Easiest way to return OS to exactley how it was before?

[gingo]

Here is my plan, I want to do a fresh install of Windows XP Home, no updates, drivers or anything else installed. Create a backup.

Then update all nessecary drivers, ect. create backup.

Then, install SP1 and create another backup.

Then load all my programs, games, apps, ect and create a backup.


That way if something goes wrong I can completely restore my computer to how it was before.

I DO NOT want to use the system restore feature in Win XP b/c it doesn't do what I want. It leaves things on there that weren't there at the time you restored it to.

So how could I do this?
I have Norton Ghost, it came on my motherboard drivers CD, but I dont know anything about it, I just know it has something to do with getting the machine back to the way it was before.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ronin1967]

easiet way it to format and reinstall....also why not partition your drive with some space for storage then you don't need to load a lot stuff back up

[gone_fishin]

Norton Ghost is far easier. You can be back up and running in a few minutes. Read the documentation. It is run from bootup with a floppy, at least the last version that I used was. Another thing to do is to make a seperate partition just for your backups of the windows partition. Have this partition FAT32. You can also span a backup over multiple cd's if it gets large. Initially, when compressing the image, it should all fit on one cd.
I now use PowerQuest DriveImage which is the same sort of app but the last version I got is runable from the XP desktop when making a backup. It reboots the machine and makes an image in the location you want then reboots again back into windows. Of course if the system gets waxed then you have to go from floppy to run the program and restore the image. Hope that helps. Learn to use Ghost, it will save you a lot of headaches:)

[oc jason]

Drive Image 2000

[x1xBugsBunnyx1x]

i suggest a small partition for the o/s say 3gb then ghost it to another hd, exit out of ghost, shutdown & unplug the B/U HD as nt system's will see it even you hide the partition or be lazy like me & delete the partition, keeping in mind you need to undelete it to access the info..
been working for me for a couple years..PM 8 or server magic work well as well as copying & pating the whole o/s instead of ghosting it..

[zachj]

I've got Ghost and I never could make a backup CD that would work, but that's just me. I did, however, create backups on my hard drive. I tried to do the same as you did, backing up with a clean install and then with everything on it, but with an entire 20GB hard drive dedicated to my backup, I ran out of space, and that was with compression on. Perhaps I suck, but that's what happened to me.

Z

[DDR-PIII]

PowerQuest's Drive Image Pro 4.0

work's soooooooooooooooo good :)

[gingo]

Both Drive image 2000 and Drive image pro look good. Drive image 2000 is $30 less though, so I may get that.

I like the fact that you dont have to boot to a floppy to do it.

sounds good, thanks everyone. Btw, how large is a typical image file?

[andy334]

Go with DRIVE IMAGE2002 ,if You buy as an upgrade it will cost about 35$ ,did restore my kid computer using this program at least 5 times 8 GB take approx 40 min and You are back in bussines,just LOVE it:)