Restore with an ASR

Remember, the ASR is not a complete backup; it only backs up the system volume. For this reason, you should not consider your backup strategy comprehensive if all you're using is Automated System Recovery. Instead, you use the ASR to quickly repair and restart Windows XP if your computer simply will not start. An ASR backup puts everything back the way it was at the time you created it: applications, data, settings, and so on.

With ASR, you also create a floppy disk. But note that this ASR floppy is not a bootable disk; you don't use it to restart the failed system. To use the information on the ASR floppy, you first need to boot the computer using the Windows XP installation CD-ROM (or the setup floppies that you can create with this CD). You will follow these steps:

1.	Set your computer's BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM, and then restart the computer.
2.	When prompted to do so, press F2.
3.	When prompted to insert the ASR floppy, do so. Follow the onscreen instructions to restore your system files.

The ASR floppy will take it from there. It has all the information about where the system volume backup resides and where it will be restored.

Also, note that even though the XP Home Backup Utility may appear to make an ASR disk, you can't use this disk to restore. XP's Home Edition doesn't support setups using ASR disks.

I See a System State in Backup Options. What's That?

On a Windows XP machine, the System State is the Registry, the Boot Files, and the COM+ Class registration database. In English, it's all files critical to the OS environment: hardware and software settings, files required for startup, etc. The Automated System Recovery includes a System State backup, as it helps restore the original state of the XP operating system.