Backing up to USB stick

  • Thread starter Thread starter Virginia
  • Start date Start date
V

Virginia

When I back up to a USB stick, using windows back up program, then click on
the back up on the USB stick I cannot see the back up. I get a message I
don't understand. Help! Thanks,
 
The readers here might understand the message... If the backup is
bigger than 4GB then it probably won't fit on the stick because most of
these sticks use the FAT32 file system.

John
 
Virginia said:
When I back up to a USB stick, using windows back up program, then click
on
the back up on the USB stick I cannot see the back up. I get a message I
don't understand. Help! Thanks,
Click to expand...

You will need to quote the message exactly without paraphrasing for anyone
to help you with the error.

Also, are you just trying to back up files and how large is the USB thumb
drive? What file system is the thumb drive formatted?

Common Causes and Solutions to Backup, System Restore, and Complete PC
Backup in Vista - http://tinyurl.com/674cy2

Malke
 
Virginia said:
Windows backup is one of the worst applications to be used for backup.

Just copy your files over directly or perhaps zip them first...


Windows Backup should not be considered as a viable option
Click to expand...

philo,

I would have to disagree with that, for the most part. Disk imaging and
many other utils are as good or better, but it's a fully viable
application. As usual with MS implementations of things like that it
lacks bells & whistles, but that's OK in my book.
The ntbackup.exe which comes with both versions of XP is a fully
functional and useful application, especially when it's all one has and
the backups can't wait. You can backup and restore the entire machine,
a folder, or a file, as with all backup utils. It's cons are the silly
floppy requirement to recover from a catastrophic drive loss, no
compression and it won't burn directly to a CD necessitating a save to a
local drive and then a copy to an external etc., but ... if you have a
floppy and make the ASR disk, recovery is just as good as any imaging
program. It's even a tad faster than Acronis True Image, and almost as
fast as Norton's Ghost, but there's little enough difference for it to
matter. And there are a lot fewer things to go wrong with it.

Regards,

Twayne
 
Virginia said:
When I back up to a USB stick, using windows back up program, then click
on
the back up on the USB stick I cannot see the back up. I get a message I
don't understand. Help! Thanks,
Click to expand...

You should not back up to USB sticks. You can't rely on them.

These devices have a tendency to suddenly and permanently fail, and so
cannot be relied on for anything other than file transport.

Use a more reliable media for backups, such as optical disks (CDs or DVDs)
or external hard disks. Do not rely on one copy only - make at least two
and verify that the backups are valid (i.e., you can read and restore the
files). Be sure you know how to access these backups.

Periodically store one updated copy at another site, to account for
site-wide events like fire or theft.

Note that Windows Backup cannot write to optical media, so you might want to
consider another backup application.

HTH
-pk
 
Back
Top