pheasant16 said:
Laptop hard drive has issues, can't do system restore anymore. Carbonite
takes care of any valuable files. Don't want to format and start fresh.
Would replacing the hard drive and letting the buggy one be used as an
external drive via usb let me get off the program files I want?
My biggest wonder is would the old one still bootable should the above
not work as anticipated? I'm hoping to just be able to swap the drive
out if I want to.
Thanks
"Can't do System Restore" is not a hardware issue.
Restore points are set, whenever an important event happens on the
computer. An example is, Windows Update might set a restore point,
just before installing updates.
Without an event like that, there is also a background rate. On
older OSes. a restore point is set every day (it captures the
registry files, for safe keeping, amongst other things). On the
latest OS, restore points are only captured once a week. Which isn't
as nice.
System restore only tracks certain kinds of files, in certain kinds
of folders. On the older OSes, it also unintentionally tracked
things it should not have. For example, on WinXP, if you have
C:\Downloads , it would track that, and if you go back in time
three months using System Restore, to an old restore point, you'd
lose three months worth of downloads from C:\Downloads. In WinXP,
the My Documents folder is not tracked, so downloaded files staged
in there (the way Microsoft wants you to do it), would not be
affected. You won't lose anything in My Documents.
System Restore is an undo mechanism, for recent installations. And
really, it's not intended for such, as it doesn't do that thorough
a job. If you installed something nasty, I've seen one recommendation,
to try uninstalling the nasty thing first (in the hope any non-tracked
files get removed), then use a Restore Point from yesterday, to remove
any remnants. And one of the things you get that way, is the
Registry files from yesterday are restored. So any registry mess
is cleaned up.
*******
This is different than "System Image", which is the ability to snapshot
all of C: and keep it on an external drive for emergencies. Then, if
the internal drive dies, you can restore from the System Image using
the recovery CD they want you to burn.
*******
Carbonite is probably like System Image or System Backup, in that
it is storing files for you. Just make sure it is set up to get
everything you might need in a catastrophe.
*******
OK. You have two drives. A buggy internal drive, with C: and
SYSTEM RESERVED partitions, plus the one or two partitions the
laptop manufacturer puts on there.
And an external drive you think you'll be using, when the internal
drive dies.
You can clone the internal drive, to the external drive. That
makes a complete copy. An example of a tool to do that, is
Macrium Reflect Free. (When you run it, the backup options are
obvious. You need to resize the window it uses, so you can see
all of it, and see the _Clone_ button in the right hand pane.)
But if you clone, that might remove your Carbonite backup files
stored on the external drive. So you then have no Carbonite files
to fall back on.
I would want a third drive for safety.
*******
System Restore keeps state information in System Volume Information
at the top level of the partition. Each partition has a folder like
that. It will give "Access Denied" if you try to enter it.
If you use the appropriate control panel ("System", then look
for System Restore ?), you have the option of turning off System
Restore, wait a moment, then turn it back on. What that is supposed
to do, is dump all the restore points and start fresh. Then,
try manually setting a Restore Point, then pretend to restore
from that Restore Point. The purpose of this procedure, is
to see if your System Restore is recovered, simply by flushing
all the restore points.
Malware can damage System Restore.
And the services System Restore relies on, can be turned off.
System Restore uses things like VSS.
I was hoping to find a Microsoft Fixit file for System Restore,
but all I've found so far, is some general advice.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/57746-system-restore-general-troubleshooting-fix-issues.html
If the problem stems from something Windows Update related,
like some update is half installed, there is a fixit for that.
You can also check your Windows Update log, to see how many of
the attempts failed, succeeded, or are pending. One of these
fixit things, has a "more aggressive" setting, for resetting
the state of Windows Update.
http://support.microsoft.com/mats/windows_update/
I just want to be sure though, that we're attempting to
fix the right subsystem. Hammering everything isn't
a good idea. It's better to have some symptoms to go on,
such as error dialogs and error numbers that specifically
identify what is broken in SR. They're the best place to start.
*******
Cloning the internal drive, to the external one, is a good
option for hardware related issues. But it won't fix, say,
some service not being turned on, that makes System Restore points
capture properly. The exact same system state issues will
exist with a cloned copy of the drive. Now, you can certainly
work on both problems at the same time. If you think your
internal hard drive is damaged, and is going to fail soon,
then cloning might very well be a good idea. Then, swap drives
after the clone, and at that point, the flaky drive can be
used as your external for Carbonite backups or whatever.
And then you can go back to working on your System Restore
subsystem or Windows Update subsystem, and try and clean it up.
I generally like to have more disks around than that though,
so I have a "clean" copy of the thing I'm about to hammer and
abuse. Then, if I get in trouble, I know I can get it back.
Currently, I have about 2TB of storage space available for
those kinds of backups. As they say, "you can never have
too many backups". When I needed to go back two years in time
once, I still had a backup that old to work with (restored,
just for an experiment with Acronis, then removed again).
Having just a single external to work with, which is doing
double duty, wouldn't be enough for me. Too dangerous.
Paul
