system state files

[tedr]

I backed up 3 computers in full with backup system state turned on. After backing up, I went to restore to see if all the system, registry, etc. files were in the backup and found that they were not. In fact there is no config directory under the windows/system32 directory. What am I doing wrong or won't professional back these up since they are open files during the backup phase?

[lv2ski]

Your system state information is stored in the snapshot. It is not stored in the actual backup data.

 

 

 

To test a registry restore: Change your desktop pattern....

 

 

 

 

 

By default Retrospect for Windows performs a registry backup each time you copy files from the startup disk of your PC. Although Retrospect for Windows does not copy the individual registry keys or individual registry files to your backup media, the registry is being copied. As an example, you are likely to not find the individual user.dat (or NTUser.dat) files on your backup media and they are not displayed in the Retrospect Browsers.

 

 

 

When Retrospect for Windows copies the system Registry (including user.dat files), we store these items within the Retrospect Snapshot for each volume you back up. The Snapshot is stored in the catalog file and on the backup media.

 

 

 

To see if your backup contains a registry backup, go to Configure>Backup Sets. Select your Backup Set and select Properties. Select the Snapshots tab and choose "Properties" for the Snapshot in question. We will then display File System attributes as well as Registry backup information (System State).

 

 

 

Retrospect does not offer an option to restore only the registry, but users can replace the active registry with the following steps:

 

 

 

1. Go into Retrospect and then click on Restore.

 

 

 

2. Choose the "Restore Entire Disk" option.

 

 

 

3. Choose your Backup Set and snapshot that contains the registry you would

 

like restored as the source.

 

 

 

4. Destination: Choose your boot volume (not any sub-volume) that you would like the Registry restored to and make sure to change the restore option from Restore Entire Disk to Replace Corresponding Files. This is very important.

 

 

 

5. In the Restore Summary window, click on files chosen and unmark all of

 

the files.

 

 

 

6. Now mark any one file in your Windows Directory folder and close the

 

window.

 

 

 

7. Make sure that Retrospect says that it is only going to restore one file,

 

the option is replace corresponding files, and next to "Options" is says

 

"Restore the Windows registry".

 

 

 

8. Click on Restore.

 

 

 

Retrospect will go through and will copy the registry back to your PC

 

machine. When Retrospect is done you will need to reboot your machine in

 

order for the restored registry to take affect.