Simulated Os Crash - Your Opinion??

Windows 7 Professional
I am getting ready to do a practice run OS image restore. That is all this post is about. I would like to "simulate" an OS crash. I was wondering - would a possible way to do that be to just delete a bunch of registry entries and then reboot via a WinPE environment that is on a USB stick?

I have my OS image on a Western Digital Elements external hard drive for the OS restore purpose. I have also done a lot of other pre-practice run preparation/details that are not really necessary to mention in this post.

I do not want to just uninstall a few programs and then do the OS restore. That is just too normal of a scenario. I need to simulate - as best possible - the crashing of the OS.

I have been doing normal backups for years but am now dead set on bringing OS image restore into my daily, weekly, monthly backup routine. I have had to reinstall programs and OS's way too many times over the past decades. That's gonna stop once and for all.

 

I'm all in favour of folk mastering imaging, and you definitely do have to perform a successful practice restore in order to have confidence in it working when you really need it. But why crash Windows first? The state of the disk before the restore is irrelevant as none of it will survive the restore. Just deleting something - anything - and checking for its reappearance after restore is sufficient to prove the restore has been successful.

 

I thought out what you replied, also, before I posted. Maybe I was just over thinking it. Will it make any difference that the disk is an SSD?

For some unknown reason I just felt that deleting 'anything' just wasn't good enough. Thus I was trying to simulate a crash.

 

It works the same on a SSD as it does on a HDD. When I replaced the HDD in this laptop with an SSD I used an image restore rather than cloning and it worked flawlessly.

 

Think before doing this.
Turn off your firewall, antivirus and all other security programs.
Visit this site (safe) and copy and paste some of the links (not safe) in your browser.
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?/topic/33200-infected-sites-list/

Disclaimer:
This post and link is for member Dekade only.

 

I am thinking that you mean "be thorough" in my preparations. Am I correct?

I don't fully understand why you advise me to do this. I will certainly do it -BUT- just not certain as to your advisement. Also, 'WHEN' are suggesting that I turn these off?

This I understand as being some links to 'intentionally' mess things up in my internet browser. Am I correct??? Then my restore will show the links not being present. Correct????

You have stated this to keep others from doing my experiment. Correct???

I did not expect all this advice, BUT, it is VERY interesting - because - I have planned "all along" to do a tutorial for MG on OS Imaging. I have done screen shots the entire way throughout the process. I think that people need to be de-scared (now there's a new one for Mr. Webster) on OS Imaging and "EVERYONE" needs lose the fear factor and to gain simplistic confidence in the simplicity of OS backing up. That is the main concept behind the tutorial.

 

Yes.

Before you visit those sites.

Those links are to badly infected websites. It will mess up your whole PC, not just the browser.

Yes.

Otherwise, you can try to delete the w7ldr file (it's hidden in the root of the C drive) and your PC wont boot.

 

w7ldr only exists in a Win XP/Win 7 dual boot. It is not present in a straight Win 7 install where the equivalent file is bootmgr

 

Very cool Eldon, Thanks to you. Also to Earthling. I am really excited about getting into this routine. I am also excited about providing some helpful direction to anyone new and old to the forum. However, I will be asking for what format that the forum would prefer etc. And I'm sure that it will have to be approved by the seniors. No problem. Just want to eventually provide help to all regarding this particular topic.

 

Understood. Thanks

 

Dekade, do let us know about the 'crash' - I'm curious.

Earthling, ntldr, w7ldr & bootmgr are present on my dual-boot system.

 

ntldr is XP's bootoader, w7ldr is installed when you dual boot Win 7 with XP, bootmgr is the only file required by Win 7.

 

Will do. I plan on starting in on the actual crash later tonight or in the morning (Sat. 12/5/2015 USA, CDT)

 

How was the image you intend to restore created, with Win 7 Backup and Restore or with a third party imaging program? If the latter please ensure it validates before deliberately wrecking your Win 7 - a step I consider both unnecessary and unhelpful.

 

Absolutely. I did perform a validation. I have had the "verify" step present since I started doing data file backups about 8 years ago. The third party software I am using is AOMEI Backupper which has a verification segment built in. I will also be doing a Win7Backup and a NOVA Systems Backup as 2nd and 3rd reliance's. By the way - AOMEI Backupper Free - Very Cool program. Outstanding reviews.

Regarding the "wrecking Win7". I am still deliberating that maneuver. I fully accept you caution and concern as a matter to digest.

 

Am I crazy, or should this not be the easiest thing on earth to do lol? Actually, maybe only Microsoft can engineer a blue screen properly now that I think about it.

There should have be a blue screen counter instituted years ago someplace that automatically records how many of them there have been. It would be interesting to know the exact number...

 

You need to crash test your PC, use NotMyFault: http://download.sysinternals.com/files/NotMyFault.zip just run it and it will trigger a BSOD after a short time.

 

That advice took me to another level of consideration. I have been performing this experiment on a brand new (well, actually 8 month old) Dell 3550 i5 Latitude laptop. It has Windows 7 Professional installed but not media disk. Only media disk it came with was an 8.1 disk. Yuk. So I called Dell Pro Support (which I have for a year) and they are sending me a Windows 7 Professional disk. Once received I will get it into an .iso image (I think that's the file format I'll need) since I do not have a burner on my laptop.

SO HERE'S AN UPDATE: I chose to first follow Earthlings advice and just do a system restore by eliminating something. So I eliminated two programs; DeLorme Street Atlas and Thunderbird Email. I ran into a speed bump creating a USB WinPE. I had all three USB ports occupied including the one with the USB stick. The WinPE creation flawed. So I removed all other USB ports occupiers and left in only the USB stick for the WinPE. Perfect. WinPE created flawlessly.

My first restore went very smooth - via the USB WinPE method vs. an inside windows procedure. All restored just fine. I opened Thunderbird and it went into a 'Get Messages' status and all messages were again downloaded with no duplicates! Cool +. I opened Street Atlas and all of my GPS receiver device configurations were exactly as I left them before the image and restore. Cool ++.

This laptop has been kept in to a very minimal features state for a few reasons. Primarily, once I conquer with confidence system restores then I will start to load it up with programs and necessities. As soon as I receive the Win7Pro media disk I "will" trash the OS.

EARTHLING will say, "What the heck for, you already know how the restore works?" Dekade will reply, "Yep, but I'm a little OCD and want to really make certain - via an OS crash simulation - for when a real life scenario erupts in front of my face."

So, that's where we are at this point. Should have the Win7Pro media in a few days.

Nope, "I" can't see as though you're crazy. But then again I'm known to actual 'be crazy'.

I'll also check out this suggested avenue. Thanks, Satrow.

So far I'm really pleased with my whole ultimate objective here; both with personal and forum benefits awaiting.