Just a quick note to let you guys know that my system took a major crap on itself and is now more dead than I've ever seen it in my life. So I'll be pretty out of touch over the next couple of days. I have access to another system here in the house but it's not mine so I won't be able to broadcast or anything.. just check mail and post and that's about it. I'm totally rebuilding.. or trying to!
I don't get it.... I can fix everyone else's system but not my own! What the hell is up with that??? I've tried reinstalling WinXP over 6 seperate times now trying to narrow down the trouble, even on a newly created partition and the thing still craps itself. Not looking good at all. ( Next step is to try and drop Windows2000 on there. Argh. This is not the way.
XP XP XP!!! This is the first time I've ever had to reinstall since I owned the OS, and that includes the time it transfered into a completely new box! With this situation, turns out that some dude was running a web exploit on my ass. I had to reinstall without the network cable plugged in for it to work (and even then it didn't go too well) and once I got the firewall software on there all seems to be ok... so I'm slowly rebuilding.
That's cool, but you KNOW I just couldn't pass up that opportunity
BTW, I have the constant pleasure of keeping Chris' Gateway running ME in working order, damn near a full time job! But I did manage to re-install RealOne (she would just uninstall it everytime it acted up...women!), and updated her winamp from ver.2 to 5.0.3, which looks really cool. And guess what, no file or extension conflicts whatsoever. Everything opens in the app that it should. I'm slowly becoming a Windows expert, or maybe more like Emmitt the repair man from the Andy Griffith Show.
Ghost is still your friend. All you need do is run a system partition and a data partition. The system need only be big enough for the OS and programs you run. For arguments sake, let's say partition 0 is 4 gig. That is used for the OS and all programs are installed on partition 1. They will need a little space on 0 hence the 4 gig. You make partition 1 the rest of your drive. Ghost 0 onto 1 using high compression. It will only use about 2.5gig of space on 1 or if you can't afford that space, you can span it across some CDs. It then only takes around 20mins for a full rebuild. You can even update files and programs in your image using Ghost Explorer provided the image is not stored on an NTFS partition.
Doesn't XP system resotre do something similar but to a lesser degree? My program files folder itself is over 10 gigs as I have a lot of music software.
Did XP system restore work for you in this case? Sounds like it didn't. I prefer to turn sys restore off. It uses too much resources. Using Ghost the way I described is the dogs bollocks. You still have your 10 gig program files dir, but you put it on the other partition. When you reghost, you're only ghosting the 1st partition and all reg entries etc are restored. No need to reinstall anything provided you setup your PC the way you want before the image. It really does rock.
hmmm... Yeah I did try a system restore with no luck.. it was toasterific. Unfortunate is what it was... my problem is that my system changes so often it's hard to keep it backed up to the most recent configuration all the time. How much resources does system restore use? I'ven not noticed any slowness.
The thing about your system changing cannot be helped unfortunately. All you can do is build up the system with as many apps as you can, then do the Ghosting. Even if you do add new apps at least you have a base to work from which can be built quickly and easily to get you back up and running. I'll be doing a complete system upgrade in a couple of months so i'll be doing a new image using this method. I can't really put a figure on sys restore's usage but it does cause unessessary hard drive activity and RAM usage.
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I'm totally rebuilding.. or trying to! 
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You still have your 10 gig program files dir, but you put it on the other partition. When you reghost, you're only ghosting the 1st partition and all reg entries etc are restored. No need to reinstall anything provided you setup your PC the way you want before the image. It really does rock.
