XP system backup recommendations

[many a good man]

Last Saturday my registry got corrupted and my XP SP1 could not boot. Booting from the CD it failed halfway through the repair process. Luckily I had a dual boot system and I was able to fix it manually from Windows 2000 in about 20 minutes.

The next day I re-booted it and Windows couldn't start because my boot.ini file was missing. Gone! Disappeared! So I typed a new one myself and solved the problem. (Well, not perfectly. I have the partitions reversed so I have select 2000 to get XP and vice-verse!)

It got me to thinking about which system files I should keep a backup copy of to make things easier if this happens again. I know you're not supposed to keep a repair disk any more because booting from the CD is supposed to work, but what if I can't find the CD? Or if it doesn't work? What system files do YOU keep backed up?

[classics]

1. Do you have system restore turned on?

It should replace boot.ini or any other critical system files that get deleted by a virus. I only mention that because unless your going to back up your hard drive or system directory wholesale, theres no point in backing up any 'system' files.

BTW its not normal, even though people say XP just 'does that', for any files to just 'disappear'. You should check your system completely for any unknown processes, trojans or viruses, and do a complete security lockdown. Beyond malware or tampering, the only reasonable explination for registry corruption + missing files is filesystem corruption. Check your hard drives completely as well, including the surface scan.

You should back up your registry hives, since those are techincally user generated data. You can install a fresh XP and overlay the old registry hives to restore most applications to functionality.

You also will want to back up your files in "documents and settings\username". If you do a completely fresh install those files will restore your desktop, application data (bookmarks, etc) and start menu.

Beyond that try to keep your own human generated data completely seperate from the windows system areas, then you can just back up those two things and whatever folder you keep your work or personal data in and always be assured that you can recover from a complete wipe and reinstall with minimal problems.

[CBGLuthier]

2. Do you know about the sfc command?

The sfc command will check against archived copies of all system critical files. It is not perfect but can help.

Just click on start and then run and type sfc /scannow.

There are some other options for the command if you want to look into them.

[FloridaPat]

3. It;s a mess. The registry makes things horrible. It's important

to do backups. With XP, a lot of files are hidden somewhere. I had a back up of my drive, but when it crashed, I found out I didn't have the email files. A years worth of emails up in smoke. There is also something with XP that you can do backups of programs. I was looking for it yesterday and couldn't find it. It keeps a record of the registry info. And another problem I had is that programs I had on it before now don't work. I now don't have an MS Access license even though it's been on this machine and several others and I get new computers. And my Front Page didn't get installed completely.