FRJ's Disaster Recovery

Back to home page

There really are only two types of systems:
Those that have failed.
And those that will fail!

Funny thing happened last Tuesday.  I was trying to remove HP's net file system (NFS) from my registry.  I figured what the heck I will also clean the registry up and get rid of all the other trash in it.  Going in it sounded a good plan at least.

NOT !!!

So what do you do when you kill your operating system?

The first thing is do not panic. If you have been making backups on a regular basis most of your code can be restored. Most but sadly not all. Worse the restore does not seem to cover the Registry. So what follows is what I did to get operational again.

My first thought was to install another working copy of Win95 and then simply overload my backup. Nope, that did not work and after 3 hours I gave up on that approach.

Then I said well install the new Windows 95 ™ rev C that you have been wanting to use and then restore. This worked better. In fact that was just what I did.

The steps to restoring are:
1. Make a bootable floppy so that you can access your CD-ROM. See: below.
2. Boot with this floppy and be sure that you can see your Win95 install CD.
3. Reformat your C: drive. This assumes that your backup does NOT live on the C: drive.
4. Reinstall Windows 95 ™ to C:\WINDOWS
5. Restore the backup except for the \WINDOWS directory.
6. Open and drag to the desktop any short cuts from the C:\Program Files area.

Things this will not do:
1. You will have to reinstall MS Office because a lot of stuff lives in the C:\WINDOWS directory.
2. I installed a newer version of Netscape and it did find and preserve my address book.
3. ICQ also required a reinstall but again I wanted a newer version.
4. My network dialer had to be reinstalled.
5. Despite repeated searches my sound card still did not work. I had to reinstall the software for my sound card.
6. Registered software like Net-timer and HomeSite needed to be reinstalled.
7. Photoshop also will require a reinstall.
8. Your LAN will have to be set up again. See:Windows Networking

A better way to backup:
1. Use of Norton's Ghost results in a better backup. Including the all important registry.
2. Norton Ghost
3. Ghost as Trialware
4. Ghosting Page How to Ghost
5. The restore code fits on the floppy with which you can boot the system.
6. The steps are: Boot from floppy | Format the partition | Restore the image.
7. I have not attempted a network image restore yet ... stay tuned to this station.

My floppy config.sys:
LASTDRIVE=Z
DEVICE=a:\SETVER.EXE
DEVICE=a:\TATUNGCD.SYS /D:MSCD001 

My floppy autoexec.bat
REM	CD-ROM DRIVE WILL BE N
a:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /M:8 /L:N /V

Directory of my floppy
 Volume in drive A is TATUNG-CD  
 Volume Serial Number is 1A4B-0DDC
 Directory of A:\

COMMAND  COM        54,645  05-31-94  6:22a COMMAND.COM
FDISK    EXE        29,336  05-31-94  6:22a FDISK.EXE
FORMAT   COM        22,974  05-31-94  6:22a FORMAT.COM
MSD      EXE       165,864  05-31-94  6:22a MSD.EXE
SETVER   EXE        12,015  05-31-94  6:22a SETVER.EXE
DELTREE  EXE        11,111  05-31-94  6:22a DELTREE.EXE
TED      COM         2,984  11-09-88  3:11p TED.COM
RESET    COM            16  09-01-89  4:04p RESET.COM
MSCDEX   EXE        25,361  05-31-94  6:22a MSCDEX.EXE
AUTOEXEC BAK            70  02-26-99 11:39a AUTOEXEC.BAK
AUTOEXEC BAT            70  03-25-99  6:18a AUTOEXEC.BAT
CONFIG   BAK            71  02-24-99 11:03a CONFIG.BAK
TATUNGCD SYS         7,637  09-27-97  4:23p TATUNGCD.SYS
CONFIG   SYS            72  03-25-99  6:17a CONFIG.SYS
DIR      TXT             0  03-26-99  8:58a dir.txt
        15 file(s)        332,226 bytes
         0 dir(s)         974,848 bytes free