Restoring registry

[vyto]

I am using Retrospect Express 5.5.163 Compaq and cannot figure out how to restore the Registry. The FAQ tells you that you will find "Options" once you are in the screen that selects the files to restore, and that you should then choose the option: "Restore the Windows Registry". But no "Options" item ever is seen on that screen. What is happening?

 

 

 

Thanks!

[AmyJ]

If you just want to restore the registry using Retrospect for Windows, you need to do the following:

 

 

 

1) Launch Retrospect

 

 

 

2) Click on Restore>Entire Volume in Retrospect 6.0 or later. With 5.6 and earlier select Immediate>Restore>Restore an Entire Disk

 

 

 

4) Select the backup set and snapshot of the backup you want to restore from. If it isn't listed, click Add Snapshot to retrieve the snapshot for the day in question and select it. Make sure this day has the good registry and click OK.

 

 

 

(To see if the snapshot contains the registry, go to Configure>Backup Sets. Get properties on the backup set. Click the Snapshot tab. Get Properties on the needed snapshot. This will display all backed up System State details.)

 

 

 

5) When selecting the destination, select the Replace Corresponding Files option in the popup menu and then select the hard drive containing the registry you need to replace.

 

 

 

6) After scanning and matching, click on Files Chosen and uncheck the hard drive so NO files are selected. Verify this by viewing the "Files Chosen" summary, as we don't want you to overwrite any data on the drive. Close the Files Chosen window and confirm that no files are selected for restore.

 

 

 

7) Click Restore in the main window. Retrospect will restore just the registry as you desire.

 

 

 

8) Restart the computer

[vyto]

Well, it appears that it is not storing the registry. When I go to view in the snapshot and look at c:\winnt\system32\config, that subdirectory shows no files present, instead of containing all of the registry bits.

[AmyJ]

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).

 

 

[vyto]

Hmm...I am doing what you are saying and am looking into the contents of that backup set. The files are generally marked as "Backed up" with a date given. But when I look in the directory that contains the registry (c:\winnt\sytem32\config), it is displayed as entirely blank, with no files shown at all.

 

I also do not find any other buttons or menus there that would let me view anything more encouraging.

[vyto]

There's one other thing here that is not clear to me. What is the difference in the Restore operations the user must perform when he does NOT want to restore the Registry, versus when he does? The way I'm reading things, it would seem that the Registry is getting restored every time the user restores using the "Replace corresponding files" scheme.

[vegstan]

Please help me understand something! I am using 5.6.132 and am using Duplicate because of the 4GB restiriction with my

 

Windows98 SE. If I need someday to do a RESTORE following a catastrophy will I have all that I need, including the registry?

 

 

 

Thank you in advance,

 

 

 

Stan

[AmyJ]

In reply to:

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Hmm...I am doing what you are saying and am looking into the contents of that backup set.

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Please read the directions provided.

[AmyJ]

In reply to:

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Please help me understand something! I am using 5.6.132 and am using Duplicate because of the 4GB restiriction with my

 

Windows98 SE. If I need someday to do a RESTORE following a catastrophy will I have all that I need, including the registry?

---

 

 

 

Retrospect Express for Windows does not copy the registry during the "Duplicate" operations, only during Backup. The Professional version (previously Desktop) and higher versions do include the registry in duplication operations.

 

 

 

If you are doing a duplicate with Express, and experience a system failure, you will need to reinstall your system and your applications. You can then use Retrospect to duplicate your data files back to the functioning drive.

 

 

 

Retrospect 6.0 provides new disk backup set functionality which will work around the 4 gig limit in Win98 by segmenting the data into smaller chunks. The new disk backup set (different then the disk backup set in 5.6 and earlier) was designed specifically to work within this limit and allow spanning of data across multiple hard drives.

[salyer]

I'd like to be sure I correctly understand this issue. I know vegstan has asked this question before, but the previous answers didn't seem as clear as this one. Are you saying that Retrospect Express 5.6 can't be used, by itself, to restore a system needing over 4GB of space? To use the function it does have requires that I first manually reinstall Windows AND all applications and then I can use Retrospect to recover my data files? This seems too limiting to be true. Did I miss something?

[AmyJ]

In reply to:

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Are you saying that Retrospect Express 5.6 can't be used, by itself, to restore a system needing over 4GB of space?

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If you are using an Operating System that requires the destination drive to be formatted as FAT32 (such as Win95, Win98, WinME) your backup is limited to whatever amount of data can be compressed into a 4 gig file backup set when backing up to a _hard drive_. This limitation does not apply to removable disk drives (such as Orb or Zip), or to CD-R/RW backups. A file backup set is a single file which contains the entire backup. On a FAT32 system, no single file can be larger then 4 gig - it is not allowed by the file system. Retrospect must work within this limitation in the older versions of the program.

 

 

 

With the emergence of higher capacity hard drives, Dantz responded by creating a product that allows the backup to segment into smaller chunks of data (less then 4 gig each) so this limitation is no longer an issue on the older FAT32 file system. With the newer file system, NTFS, this limit does not exist.

 

 

 

In reply to:

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To use the function it does have requires that I first manually reinstall Windows AND all applications and then I can use Retrospect to recover my data files?

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If you are backing up a system that contains more then 4 gig (compressed) with 5.6 and earlier, _and_ your destination drive is a hard drive, you will need to backup less data. You can accomplish this with subvolumes. However, this is only effective in backing up your data. Your system and programs will not be functional without the registry.

[vyto]

I am still not understanding in the Restore procedures then, what do you do when you want to restore the registry, versus when you do not. What is the difference in the steps that you must perform?

 

 

 

Thanks!