I guess I should not have "restored" my computer.
 

Reading about the memory hogs Trend and McAfee, I decided to get rid of what I could not being much of a computer guy. So, on an HP running XP, I elected to "restore." I saw that my user info and data would be backed up but I'd have to install the software I had installed along the line. No problem, all I need is Office and a a printer. Lo and behold, I lost my templates, all my music and I haven't even looked for pics yet.

The thing is, I was using a transferred over version of Office and to install, I got a product key from MS over the phone. I can't find that, so I'm screwed there. JoeA sent me some keys, but they don't work. No biggie, but damn, that was a lot of music in iTunes. that is gone. My iPod has some of it, but not all.

So, what would have been a better way to get the speed up. BTW, it's way up.

BTW(2), I did the Avast thing everyone was talking about. Seems easy. And, I got my email accounts re-established in an hour or so of dicking around. I might be half way back to normal.

Hey Milt,

How did you do the "restore?"

These are freeware programs that you can use to find the old files:

There are programs that can find those old files.
If you look on the web site under data recovery you can try one of these programs to find the old files:
http://www.ramsinks.com/software/


I used this program to clean up the registery on my computer, it helped speed things up a bit: (THIS IS A DIRECT LINK TO DOWNLOAD REGSCRUB XP)
http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/majorgeeks/registry/regscrubxpsetup_3.2.exe

Milt, sorry to hear that. Did you do a "System Restore" within XP or a restore from a CD?
XP's system restore should not have deleted any user data, if it did then you can run the XP system restore again and go forward to recover what may have been lost.

Rob

I did it from within.

Oh, man, if that didn't work, I'd have to re-install all of what I re-installed today. The templates I can recreate from docs I already have. The music is a bummer. I think I can log into iTunes from my wife's laptop and get the files. I should be able to go to something called "my account" and find my purchases, but so far I have not been able to.


I also lost all of my email address book. WTF?

That's weird, when the restore ran and re-booted the PC did it give you a message saying it was "successful"?
Also when you logged back in did your desktop look the same, were all your internet favorites still there?

What are you using for email, outlook, outlook express, etc? By default outlook puts your address book and old mail messages in a hidden system folder
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\

In order to see the above location you have to go to Control Panel > Folder Options > click on the View tab > check the radio button "show hidden files and folders"

Not implying you don't already know this but just incase :)

Yeah Milt,

If you went

START > > > ACCESSORIES > > > SYSTEM TOOLS > > > SYSTEM RESTORE

You can go to that same "system restore" and you should be able to undo what you did.

Nope, nothing new by doing that. But thanks, I'm always looking for ways to learn/

I'll use that as a last resort. So far, other than the loss on the music files, I'm happy.

I had to do a system restore on my HP awhile ago. I backed up all my music, photos and files onto a 2nd drive that I had installed. The installation of the drive was very straight forward and there are instructions on the HP website which are basically fool proof. Although it wont really help in your case at this point it will certainly help if you have to do it again. Regarding Itunes, there are a few inexpesive programs that allow you to pull the songs off your ipod into itunes, you might want to look into that.

Hi Milt.

You seem to be dealing with a number of different issues. I'm not sure if this is any help, but:

1) iTunes has its own backup to removeable media. Periodically backing up to a CD is pretty cheap; I think it also allows you to backup to DVD-R's. If you had previously sync'd iTunes to an iPod, you can sync your iPod to your computer to move the songs back onto the computer.

2) I have had mixed results with XP's restore utility over the years. So, I found that cheap insurance is an external USB hard drive. 300gig drives are pretty cheap these days. I do two kinds of backups. I use a simple backup utility to backup changed files rather frequently. About once a week I use Norton Ghost to create a drive image.

To start with, once I have my basic programs on the computer and all seem to be functioning well, I do a backup and save that on a "permanent" basis. Then I create a series of folders for weekly backups--just adding folders until the drive is mostly full. I then go back to the first folder and just keep going through the folders in sequence. That allows me to restore my drive to any point in the last six+ weeks -- or completely go back to the beginning when all the primary software was on the computer and was working well. Later backups will still allow me to recover later work.

Anyway, with this approach you can pretty fearlessly add, remove & configure software knowing that you have a variety of fall back positions.

Sometimes after I add a new program and all seems to be working well, I'll save a specific restore point or file--and just save it, giving me an additional point to go back to.

Good luck.

System restore is good for going back to a previous OS/application state. Please remember to backup your personal data before going that route. My fault for not pointing that out to you earlier. :(

I ignore the standard windoz way of organizing user data "C:\Documents and Settings\user..." and just create a directory under root like c:\dmoolenaar\..." that I keep all my stuff inside of. Before I attempt a restore, or when I migrate to a new PC, I just copy that directory and I'm good to go.

Not sure what happened. I used that 2nd program and now when I click on windows explorer, I get "My Documents." So, I used the registry back up to restore the registry and I still get MD instead of WE.

I guess it's time to FDisk this thing. I can't do that by myself, but I'd like to get all these games and other preloads off as long as I'm going to reload everything. I found a whole gaggle of Trend Micro files this morning that won't uninstall. I'll bring the tower to anyone that wants to do this and pay the going rate.

Talk to Dave. He knows how to do it and will give you the PPOT price!

The last 'fix' you'll ever need to perform on your computer:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1195942419.jpg

I might have lucked out and worked my way back. I know one thing, I've got speed now. Before, it took forever to open up any program.

I know, I need some more memory. I'll work on that next.

Do you have your pictures and music back? If so copy them immediately to a DVD or external USB drive. This is your Costco demo machine right? I'd seriously consider returning it for something else but then I may not be as lucky as you :)

No, it wasn't the last one at Costco. And, they didn't do anything, it was me that started monkeying around. It all seems to be OK now, I really don't know why. I'm gonna hook up with a pro to take some of the games and crap out ans install some memory. I'm currently running something like 51 processes, it was 60 something before I "restored" it. I'm pretty sure all that stuff doesn't need to running in the background.

milt i always here you talk about LB like to know what area of Lb do you live in i've been looking at houses thru an agent out there looking in lakewood and long beach area mainly near cal state seems to be the area he's sending me listings from any area's i should stay away from ...thanks Angel

Hah, I found my music. It left the iTunes folder, but it's in the computer. Good stuff.

Angelny911, email me and I'll give you the skinny on LB.