egafd.com

Anyone recommend a backup programme ? I have been backing up using Acronis True Image to hard disk - but whenever (mercifully rarely so far) - I try to restore the selected file is "Not an Acronis true image file" (or words to that effect)

How about the Backup prog in XP? Any others ?

Thanks

Rock

What do you want to do?

a) Back up certain files or folders.

or

b) Backup a complete Hard Drive or a Partition of a Hard Drive?

What do you want to back up onto e.g. another drive, DVD etc.

I have been backing up the whole PC - ie 3 x HDD to a 4th HDD ie a complete system backup including programme files and data files

Its easy
do what I did
get a external hard disk !!
copy everything to it and thats it done !!

A straight copy to another drive is fine for data but simply copying Windows and applications to another drive has not worked since Windows 98 First edition.

The only program I have used to to clone a complete drive or partition is Norton Ghost - but not the current version.
Specifically I have used Ghost 2003 Update 2 (I have found update 3 unreliable) run from a Windows ME (yes ME does have a use!) bootable CD or floppy.
I also include the option to load DOS USB drivers so I can use a USB DVD writer to write the backup DVD.
I have not tried a USB hard drive but ought to work.

I have booted from a USB memory stick too but then USB DVD writer did not work but IDE one did.

The downside is Ghost 2003 will not work with most recent PC's because the keyboard and mouse must be PS/2 as I have never made it work with USB ones.

Systems with SATA drives generally work, and there is a NOIDE option, but on a couple of systems I ended up removing the drive to another PC.

For SATA drive recovery I have used the winXP boot CD to partition the drive and I let the installation run as far as the reboot then switch off and reload the drive with Ghost.

If the PC does not then boot FIXBOOT, FIXMBR and BOOTCFG have sorted it.

I use xxcopy from pixielab inc. (do a web search)

Although its a comand line utility its way more powerfull than most GUI software on the market.

Takes about an hour or so to learn anything more than a basic copy everything, and do lots of data level checking and date stamp and delete expired stuff and make sure its a rolling backup etc.....

But once you have the hang of it then its by far the best backup/disk copy software out there.

I use it to make sure my HD is in sync with my 2 external USB drives, and that when I move one external to my laptop I can sync the required data to work in bed, then move it back again when I'm happy.

Oh yeah... and it will sync/copy over a network.

One thing I will say is.... find the switch (/L) that does the comparison work yet doesnt move data and find the switch that reports fails and oks.... (/Ox) and a couple of other switches to report into diferent files what is and is not done....

OK, so the above seems a little technical, but its worth sloging through the help text to learn as its a very powerfull utility that has saved me ages copying data, verifying it was copied (to the bit level) and then deleting the original data only if the copy was 100% the same as the original.

I tend to be a bit anal about backups and CD/DVD writing in that even though the "burn" may be ok (via the software), I have to check it via a different drive/pc and then copy the data back and doubly check the raw data still converts to jpeg (I work nearly 95% stills) and xxcopy has never faild me yet and does the job a lot quicker (disk/C(D)VD to disk/C(D)VD) than most "backup" software, expecially as I have to veryify the back up really is 100% ok and not rely on the fact the burn software said "done."

I've tried loads of apps\methods over the years and found the most practical way to maintain a system is a combination of good initial setup of the machine's drive(s), OS level backup and then to archive to external disk.

If you create a dedicated partition\drive for your OS and apps (generally 40-50gb is plenty) and have a second partition\drive to install your bulk of your data to another partition\drive (which is as big as you can get) you can then install an app which regularly backs up the entire system partition\drive to the large parition\drive and then use a standard backup device that does simple file copies to duplicate the OS image along with the other data you want to backup all in one go.

Phew... sounds long winded but is a snap once you have it setup.

In that way you should always have a backup of your OS and entire external backups are simplified by backing up the OS image and other data together.

One thing to bare in mind is there should really be no need to back up items such as the installed folders from games etc. as most game data remains unchanged from the original install CD\DVD and so is a waste of time and space to backup and can realistically be easily reinstalled.

This approach also means you have a copy of the OS drive that can quickly restored as well as an external copy so you have a double redundency of your OS which covers both your os screwing up (restore from the 'nearline' copy on the second partition\disk) and if the drive fails you can get the lot back from the external drive.

For a backup solution I would definately suggest Norton Ghost as others have I use Ghost v12 currently which is very fast and user friendly and can be used in many ways besides the method I've described.

For this sort of setup 2 disks works best and a fairly big and convenient external drive is super cheap these days (Western Digital 320gb USB drive is near ?100 and doesn't require any additional power as it is 100% USB powered)

it's worth using a 2 drive setup also as if you backup your os partition to another 2nd partition, when using just one drive, you could lose the lot if the drive itself fails.

I hope my ramblings are helpful.

Cheers,

Dizzy