Implement system backup and restore in Windows XP

1. Use System Restore to back up the operating system

System Restore can be done under the Windows XP graphical interface and can be performed in command-line mode if the graphic interface is not accessible.

(1) Start System Restore function

By default, the Windows XP System Restore feature is turned on. If System Restore is turned off, you can start in the following ways:

Click the start → Control Panel menu item, double-click the System icon in the dialog box that appears, open the System Properties dialog box, click the System Restore tab, and then click to cancel the turn off System Restore on all drives option. Then, in the drive list, select the disk or partition on which the system resides, click the Configure button, and in the dialog box that appears, click to cancel the "Turn off System Restore for this drive" option and set the amount of disk space used for System Restore. Click OK to open the partition's System Restore functionality.

(2) System Restore under the graphic interface

Click the start → all programs → accessories → system tools → system Restore menu item, open the System Restore dialog box, click to select the "Create a restore Point" option, click the Next button, and after you name the restore point in the dialog box that appears (description), click the Create button to create a new restore point. When a restore point is created, the current state of the system partition is saved and can be restored to this state once there is a problem with the system.

When you perform a restore operation, click to select the "Restore my Computer to an earlier time" option from the System Restore dialog box. Click the Next button, in the dialog box that appears, select the date you want to restore in the calendar, select a restore point in the list of restore points, and then click Next to start the restore. The system returns to the restore point state after restarting.

(3) Restore the system in command line mode

Press F8 at Windows XP startup to display the boot menu, select Safe Mode with Command Prompt in the Startup menu, log on as an administrator, and enter "%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe" at the command prompt. After the carriage return, you can restore the system to its normal state according to the wizard on the screen.

2. Backup operating system with clone software

Ghost is currently the most commonly used cloning software, it can be hard disk or hard disk partition into a mirrored file or exact copy to another hard disk and partition. Restoring a mirrored file to a hard disk partition or hard disk ensures that the data is fully consistent with the backup when ghost.

(1) Backup system partition

Performing backup and restore with Ghost is best done in DOS. After the ghost is run, the "About" dialog box is displayed first, and then the "OK" button is clicked to enter the main interface of the Ghost. Select the local →partition (partition) →to image (to image file) menu command in the main interface to make the partition a mirrored file.

Next, the program requires you to select a hard drive, if there are more than one hard disk can be judged by the size of the hard disk, if the two hard drives exactly the same as the IDE interface in accordance with the order and master-slave disk to judge, the main disk in front, from the disk in the rear. Then the program asks you to select the partition and select the system partition you want to back up.

In the dialog box that appears, first select the partition on which you want to save the image file (the partition should have more space than the system partition used), name the image file, and then click the Save button. Next, the Compressed Image file dialog box appears, and you can choose No (no compression), fast (low compression ratio, faster), high (compression ratio, slow) and other options, according to the machine configuration to determine, in the confirmation dialog box select "Yes", that is to start making system partition image files.

(2) Restore system partition

Make the system partition of the image file, it is equivalent to a complete backup of the system, once the system again appeared problems, as long as the system from the image file to recover from the line.

In the Ghost main interface click the Local→partition→from Image menu command, and then in the Image File dialog box that appears, browse to the location of the image file, select it, and then click the Open button to import it.

Next, the program requires you to select the target drive and partition for the image file recovery. It is important to choose the correct, if the error, the target partition all the data will be overwritten, select "Yes" to begin to restore the partition, after the resumption of work, restart the computer, when the system partition is restored to the original state of health.