Restore from Command Line

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Hi,
Actually trying to be pro-active for once. After many
hours of installing, patching, etc. I've finally got my
machine setup the way I want with everything installed.
I've run Windows Backup Wizard and backed everything up
to a machine on my Home Network and got the ASR disk.

If I don't have hardware issues I can handle performing a
full restore of this data using the restore wizard.

My worry is. If the HDD dies and I replace it I can't
find anyway to restore all this data without using the
windows restore GUI (which would require a manual windows
installation before being able to do it). I'm guessing I
need to;
1) Have a boot disk that gives windows network support
2) Have a command line utility that can restore from the
windows backup.

Can anyone help me with how I go about either of these
two tasks (or tell me I've missed one).

Thanks in Advance,
Cam.
 
First, if your OS partition is NTFS, a boot disk won't work, unless you're willing to spend the money on a NTFS reader/writer program (www.sysinternals.com).

Second, if you're doing a complete system backup, Backup will create a floppy for you. This is used with Automated System Recovery. Boot from the XP CD and one of the first options you'll be offered is to start an ASR. You'll need the floppy, and if your PC doesn't have one, you're out of luck there as far as I know.

Third, Between the BIOS Post and XP actually starting to load, press the F8 key (timing may be a bit tricky). Select the option for Last Known Good Configuration. Each time XP successfuly boots, it makes a snapshot of the system state (not quite as extensive as System Restore) that should make it possible to roll back your system.
 
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