What does restoring the system do to a laptop? Is it bad?

Question

What does restoring the system do to a laptop? Is it bad?

Answer 1

It basically takes your laptop back in time, and makes it identical to how it was on whatever day you chose. It's not at all bad for your computer - in fact, if you have spyware, it will delete it all.

I've used it a couple of times, when - in my customizing frenzy - I've changed something so drastically that it completely jacked up my computer. It usually offers me a time (maybe three, four hours previously) or a day (usually yesterday and a few days before that, then maybe the week before, then the week before that, etc) and I just select it, and my problem goes away. It's much easier than troubleshooting the problem, if you don't know what you're doing.

But it will delete any files you've created, and take back any changes to files you've edited in that time period. Say you save a picture yesterday. You do the restore, but tell it to go back a week. That picture won't be there, because last week it wasn't there. So back up your data as best you can, before you do a system restore.

Answer 2

restoring the laptop using restore function will either

take the computer back to a time in the past if its the restore feature

a system reload using the disc or partition will completely restore the computer to an out of the factory state all personal data and files will be erased

that is the only drawback of a system reload is that it will remove all files and personal data but the process will not damage the computer and will reload all drivers and files needed for operation and will fix a system if it is completely messed up and other fixes tried dont work

if you have an issue with your computer email me with the issue and ill try to help you out as it may be something fixable with out resorting to a system reload/restore

let me know if i can help, email me off my profile page

Answer 3

Wipes everything stored on it and puts it back to the state it was when you got it.

If you have stuff on it you'd like to keep that you haven't backed up then it would be very bad, otherwise it's not such a big deal (and may be necessary, such as if your computer gets infected by something).