System Fast Recovery

Sometimes our system infected by virus even we already installed anti virus, or we installed some application which after that causing problem to our Windows system. We do not want to format and reinstall the Windows which definitely will take a long way to go. Below is one of the way to "undo" the changes.

Well, in Windows XP (Home or Professional edition) there is a tool to "undo" which call "System Restore". It will recover our system, what we need to do is knowing when is the last date of the system which still work fine (or in otherwords, the pre-installed or pre-infected date of the system). System Restore is located at Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools. It work by save the necessary information of your system in the "System Volume Information" folder in your harddrive, usually is C drive. Usually it will work by default after the Windows installed, unless for some reason you turn it off.


You can do the recovery in three ways :

1. Login to Windows in normal mode, then go to where the System restore located.
2. If normal mode is damaged, try to login in safe mode then go to where the System restore located.
3. If all the steps above failed, then you can try to do the recovery using CD Recovery or from your Windows Installation CD. Follow the instruction there.

One thing you must take note before doing the Restoration : for every drive in your computer must have free space more than 200MB. That is the requirement to do the restoration, otherwise it will failed.

Even the System Restore is useful, but the more your system have "backup" the more free space of your harddrive will be consumed. You can free your space manually, by delete the backup of the System Restore. Go to the folder "System Volume Information" folder in your harddrive, for example C:\System Volume Information\_restore{....}\.

There will be lot of folder RPXXX inside (XXX is the auto number from the system), and RP mean "Restore Point". Sort all of the folder by click on the "Date Modified" column. Then you will get the latest and the oldest of the Restore Point. Delete several of the oldest Restore Point, such as already three months old. Delete only if you sure that you will not need it anymore to restore your system. Sometimes it will free lot of your space, I ever free more than 1GB space by deleting it. Left some of the latest Restore Point, just in case you will need them later.

Good luck..