Pick and choose from a system back up?

[tanyad]

Greetings all,

I stopped by this forum while looking for help with the infamous ntldr not found error after repairing a windows xp installation.

After using system restore I rebooted to a totally blank desktop, no icons, task bar nothing. After attempting several repairs to XP and a really bad attempt at upgrading to SP2 which left my comp in a reboot cycle and an error about insufficient virtual memory; I'm currently formatting a brand new drive and will do a clean install of Windows once its done. I was wondering, can you pick and choose what to restore from a system back up?

There are a few program files and my Documents folder that I was hoping to retrieve but I'm leery of using the backup file of my old C: drive after what happened earlier today. If nothing else, I was hoping to keep from having to reinstall a few programs, but hey if I can't use a few things without having to use the whole backup file so be it.

I appreciate any help you can give to a very frustrasted and angry person right now.

[moongoon]

System Restore points are only valid for the current install of Windows. Your best chance is to manually peruse the old Documents and Settings folder. Under Documents and Settings you should find sub folders for each user account. You might even find duplicate accounts for each reinstall of Windows (for example Owner.MYWINPC) Under each user should be a My Documents and Desktop folder that contain your saved files.

There is a chance that whatever corrupted your Windows install coupled with multiple system restores had wiped out the information you want

I personally don't trust System Restore as it usually ends up being a mash up of the old and new configuration as opposed to a true restore.

A good middle ground (for future reference) is obtaining and learning how to use disk imaging software such as Norton Ghost. Backup of important files to an external hard drive coupled with monthly DVD burns is ideal. Norton Ghost: http://www.symantec.com/norton/products/ov...mp;pvid=ghost12

Edited August 27, 2007 by moongoon