How do you execute System Restore?

Jeff Underhill · #1 05-12-2004, 02:01 PM

If you make a change to your system that prevents it from booting, am I correct in believing that System Restore is unavailable to you?

Or is there some way to execute it without the full-blown WindowsXP (home edition) OS being available?

snowmonkey · #2 05-12-2004, 02:16 PM

in most cases you could get into the system via safe mode or Last Good Known and restore your system. Also your stament is corrct, if you can get into the system at all then system resotre would not do you any good.

cheers

qfisheye · #3 05-12-2004, 08:37 PM

Maybe this may help you. Go to "microsoft.com/support" and search "302796" . You didn't say if you tried to get into safe mode. Good Luck...

Jeff Underhill · #4 05-12-2004, 10:40 PM

Thanks!

I am a real beginner so bear with me. I've never heard of System Restore or Safe Mode before. And, looking at the manual that came with the computer I see it isn't about WindowXP per se but rather is written by Gateway and is pretty sketchy.

So, System Restore requires a functioning Windows system to use.

If my system won't come up in normal mode I can get into Safe Mode by pressing F8 repeatedly at boot time.

In Safe Mode I should be able to use System Restore.

PS: I do not have a current emergency. I had one that was pretty costly to me and I'm trying to understand how things work so I will be prepared for the "next time". In the emergency I had it seems to me (this was over a year ago) that the support tech had me pull something off the install CD and then there was a password prompt and so I couldn't proceed because I didn't know the password. Does this sound familiar? Just now I did a Safe Mode boot with no problem and no password prompt, so I'm confused as to what happened before.

Jeff Underhill · #5 05-13-2004, 08:09 AM

I've done some more reading.

Is it possible the support guy had me bring up the recovery console? I notice that the MS article says that you have to have administrator rights to use it. How would it know whether you are administrator or not unless you have to enter a userid/password? Yet, the article didn't mention this.

snowmonkey · #6 05-13-2004, 10:45 AM

Basically you have your computer setup in a way that it would not ask you for user name and password (Auto login) that doesn't mean you don't have a password !! since you can get in the safe mode go to system Manager and reset the Admin password to something current so you could remember.

About the recovery console and how would the software know know who is logging in,, by default it would assume the user name is " Administrator" and it would prompt you for the Administrator's password.

I hope that clears out the confusion for you

cheers

Jeff Underhill · #7 05-14-2004, 08:08 AM

Thanks snowmonkey. It isn't set up for autologin NOW, I'm pretty sure, because I get the initial select-a-user screen. Since I don't have to enter a password I guess I don't have one on administrator.

Last night I made a startup diskette so I think I'm better prepared for a loss of the OS than I was a year ago -- both in terms of preparation and in knowledge about what to do and what my options are.