Question on Using NTBACKUP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Henry Stock
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H

Henry Stock

I have an issue and a question about using the ntbackup Automated System
Recovery Wizard.

The wizard asks you to write data to a recovery disk on Drive A:, but I have
so much software loaded on my system that the size of the data that would
need to be on the recovery disk exceeds the size of any diskette.

Is there a way to place this system recovery information on a bootable CD?

I am surprized that Microsoft hasn't created a system recovery CD or DVD
utitlity that would put everything necessary to recover a busted system on
that medium.
 
In
Henry Stock said:
I have an issue and a question about using the ntbackup Automated
System Recovery Wizard.

The wizard asks you to write data to a recovery disk on Drive A:, but
I have so much software loaded on my system that the size of the data
that would need to be on the recovery disk exceeds the size of any
diskette.
Is there a way to place this system recovery information on a
bootable CD?
I am surprized that Microsoft hasn't created a system recovery CD or
DVD utitlity that would put everything necessary to recover a busted
system on that medium.
Click to expand...

Get an external hard drive....you can change the path when prompted. I don't
think you can do this directly to a CD/DVD (unless you're using DLA which I
don't recommend in general anyway). Maybe you can just burn a CD/DVD
afterwards.

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/howto-18.html

You will again be asked to provide a floppy - and you can't change the path
there. These will be small files and will fit just fine...I'd recommend
using it (get a USB-attached floppy if you have none).
 
Henry said:
I have an issue and a question about using the ntbackup Automated
System Recovery Wizard.

The wizard asks you to write data to a recovery disk on Drive A:, but
I have so much software loaded on my system that the size of the data
that would need to be on the recovery disk exceeds the size of any
diskette.
Is there a way to place this system recovery information on a
bootable CD?
I am surprized that Microsoft hasn't created a system recovery CD or
DVD utitlity that would put everything necessary to recover a busted
system on that medium.
Click to expand...

You can choose any HD on your system. When you get the prompt for the
floppy, click it and when it doesn't find a floppy, you'll be presented with
a window to let you choose a location.
It will not let you choose a CD t hough; you have to write it to a hard
drive and then copy it to a CD/DVD set.

About ASR: It will make a bootable floppy for disaster recovery; it does
NOT contain your data, and the ASR floppy will hold all it needs. The
floppy just lets you boot. You need the related backup DVDs available to
use as it asks for them. So, a particular ASR is related to a specific set
of backup data from which the ASR was made.

HTH
Pop`
 
I'm sending my ntbackup file to a hard drive on another PC on my network,
similar to what you suggest with the external hard drive. I do a full backup
every once in a while, followed by weekly differential backups running as a
scheduled task. I would like to keep multiple copies of the differential
backup in case I need to restore a file from after the full backup that for
some reason isn't on the latest differential backup. Unfortunately, ntbackup
always writes to the same file name. Is there a way to specify a different
file name for the backup each time it runs?
 
In
Glenn Morgan said:
I'm sending my ntbackup file to a hard drive on another PC on my
network, similar to what you suggest with the external hard drive. I
do a full backup every once in a while, followed by weekly
differential backups running as a scheduled task. I would like to
keep multiple copies of the differential backup in case I need to
restore a file from after the full backup that for some reason isn't
on the latest differential backup. Unfortunately, ntbackup always
writes to the same file name. Is there a way to specify a different
file name for the backup each time it runs?
Click to expand...

You can use a batch file to "wrap" the backup job...have it first rename the
older file in the destination drive, and then perform the job.

Google for samples; here are some links I found for starters -
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ntbackup+"batch+file"+sample+"backup+to+file"
 
Thanks. I had to use help to remember the format of some of the old commands
- it's been "a few" years since I last used it. I used to have a batch file
back in the DOS days that did almost exactly this using the xcopy command. My
new one looks pretty much the same, except that it uses ntbackup.
 
In
Glenn Morgan said:
Thanks. I had to use help to remember the format of some of the old
commands - it's been "a few" years since I last used it. I used to
have a batch file back in the DOS days that did almost exactly this
using the xcopy command. My new one looks pretty much the same,
except that it uses ntbackup.
Click to expand...

Glad you got it working.
 
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