Goal for Restoring the Boot Drive

Glossary

Strategy for System Restore Points and System Recovery

Let’s see if, after twenty-five years, I have grasped the essentials of these procedures. I write in terms of Microsoft Windows Home premium 7, but the concepts should be applicable with variations to other versions of Windows and to other vendors of software for Windows-based system.

System Restore Points

Windows provides a facility for taking a quick snapshot of the system and storing the result in a protected area. The generation of snapshot takes about one minute on modern computers, and takes perhaps three minutes (includes re-booting the computer) to use a snapshot to roll back the system to an earlier time.

System Restore Points are ideally suited for short-term recovery when experimenting with new applications.

For example; suppose you have three income-tax packages and you are unsure which to use. Make a System Restore Point before starting work; install the first package, play with it, install the second package, play with it, install the third package, play with it. When you are done experimenting, restore your system with the System Restore Point and then install the chosen package for permanent use.

If the packages are related to the operating system, you may want to create and roll back to individual System Restore Points for each package, but the principal remains the same.

System Recovery

Windows provides a two-part system for long-term recovery on a system scale.

The first part creates a System Repair Disc (typically CD or DVD) on bootable medium. This disc is created once, and from it you can reboot your system using the BIOS boot keys (on my system I use the F12 function key but your system may have a different doorway). The System Repair Disc loads a restricted instance of Windows software that is good for one thing: to make use of the second part of the system!

The second part creates a System Image of the boot drive, usually C:, on an external device, either a set of DVDs (buy shares in the company) or on an external USB drive or similar. An external drive has the ability to hold more than one image of your boot drive.

After a clean install of Windows you create a System Repair Disc and then a System Image. If disaster strikes your operating system, you boot with the System Repair Disc and use that booted system to load the System Image.

When a significant (to you) number of changes have been made to your system, make another System Image. You now have two System Images, one of the original installation and one of the updated installation.

Traps for Young Players

System Restore Points Have a Limited Shelf Life

The Configuration command allows you to specify how much of your drive C: you wish to set aside for System Restore Point storage. In the example above I have told Windows to reserve 50% of my drive C:, which is almost 50 Gigabytes of storage. To date I have no System Restore Points because I have just made a System Image and deleted all my System Restore Points prior to the image creation.

A succession of System Restore Points consumes this space incrementally until, perhaps, there is no room for the next System Restore Point requested by the user, at which time Windows makes space by deleting earlier System Restore Points until enough space is available.

For this reason I think of System Restore Points as short-term solutions to short-term problems, to wit, rolling back unwanted trial installations of software.

System Images Have a Limited Shelf Life

Just like System Restore Points, System Images take up space on a hard drive, and as the available space is reduced, You will be forced to make a decision: Delete an older System Image or forgo making a System Image.

This snapshot shows that I have three previous System Images and one recently-created System image on a USB drive.

I have 31.6 Gigabytes free on my drive F:.

Windows Overwrites the Latest System Image

Here is the state of my USB drive soon after creating a System Image and immediately before creating another System image. I have two saved images and an image date-stamped 05/05/2015 6:05 PM.

Here is the state of my USB drive soon after re-creating a System Image I have two saved images and an image date-stamped 05/05/2015 6:20 PM.

This most recent System Image has overwritten the preceding System Image.

The Burden is on the User to Preserve System Images

If you feel the need to maintain long-term snapshots of your system, you should Rename the folder “WindowsImageBackup” before creating another System Image.

This is how my two earlier system images were created – by renaming the created folder “WindowsImageBackup” to be “20150428” and then “20150502” successively.

Windows System Repair Obliterates System Restore Points

I have created three manual System Restore Points which are taken later than an System Restore Point created by the System Image job and three System Restore Points prior to that. I have SEVEN System Restore Points on my system time-stamped from 1:32 PM to almost 6:31 PM.

I create a System Image. Below is the state of the Image drive after the creation of the System image:-

We see that two more System Restore Points have been created; my three test System Restore Points are still in place as are all System Restore Points back to 1:32 PM.

I then restore the system from the most recent System Image.

After the System Image has been restored, only two System Restore Points remain in place. (Note too there is no checkbox to “Show More Restore Points”).

The newer (most recent) System Restore Point is either the Backup or the System System Restore Point.

The older System Restore Point is either a Backup or a System System Restore Point.

Of particular interest is that all three of the three manual System Restore Points are lost, as are earlier System Restore Points dating back to 1:32 PM.

If you share this experience then System Recovery/System Image cannot be a true image of the drive C:, because one way or another some original componnents of the data are missing.

Search