Automated System Recovery is a feature that provides the ability to save and restore Windows and installed applications, the system state, and critical boot and system files from a special backup instead of a plain reinstall. ASR consists of two components - backup and restore. The Backup portion located in NTBackup backs up the system state (Windows Registry, COM+ class registration database, Active Directory and the SYSVOL directory share), and the volumes associated with operating system components required to start Windows after restore as well as their configuration (basic or dynamic). The Restore portion of ASR is accessed by pressing F2 from Windows XP Text mode Setup. Automated System Recovery can even restore programs and device drivers if they are added to the ASR Setup information disk. ASR does not restore data files.
