Wouldn't it be great? - if, in real life, you could go back to yesterday!! You know -- when those big OH-OHs of today happen - you could ask to be taken back to yesterday to start all over again and eliminate tomorrows' big problem!! A religious topic surely??That is how I am starting to feel about the System Restore feature of Windows ME ( I think XP has it as well) .This morning - I am not quite sure what happened or even how I eventually fixed it -- but after installing a particular programme , I started up my machine -- only to be told that I didn't have a hardrive!! I tried everything - emergency boot disks , virus programme rescue disks -- but no- YOU DO NOT HAVE A HARDDRIVE!!! Or , maybe you have a hardrive , but it has no partitions!! I give it a rest for the day -- come home , have a beer, boot up (expecting the message ) -- but guess what , it boots into Safe mode (wouldn't do that this morning!!) -- do a full virus scan , find nothing -- go to "SYSTEM RESTORE" , select "YESTERDAY" and BINGO!!!! We are back in business!!!All day today, I pondered on what it meant to lose all my Fsim stuff -- I rationalised about how it didn't really matter !! It's only a hobby after all!! Things could be worse -- I could be hiding in a cave in Afghanistan!! But I don't know what I would have done if I had lost it all -- given it away and taken up golf?? But that is all in the past -- Windows ME System restore has saved my life again -- only this time it was a much bigger deal!! At however many Gigabytes my Fs2002 folder is , I don't know what I would have done . Sounds pathetic doesn't it?? What about these poor people whose houses burn down or lose their loved ones ?Where is this hobby leading me??Barry

Some ridicule WinMe (I don't think it is flawless) but this system restore feature saved me once before when I installed bad video driver.Michael J.

I'm a relative rookie at PCs (use Macs at work), but bought my first one about a year and a half ago exclusively for flights sims. It came with ME so don't have anything to compare to but I haven't had ANY problems with anything I've installed and run. Crashes are few and far between. And the system restore has saved my butt more than once. At one point I turned it off to try and save some memory, but thought better of it. I just got a CD burner to back up my sim files, so kind of was operating without a safety net. I cringe at the thought of having to reinstall all of my FS and CFS files.Todd

Your posts are a timly reminder...Its the golden rule of comptuting...Back it up, back it up and back it up again! It matters not what OS you run or how you do it, system restore, tape, cd-burner etc. BACK IT UP OR LOOSE IT!!

>Your posts are a timly reminder... >Its the golden rule of comptuting...Back it up, back it up >and back it up again! It matters not what OS you run or how >you do it, system restore, tape, cd-burner etc. BACK IT UP >OR LOOSE IT!! If I was to purchase and install another hardrive (say around 20gig like my current one ) as a slave to the master HDD, just how would I go about backing up the content of my primary drive to this new drive . For example , exactly what should be "backed up" and how would I go about it?As it turned out yesterday, the System restore feature saved my bacon -- but for a while, I "thought" that the actual HDD had died-- in that case, I would have lost everything.Any advice most welcome Thanks Barry

As you point out, system restore is usefull but doesn't account for total HD failure or total OS failure. To be a true back up it must be stored on another media.>>...exactly what should be "backed up" and how would I go about it?To save on the hassle the entire HD (inc OS) should be backed up.If your going to install a second HD then my prefered method would be to Boot from a Boot Disk. Then from the A prompt type:A:>XCOPY /v /e /s C:*.* D:& ENTER. (assuming D: is your new HD drive letter. If you Boot "Without CD-Rom Support" it will be) This will copy over all files & folders. DO NOT USE Explorer as it misses out certain file types. Or you can install some back up software, plenty of freeware available or the MSBackUp that ships with windows, and save the backup to your new HD.Hope this helps.

Howdy,Bazza, I feels for ya, mate, considering as how I am, just this very moment, about to reformat my hd, re-install ME, and then re-load FS2K2 ... without the benefit of backup files (don't have a cd-writer on this rig). Gotta go searching through the libraries and sundry sites (with dial up) for approx. 1.5 Gb (zipped) of add-ons. :-( Well, guess I know what I'll be doing for the next week. :-lol

>Howdy, >>Bazza, I feels for ya, mate, considering as how I am, just >this very moment, about to reformat my hd, re-install ME, >and then re-load FS2K2 ... without the benefit of backup >files (don't have a cd-writer on this rig). Gotta go >searching through the libraries and sundry sites (with dial >up) for approx. 1.5 Gb (zipped) of add-ons. :-( >>Well, guess I know what I'll be doing for the next week. >:-lol But why are you taking this drastic step -- is it absolutely necessary?I have found 3 times now that my Windows was broken to the point of not being able to bootup - but the System Restore feature allowed me to avoid a reformat.Actually, sometimes it in nice to reformat back to a nice clean machine -- but Oh!! , the pain of it!!Barry

Here's a funny thing -- I used to rely on Restore a lot with ME, seemed the greatest thing since sliced bread -- but I haven't had to use it in three months since going to XP. Another 3 months and I might consider turning it off.

'course Murphy's Law would have it that the moment you do, you'll need it again within a week ;-)

>Here's a funny thing -- I used to rely on Restore a lot with >ME, seemed the greatest thing since sliced bread -- but I >haven't had to use it in three months since going to XP. >Another 3 months and I might consider turning it off. Be careful!! It was never ME itself that was the problem -- but usually my own stupidity that has caused me to use it!! :)Barry

Howdy,Wellllll ... simply because System Restore don't work after defragging your hd. The System Restore points are unavailable/wiped out by this process. As I have re-installed FS 4 times in the past 3 days (with the problems simply compounding themselves, and not just in FS, but other applications as well), and I always defrag before loading any new programme, no points were available to roll back to that pre-dated the problem(s). Furthermore, as I defrag once a week, my Restore points are for that week only. So, System Restore is kinda redundant if you do weekly hd maintance and problems take several weeks to develop/evolve. (Don't get me wrong, Restore has saved me bacon on several occasions, just not this time :-().