Backup onto cd rom in Windows XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rob
  • Start date Start date
R

Rob

I'm having a LOT of trouble trying to backup my hard drive
onto cd rom's - I've given up on using the windows backup
utility, but now windows won't even let me copy the data
over to cd rom directly. WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? When
I try to copy data directly, I get a "the destination
folder is a sub folder of the source" or something to that
effect. I've yet to copy anyhting onto cd rom, and am
quickly loosing patience, please help.
 
XP's rudimentary CD Recording program does not permit backing up
directly to a CD. You must create a new folder on your hard drive, perform
a backup to that folder, then record the contents of that folder to a CD.

Windows Backup Does Not Back Up to CD-R, CD-RW, or DVD-R Devices
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315255

HOW TO: Use Backup to Back Up Files and Folders on Your Computer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308422


--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


| I'm having a LOT of trouble trying to backup my hard drive
| onto cd rom's - I've given up on using the windows backup
| utility, but now windows won't even let me copy the data
| over to cd rom directly. WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? When
| I try to copy data directly, I get a "the destination
| folder is a sub folder of the source" or something to that
| effect. I've yet to copy anyhting onto cd rom, and am
| quickly loosing patience, please help.
 
I'm having a LOT of trouble trying to backup my hard drive
onto cd rom's - I've given up on using the windows backup
utility, but now windows won't even let me copy the data
over to cd rom directly. WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? When
I try to copy data directly, I get a "the destination
folder is a sub folder of the source" or something to that
effect. I've yet to copy anyhting onto cd rom, and am
quickly loosing patience, please help.
Click to expand...

If you had the patience to do a newsgroup or MS Knowledge Base or
Google search on backup you would have seen many, many posts pointing
out that the MS Backup program does not backup directly to CD. You
can backup to HDD then copy to CD, if the file is small enough for 1
CD - it doesn't support spanning. If you want to backup the OS (not
data) using MS Backup you can do an ASR backup - details are in the
Windows Help files. You will need a floppy drive as it creates a
restore floppy.

If you want to backup your whole system to CD, consider a 3rd party
program like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, which support
spanning across multiple CDs. Even with them, I recommend backing up
to HDD first (onto a second HDD or a partition not involved in the
backup - you can't backup something onto itself), in CD sized chunks,
then copying the chunks to CDs. Reason for that is that if you burn
direct and get a faulty CD on the (eg) 9th CD of a 10 CD backup, the
whole backup is stuffed and has to be done again. Do it to HDD first,
and you can just reburn CD 9. Disadvantage is that you cant (easily)
make the backup CDs self-booting.
 
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