I believe that Windows XP it’s a good Operating System, but daily usage can damage your registries, some malware can corrupt critical Windows files which make your OS slower to use in time. When this happens it’s better to have a backup solution. And happily there are a few methods to do it, but I want to speak about Automated System Recovery Wizard (or ASR method) which comes with Windows XP Professional itself. The advantage is that you don’t need to install any specific software and it is not difficult to do it.
All you need is: a blank diskette, the Windows XP Professional installation disk and enough free space in a drive where you want to save the backup file.
The utility is named backup and you can find it in Start –> Programs –> Accessories –> Backup. More quickly to access it is to type in Start –> Run : ntbackup, which is the name of the this Windows utility. After you start it and the welcome screen appears you select the Advanced Mode. In the Advanced Mode of the Backup Utility you have three alternatives to choose: Backup Wizard, Restore Wizard and Automated System Recovery Wizard. The first option is if you want to do a manual selection of the directories and partitions, for example if you have important files to another location. The second is used to restore a previously made backup. The third is used to create a backup of the entire Windows Operating System which is usually located on C:\ partition. If by any circumstance your Windows OS is placed elsewhere(another partition) you can choose the first option and choose manually from the drives.
If you select Automated System Recovery Wizard you are prompted on the next window screen only about the destination of the backup file where it would be created. You are free to decide about the name and the destination of this file. It requires only to have enough free drive space. Finishing the Automated System Recovery Preparation Wizard is just the last step. When you click on Finish the program will start processing and then the backup operation will begin. The backup is made in one single file which is having *.bkf extension. The process can take about ten minutes but could be also less. After the image of Windows file system is made you are prompted to insert the floppy disk. This is used if your system fails to boot and you must boot from the Windows XP installation disk. The floppy disk will help you start the rescue program and restore your backup image.
A Disk Image is a special file which contains considerable amount of data with a complete hierarchy structure of the folders and files of the Disk which you make the image. This is done by cloning bit by bit all the information contained by the partition. In some cases empty sectors are ignored to create a smaller image in size to minimize space needed.
But why use a Disk Image ? Which will be the benefits ? Well, they are quite a lots. Let’s take them by order.
You just installed your operating system on the C partition. You install hardware drivers, you update your operating system with new security patches and updates, office programs, and utilities that you need in a day by day use of the computer. It’s not unusual these days, your system to fail after no more than a months. There are many reasons for which this can occur: you just installed a software that slowed down your system so much, that you have pain working with it. Or it could be just an error like many others which occur sometimes without apparent reason and you don’t have time and knowledge to repair the malfunction and you need to work. Or it could be just an infection malware, adaware, spyware, trojan, or some other virus. In these situation the best choice would be to save all your documents which you have on C, if you have ones. And then simply restore the disk partition image that you have made it after the complete installation of your system. How this is possible ? Simple. Norton Ghost is one of the many software which can do a clone your partition in an image which you can use later.
After all it is done you can remove the diskette from it’s drive. You can also do scheduled automated backups with Schedule Jobs.
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