Trouble restoring from backup

[1891gigi]

I have an HP Pavilion with Windows XP and Restrospect Express 6.5. I thought I was covered with my full backups of the hard drive until HP techs recently told me my registry was corrupted and I had to recover my hard drive to the factory settings. In my Retrospect manual, I saw that restoring the entire volume does not affect the operating system, so I thought that should work. Uh-uh. Some of my programs, like Microsoft Money and my Brother printer program, don't even show up, while those that are upgrades of those originally on the computer, like Norton Internet Security and Itunes, won't work. So I tried again, deleting the latter on the recovered HD before restoring from the backup. More programs work, but some, including the latter, still don't. So now I'm planning to recover the HD once more and painstakingly reinstall my programs. I assume I can restore all my files, which are all gathered in the My Documents folder. I thought about restoring the Documents and Settings Folder, but I'm leery of that now. And I have concluded that it is pointless to restore my Program Files folder after the previous restores haven't worked. All of which leaves me with two questions: Have I done something wrong (even though I followed the simple instructions exactly) and what do I have Retrospect for if it can't restore everything on my HD from a full backup in a simple procedure?

[1891gigi]

I should have said I'm signing off for a while, as I embark on my third (and hopefully final) recovery.

[Mayoff]

Have you done something wrong? I don't know. What are the exact steps you follow when doing a total restore?

 

I have done many full system restores and I never have to reinstall software.

[1891gigi]

Thank you for taking an interest in this. I'm in the throes of my third recovery of my hard drive and restoring programs and files. As soon as I get Retrospect back on, I can tell you exactly what I did. I'd rather walk myself through it, so I can be accurate, rather than tell you what my recollection is and risk getting it wrong. It was a simple series of steps.

[1891gigi]

There is one thing I did that causes me to wonder if I torpedoed my chances from the get-go. The recovery instructions told me to disconnect peripherals before I started. The very first time I recovered, I disconnected my external drive before turning it off. Subsequently, I saw in the manual that not only should I not do that, but that I should use Windows's Safely Remove Hardware button on the taskbar. Otherwise, I risk damaging the data on the external drive. But the Safely Remove Hardware button doesn't list the external drive, so I didn't have that option. Did the dumb move of disconnecting the drive before turning it off undo me?

[1891gigi]

My exact steps to restore were: Restore, Entire Volume, on Access more Backup Sets I clicked Open, then clicked through the directory to the Backup Set Catalog File I had copied separately to the external hard drive where my full file backup also resides. I opened the catalog file, so it appeared in the top window of Restore from Backup: Source. That listed my only Snapshot in the lower window, for my internal hard drive. I clicked Okay. On Destination Selection I highlighted my C drive, the internal HD, and clicked Okay. I then confirmed the restore by clicking Replace. On the Restore from Backup window, I clicked Restore.

[1891gigi]

I have to correct what I said two posts back (#106627 - 02/20/08 11:28 AM). I did have the option to use Windows's Safely Remove Hardware button on the taskbar. I used it before disconnecting my external hard drive on the second of my three recoveries. The third time, I forgot that it was the K drive and thought it wasn't listed. Another dumb move.