Ugh....restoring hard drive trouble

[Chowder Head]

Hey guys, I recently made a backup of my drive C: using the Windows XP software and saved that on the other drive I have in my computer.

So I go through the whole process of a complete re-install with no problem. Now I'm actually at the desktop, so I download the software program from the Windows XP CD, and begin to load up what I saved before.

It loaded back onto drive C just fine but here's the problem I've been having. How do you change the program files to exactly like you had it before? And what I mean is how they are listed when you go to start, all programs, and it shows all the programs.

I have my programs from my backup on another folder and when I tried to merge the two together, I either got an error saying something about not being able to replace this file or the files that actually DID transfer over, it shows the entire content of the folder, rather then the executable part which is what I want.

Since everyones loves pics, here's the mangled crap I'm talking about.

See what I mean? And excuse the shaddy quality, my drivers aren't even installed yet.

So any ideas guys? Maybe there's some primo site about a backup recovery I don't know about or something.

Thanks for any help, it's appreciated.

 

[Occidio]

Its kind of hard to see exactly what is going on except that it looks like it copied the program folder into the start menu. Just a shortcut to the executable should be in the start menu.

 

[Chowder Head]

Yeah, that's what I tried next and it worked.

But some programs when I inserted the disc in, such as game, asks me if I want to install it, even though I had it backed up in the C drive.

But I said the hell with it, I'll do another clean re-install and download programs I'll be using on a regular basis. I only had around 10 or so, so it's no biggie. Besides, it feels pretty sweet to have a clean slate with a now lightning fast computer.

Thanks for the help though.

 

[Occidio]

As far as games or programs, you would have to reinstall them to put the registry entries into the computer. But when I redo my computer, like I am this weekend, I reinstall the games then just overwrite the install with the backup to keep saved files so that the game or program will see my old info.

 

[djnes]

You probably would have had much better luck with something like Ghost.