--
Just my ¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| My system froze on boot... something was corrupted which wouldn't allow the
| system to get past the Windows startup screen. I didn't have a current
| backup, but everything was still on my system. There was just some little
| corruption preventing me from getting to the logon screen. Luckily I was
| able to connect via my home network, and recover most of my data... the
| stuff that was in shared directories. Windows, rejected my Administrator
| password (for reasons unknown) when I tried the recovery console (I've never
| been able to get that to work). The frustrating part was that, I saw no way
| to get to the rest of my stuff without reinstalling Windows. Windows
| Installer did give me the option of using an ASR diskette to fix things, but
| I didn't have it. Windows Installer didn't give me the option of installing
| windows in the existing directory, instead insisting on reformatting the
| drive. I wound up losing some data.
|
| I'd like to create an ASR set, to prevent this from happening in the future.
| According to microsoft.com, when I choose the ASR Wizard in the Backup
| utility, it will only backup what is required to rebuild the system, and not
| backup my data. That's great! Exacly what i want. For some strange
| reason, however, it's not working that way when I try it. I go into backup,
| enter Advanced mode, and click the ASR Wizard. ASR Wizard then scans my
| system and creates a list of over 85,000 files/18gb of data to backup. When
| I look at the file list, it's listing all kinds of stuff that I don't need
| ... especially for an ASR set.... things like applications which I can just
| reinstall. I was expecting to be able to burn a CD and create a diskette.
| If I cancel it, it looks like it's selected the My Documents directory and
| some other stuff. I really don't want this. I just want the ASR diskette
| and the minimal data to restore my system. Am I doing something wrong?
| What do I need to do to tell Backup not to create an 18gb backup?
|
| Thanks!
|
| Mike
|
|
 
ASR will create a backup file that is the exact duplicate of ALL the
files/folders on the c:\ drive... and save that file to a second hard drive
on the same system. It's really only useful if you have just the Windows
installation on the c: drive and use custom installations to install all
other programs to other hard drives. The drive that the backup file is
saved to MUST be accessible on bootup.

When the ASR floppy is used, it then formats the c: drive accesses the
backup file and transfers everything back.

Cari
www.coribright.com
 
ASR will create a backup file that is the exact duplicate of ALL the
files/folders on the c:\ drive... and save that file to a second hard drive
on the same system. It's really only useful if you have just the Windows
installation on the c: drive and use custom installations to install all
other programs to other hard drives. The drive that the backup file is
saved to MUST be accessible on bootup.

When the ASR floppy is used, it then formats the c: drive accesses the
backup file and transfers everything back.

Cari
www.coribright.com
 
ASR will create a backup file that is the exact duplicate of ALL the
files/folders on the c:\ drive... and save that file to a second hard drive
on the same system. It's really only useful if you have just the Windows
installation on the c: drive and use custom installations to install all
other programs to other hard drives. The drive that the backup file is
saved to MUST be accessible on bootup.

When the ASR floppy is used, it then formats the c: drive accesses the
backup file and transfers everything back.

Cari
www.coribright.com
 
If you have a home network, you obviously have extra computers. You could
have put your drive in another computer and copied the data off that way.

But that's water under the bridge.

As far as a backup set that will just fix things, the problem is that unless
you're extremely disciplined or you have it set to work automatically, you
probably won't do it often enough and you'll end up restoring to a month
ago, then trying figure out what you've done since then and why some things
don't work right.

And in most cases a repair install of Windows works to repair the system. Or
you could have tried SFC. Or a parallel install. Lots of options, if the
drive is still alive.

Best bet would be to have good backups of your data, as your hard drive
could fail at any time, and then you'd be completely out of luck. And then
don't worry about system state. Just have everything ready for a clean
reinstall.
 
Yes, I've had a similar problem. I gave it to it backing
up everything on the drive, and just place it all onto an
external Firewire hard drive.

Just this last month, however, it started trying to backup
the contents of the external drive as well! This obviously
didn't go well, the external drive only has space to
backup the C: drive, not that plus its self.

I can't think of what I did to prompt this change, anyone
have any guesses?
 
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