Doing an XP ASR (automated system recovery, aka automatic system restore) using a mapped network drive

Google Search: "automated system recovery" "command console"To put it mildly, this is not supported by Microsoft -- though it should be. I couldn't find an easier approach. It would be great to be able to burn an ASR recovery CD.

From: "Ray Bush [MSFT]"
References: <5e2ca337.0301140311.1d47b7cf@posting.google.com>
Subject: Re: Use ASR to restore backups from network?
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 07:49:54 -0800

ASR backup sets are to be stored on tape devices, removable media, or a
fixed drive that will be available at restore time. Storing an ASR backup
set on a network share is not supported by Microsoft...

But...it is possible...Go through the ASR process...the restore process
should hang at the point when NTBackup is called to start restoring data
back to your system. At this point, you will need to a map a drive to the
share and point ntbackup at this share. If you are needing to load drivers
at this point for a NIC....you may be at a dead end...

Good luck.

Ray

From: "Colin Jones"
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,microsoft.public.win2000.file_system
Subject: Re: Use ASR to restore backups from network?

Here's what I did to get the ASR process in XP professional to work:

1) Insert XP CD and boot from CD starting ASR process as normal with F2

2) As Ray said, followed normal ASR process until it got to run Backup to
start to restore, at which point it said it could not find the backup set on
\\MyBackupPC\Backups (which is where my backup is stored).

3) Pressed Shift-F10 to bring up command console.

4) Connected my USB pen drive which had my network drivers on it.
Surprisingly XP detected the pen drive OK, and allowed me to change to that
directory at the command prompt - if this hadn't worked I could have easily
done it via CD drive instead. Installed the network drivers by running
their setup program from command prompt (which opens their normal setup
window).[jf: I presume he means they were installed onto the boot diskette! It would need to be unlocked.]

5) The network driver install completed but then I required a reboot, so I
exited the command prompt, and cancelled the ASR restore process, thereby
terminating the ASR (an error message comes up saying ASR could not
complete). The PC then reboots.

6) Allowed the PC to reboot, and it then starts to run the ASR process again
automatically, during the install however it now detected the wireless
drivers and popped up the windows compatibility dialog (as they are
unsigned) and asks me if I want to install them - I say yes. Once again it
gets to the backup/restore and stopped saying it can't find the backup set.

7) This time press Shift-F10 again to get a command prompt. Run the Belkin
wireless network configuration program by typing 'belsta' at the prompt.
This opened the config program allowing me to select my wireless settings
(peer-to-peer, channel etc).

8) At the command prompt typed 'services' in order to start networking and
allow mapping

9) At the command prompt typed 'net use \\MyBackupPC\Backups' this connected
to the backup PC and asked me to log in with username and password.

10) Typed 'exit' at the command prompt

11) Clicked OK at the restore warning dialog, it then started the ASR wizard
and asked where to find the backup set, so I just used the default UNC path
that was already pointing to my backup set.

12) This time it found the backup set and proceeded to run the ASR from
across the network. When completed the PC rebooted, et voila, here I am
typing in at my newly restored PC!