Well I don’t know how, but previously my Windows 98 and XP gets attacked by Virus very often. And what happens most of time is, my brother, who is though being a computer Engineer, doesn’t know how to download things properly without being attacked of Virus.
So, he sometimes downloads the harmful virus based softwares or games directly to the OS drive. And becoz of this, the OS gets attacked to Virus within hours and when I restart, the PC opens a Dos blank cursor!
Since, I am not that expert to re-install the Window properly as it needs the configs and memories to be allotted perfectly, I only had the options of getting the PC back to life with the help of Computer Professional.
What hurts me is, my useless brother causes the Virus attack and makes the PC dead, but when its dead, he never tries to bring it back to life. But when I repair it and make it work again, that idiot again tries to do the same mistake and makes the PC dead in another few months Again!
Well I cant even say to him that don’t touch the PC, because the PC in house is a common Property. But he doesn’t even understand that the Repairing of the same is too a common initiative!(well these things happened in 2007-08).
So after these, I called a well known computer repair professional who was friend of my dad’s and also works at my dad’s office and so he repaired it again!
But after he used the "Symantec Ghost Solution(ghost 8.3)" for the back up process during such attacks, he also taught me on how to use it too. And after that my PC worked really fine until 2011, until its Hard Disc Failed due to Aging.(We purchased the PC in 2004).
The Procedure was very simple -
1) Re-install the Windows XP completely. Its the 2 or 3 hr process. And then Install all the large softwares required to run which are virus prone most of time during an attack.
2) Then insert the Ghost disc and create a image File(GHO) of whole of the OS drive and save it to an another safe drive. U can also save it into a separate DVD!
3) Then when the System gets corrupted, insert the Ghost Software CD and copy the Image GHO file from the other Drive to the OS drive to bring it back to normal.
So wat happens here is, the old corrupted OS is auto formatted and the new image GHO with fresh OS is overwritten on the OS Drive!
4) The whole process takes less than 15 minutes only.
So I started using this after that and that not only Saved me a lots of time but also saved a lot of money which I used to pay for the Repair Professional. All you need is to keep in memory of the Procedure in your mind!
- The only problem which is think this software would create for long term use is "It might damage the Hard Drive" fast. But actually I dont think So!
The Windows vista has the F11 recovery method, but it was never helpful and never helped me though.
But the other best and effective system Recovery I use is the basic "System Restore" from System Tool(accessories). Thats more than enough for today’s Recovery procedures. The only problem with this is, it eats out a lots of Hard drive space and makes your PC slow and sluggish!