Indeed thanx for this info both of you but FYI , I just did a virus scan on my FAT System Restore partition[came up clean] on my e machine with ZoneAlarmSecuritySuite[the suite comes free with my internet account] and it is clean....whew....
I had a need to use this [Restore] once a month or so back and my experience was quite the opposite....it saved a whole bunch of work, like a month's worth, as it did the restore, to a  dir it made during the process. There was a button to click during the process that asked whether I wanted to do this and I said yes......just my experience on my XP MediaCenter e machine.. ...

 

Once in a while I look around,
I see a sound
and try to write it down
Sometimes they come out very soft
Tinkling light sound
The Sun comes up again