Restoring Files Windows XP

Start a copy of WINDOWS XP TO CHECK FOR EXISTING drives
Clicking on START then MY COMPUTER
We can see here two DRIVES, LOCAL (C:) and the CD that contains the VIRTUAL GUEST ADDITIONS.

When WINDOWS XP was first released CD and DVD WRITERS where just being made available but at a cost, so in many cases the TAPE DRIVE was used, in our example we shall fit a further HARD DRIVE that we shall use for BACKING UP and will be looking at a disaster recovery.

Also with WINDOWS XP you could create a FLOPPY DISK that was used as a RECOVERY DISK, it only contained some very simple information such as where the BACKUP FILES where originally located

We can see here we do not have an extra HARD DRIVE nor a FLOPPY DISK so these will need creating these in VIRTUALBOX

SHUT DOWN and return to VIRTUALBOX
Clicking on the MACHINE we shall be using, then on SETTINGS
STORAGE, ADD HARD DRIVE then CREATE NEW DISK
We shall be using the DEFAULT SETTINGS, NEXT, NEXT
CHOOSE A LOCATION FOR NEW VIRTUAL HARD DISK
Change the name to WINDOWS XP ORIGINAL GUEST 01\BACKUP DRIVE.VDI
Then CREATE
Now we need to add a FLOPPY DISK DRIVE so we click on ADDS NEW STORAGE CONTROLLER then ADD FLOPPY DISK CONTROLLER
This will add an ICON to the right of the CONTROLLER FLOPPY called ADD FLOPPY DRIVE
By clicking on this we clicked on CHOOSE DISK
CREATE then we typed in Windows xp original guest 01 recovery disk.img
Then CHOOSE, followed by OK
Naturally since we have a FLOPPY DISK in the DRIVE the COMPUTER will attempt to BOOT from it so the BOOT ORDER will need changing by clicking on SYSTEM
HARD DISK was highlight and the up arrow was clicked on twice then OK
This WINDOWS XP MACHINE was then STARTED
Now to check if the new DRIVES have been installed by clicking on START then MY COMPUTER
We can now see that the 3 ½ FLOPPY (A:) is available and if we double click on this we should find a blank floppy disk
The floppy disk was called this because they did just that, you could bend them as they consisted of a magnetic disk in an 8 inch cardboard case. The disks would rotate within the FLOPPY DRIVE and the magnetic properties changed through a read write head.

Eventually these where reduce in size down to 3 ½” and qver the years there have been many variations of them, but they were very limited in storage capacity, and it would be a rare sighting if you every saw one in operation today.




We need now to CREATE a PARTITION on the new HARD DRIVE so we clicked on START then on CONTROL PANEL
We SWITCHED TO CLASSIC VIEW then clicked on ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS, COMPUTER MANAGEMENT, STORAGE and DISK MANAGEMENT
This will cause the DISK WIZARD to start and once again we choose the DEFAULT SETTINGS
NEXT
NEXT
FINISH
We then clicked on DISK 1, ACTION, ALL TASKS, NEW VOLUME and again choose the DEFAULT SETTINGS
NEXT
NEXT
NEXT
NEXT
When prompted for VOLUME LABEL we entered BACKUPDRIVE (Notice no space) as XP had a limitation on the number of characters that could be used in a volume name.
And again followed the DEFAULT SETTINGS
NEXT
FINISH

We close the COMPUTER MANAGEMENT WINDOW, then the ADMINISTRATE TOOLS WINDOW, and we should have returned to MY COMPUTER and here we should now find our BACKUP DRIVE and as expected it is blank

Next we shall create some new DATA
Click on START then on ALL PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES then PAINT
By pressing the PRTSCRN KEY on the KEYBOARD a SCREEN DUMP will be created
In PAINT we clicked on EDIT then PASTE. We then maximised the WINDOW and as you can see it is a SCREEN DUMP of the DESKTOP
To SAVE we clicked on FILE ,SAVE AS in MY PICTURES and we changed the FILE NAME to IMAGE01 and clicked on SAVE
We then CLOSED PAINT and made our way to MY PICTURES and here we can see our new DATA
CLOSE WINDOWS

Now to CREATE a MIRROR BACKUP by clicking on START, ALL PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS then BACKUP
This would have cause the WIZARD to start
We select that BACKUP FILES AND SETTINGS ………….NEXT
Remember this is a MIRROR or IMAGE BACKUP so we have chosen ALL THE INFORMATION ON THIS COMPUTER
NEXT
Now we have the opportunity to select where we want this BACKUP to be so we clicked on BROWSE, MY COMPUTER double clicking on E:
We then changed the FILE NAME to MIRROR01, and clicked on SAVE
NEXT
Before continuing we OPENED and positioned the CLOCK and made a note of the TIME 6:03 clicked on FINISH the END TIME was noted 6:04
Next the BACKUP UTILITY is to be created, so since our FLOPPY WAS IN ALL READY we clicked on OK
At this point we were prompted to remove the disk and label it, since this is only a VIRTUAL DRIVE we just clicked on OK