System Recovery Windows 7

[Erwin Schroedinger]

My old PC uses Win XP, but is more and more excluded by the demands of the latest websites. BT Sport is a good recent example; my old PC simply can't cope.

The good thing about XP is that certain recovery software (in my case by Acr**is) is bullet proof. No virus can prevent you running the recovery software from any point, including before Windows boots up. You just hit F11 when prompted during boot up and you're into Aro**is, which gives access to an entire image of your hard drive, with all of your personally selected installed software, from which you can restore said hard drive back to pristine, uninfected, everything-installed perfection. The only snag is you'll lose any saved personal data. I get around that by saving everything in 'real time' to USB pen drive, not internal hard drive. Recent Firefox bookmarks are the only thing lost in that case.

So I've now bought a Windows 7 machine. Big problem is, I tried Acr**is for Win 7 and it is rubbish (see Ama**n customer ratings for confirmation). I've ditched it and secured a full refund.

So the question is, how could I restore my Win 7 PC, including all personally selected installed software (e.g. Ser*f Drawplus, Tur**Cad, Paintsh*p etc) after a virus attack which (in some instances) prevents Windows booting, or (in some other instances) freezes everything during or immediately after Windows booting, please?

Hope this makes as much sense to you as it does to me - I'm no computer whizz.

[Bushfiva]

You seem to be a dab hand with the asterisks.


Windows 7 can do this without third-party tools, via a combination of a recovery CD which you create from time to time (in case you get to the stage where you can't boot) coupled with System Image Recovery (which relies on having a SystemImageBackup available, usually on an external drive). All of these features are accessible from Windows 7's backup and restore system.


There are a couple of almost irrelevant gotchas, such as SIR won't recover to a drive smaller than the original (which isn't a problem these days). Third-party utilities may have a few more features.

[mixture]

No virus can prevent you running the recovery software from any point, including before Windows boots up. You just hit F11 when prompted during boot up and you're into Aro**is, which gives access to an entire image of your hard drive, with all of your personally selected installed software, from which you can restore said hard drive back to pristine, uninfected, everything-installed perfection.

haha .... thanks for the laughs .... :E

Rule 1

Never say never when it comes to viruses. Display arrogant beliefs ("No virus can prevent".... yeah, right !) when it comes to computer viruses and sooner or later it'll come back to bite you in the backside.

Rule 2

A backup system which is reliant on storing backups on, or the restoration process is dependent on the very device you are backing up IS NOT a backup system.


In summary, you have been very, very lucky with your computing so far.

Learn how to do backups properly or don't bother to do them at all. You should be backing up to multiple external devices of sufficient robustness (i.e. you can rule out USB flash drives and the like right now).

[Booglebox]

Erwin, you should use the included Windows backup tool to make regular backups to external media. A couple of portable hard drives (rotated every day) would work.
However, the chance of getting a virus with Win7 64-bit is extremely remote. :cool: Disk failure is much more likely.

[Erwin Schroedinger]

Thank you for the advice. Some good stuff.

I back up my pen drive to two external hard drives at weekly intervals. Not perfect, I do agree. None of my personal files are too important. I'm more concerned about easy and quick recovery of my the PC to its pre-virus state if it becomes infected, without spending hours installing software from scratch.

On the Win 7 PC, I've already experimented with the above recommended combination of boot DVD and 'system image' (i.e. Windows plus all personal software) on an external hard drive. I can transfer the image onto a completely blank internal hard drive (I've been experimenting with a spare drive, identical make and size to the original). However, I can't get the image onto yet another spare internal hard drive (also identical make and size to the original) with Windows 7 installed from the supplied OEM disk. Not sure why there's a problem there, which is why I'm here looking for less puzzling recovery software, which is what Acr**is used to be before the terrible Win7 version.

Am I doing something wrong in the last case? :confused: