Cloning verification

[John Corliss]

Hi John - For NT-based computers, you can use Erunt to take a snapshot of
the Registry just before an install and then use Erdnt to restore it after
the uninstall. Another excellent program for this purpose is
TotalUninstall, here: http://www.geocities.com/ggmartau/ You can get
Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP here:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/index.htm

Jim,
I'm using ME though. I've got Total Uninstall installed. Haven't
used it yet, but am about to give it a try.

I've set it up to
take a scheduled backup each night at 12:01AM on a weekly round-robin basis,
and a Monthly on the 1st of each month. See here for how to set that up:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt.txt, and for some
useful information about this subject

My registry gets backed up automatically on a daily basis, usually the
first bootup of the day. I think System Restore does this, but I could
be wrong and it might be Scanreg. Regardless, I have a shortcut that
runs this command:

C:\WINDOWS\SCANREGW.EXE /backup

and another one that runs this one:

C:\WINDOWS\SCANREGW.EXE /restore

This program is one of the best things around - saved my butt on many
occasions, and will also run very nicely from a DOS prompt (in case you've
done something that won't let you boot any more and need to revert to a
previous Registry) IF you're FAT32 OR have a DOS startup disk with NTFS
write drivers in an NTFS system. (There is also a way using the Recovery
Console to get back to being "bootable" even without separate DOS write NTFS
drivers, after which you can do a normal restore.) (BTW, it also includes a
Registry defragger program). Free, and very, very highly recommended.

FYI, quoting from the above document:

Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) to make
a complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the whole
registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive is
saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the current
registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file, it is
merged with the current registry, leaving you with an absolute mess of
old and new registry keys.

That's too bad, because it, along with import used to work quite well
in W95.

 

[null]

Art,
Sounds great. Thanks!

I now have a freeware proggy at my web site named CLONEXX which does a
bit more than the batch file. It automatically checks the summary data
and if there is any disagreement it retries the cloning for up to five
attempts. Please report any problems or suggestions to artnpeg at epix
dot net

I don't see the need yet for any additional complexities. I had
thought about having the program search out a particuar file or folder
for which a discrepancy occurs (such as the attribute problem I had
run into). But futher experience will dictate whether or not such a
feature is really necessary and desirable.


Art
http://www.epix.net/~artnpeg

 

[Bjorn Simonsen]

I've recently added a verification check to my backup.bat file and
thought others might be interested. The use of xxcopy for routine
backup to another hard drive has been discussed here in the past. I
use the versatile locate.com by Charles Dye for verification. It also
supplies additional useful data. It can be downloaded from here:

http://www.highfiber.com/~raster/freeware.htm

Cool. I've been using Charles Dye's Locate for years, also under
Win2k. Check out its MACRO features if you haven't already! - very
handy indeed! Limited LFN support, but still very useful File Finder
this one (and batch builder using the macro features.

Info produced by locate.com using the /S (summary) switch includes:

Notice that your use of it assumes you have *not* disabled 8+3 file
naming in Windows (see http://www.jsiinc.com/suba/tip0000/rh0026.htm)
- as Locate only search for 8+3 names - while it can display LFNs when
the /L switch is invoked. See about the /L switch in Locate doc or on
screen help.

All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen