What is best when backing up question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gabriel Knight
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Gabriel Knight

Hi all

Ive been reading posts here about hdd's burnt out and so and got me thinking
I should do a backup of my hdd. at the moment it has 51 gig of stuff on it
and its a 160 gig disk, would it be best to use a backup program or to just
select everything and right click it and "copy" and "past" it to the
backup??

Thanks
GK
 
Gabriel Knight said:
Hi all

Ive been reading posts here about hdd's burnt out and so and got me
thinking I should do a backup of my hdd. at the moment it has 51 gig of
stuff on it and its a 160 gig disk, would it be best to use a backup
program or to just select everything and right click it and "copy" and
"past" it to the backup??

Thanks
GK
Click to expand...

yes, you can just copy/paste over your data (not applications) to CD, DVD,
slave HDD etc but for your complete system and apps, Acronis TrueImage is
your toy..................
 
Gabriel Knight said:
Hi all

Ive been reading posts here about hdd's burnt out
Click to expand...

This group is like a wailing wall. Not very often but often enough to
firmly reinforce the practice of backing up any important files from
your hard drive.

And it's not just a dead hard drive that can happen at any time
without notice. Files can be unintentionally deleted/destroyed. If
trouble strikes and you do not have a backup, having a backup of
whatever is left becomes even more important and at the same time the
process of making a backup can become much more difficult.
and so and got me thinking I should do a backup of my hdd.
Click to expand...

Directly proportional to your value of the files on your hard drive.
at the moment it has 51 gig of stuff on it and its a 160 gig disk,
would it be best to use a backup program or to just select
everything and right click it and "copy" and "past" it to the
backup??
Click to expand...

Recently I noticed that 4 GB namebrand flash drives are about USD50.

You just need to backup anything of high personal value (like anything
you require that's very difficult to replace), and do it now. I guess
if you don't know, if you don't know which files are most important,
then maybe you don't really have anything of significant value.

A flash drive is so easy to use, there's no excuse for not having a
backup of important files.
 
Gabriel Knight said:
Ive been reading posts here about hdd's burnt out and so and got me thinking
I should do a backup of my hdd. at the moment it has 51 gig of stuff on it
and its a 160 gig disk, would it be best to use a backup program or to just
select everything and right click it and "copy" and "past" it to the backup??
Click to expand...

Copy/paste won't work for a lot of files that are locked by the OS. Imaging
software like Acronis True Image works around that limitation.
 
John Weiss said:
Copy/paste won't work for a lot of files that are locked by the OS.
Click to expand...

Simply copying files will work for almost all files that a user
considers important. In Windows XP, files can be copied even when they
are in use.

It's pretty simple. If you have important files, you should learn to
identify them and regularly copy the most important files to removable
media. For a nonbusiness user, I don't see any need for anything more
complex than just copying important files to removable media.
Considering the fact that so many users have a problem with making
backups to begin with, the process should be simple as possible, at
least to begin with.

On a complex note. I do make copies of the operating system, but
that's not for backup of important files, so I don't have to
reinstall the operating system when things go wrong.
Imaging software like Acronis True Image works around that
limitation.
Click to expand...

Can you name one file a user produces that cannot be copied? Just
curious.
 
Pet said:
yes, you can just copy/paste over your data (not applications) to CD,
DVD, slave HDD etc but for your complete system and apps, Acronis
TrueImage is your toy..................
Click to expand...

and a truly cool toy it is. boot from the cd and recover an entire drive in
minutes when i takes a dive on you.

and the incremental backup are nice too


--
sbb78247

resident redneck alt.os.windows-vista
alt.os.windows-xp


you aint from around here, are ya' boy
 
Hi all

Ive been reading posts here about hdd's burnt out and so and got me thinking
I should do a backup of my hdd. at the moment it has 51 gig of stuff on it
and its a 160 gig disk, would it be best to use a backup program or to just
select everything and right click it and "copy" and "past" it to the
backup??

Thanks
GK
Click to expand...

I just take another hard drive and copy everything to it. Then I
unplug that HD until I need it, or backup again. I dont have as much
as you though.

A word of caution, you can NOT copy the swap file. The copy process
quits when it get to it. I just copy everything except the windows
directory. Then I select everything in the windows dir except the
swap file. There is no reason to back up the swap anyhow, but I
wanted to just copy everything, then planned to delete the swap on the
backup. But that dont work.

I'm referring to backing Win98, but I assume they all work the same.

George
 
I dont know if this is the best but it works for me...............
I use Acronis True Image and a External HD in a Portable Case...it hooks up
to my USB or External SATA port.
I use Acronis to create a Recovery CD...it does not need an operating system
when you boot from this CD you can enter Acronis directly and restore
backups or images.
I Image the whole hard drive to my external HD and keep it
safe.........every 2 weeks I re image.
When I have had a problem I have been able to restore that image to my HD
and be up and running within a 1/2 hr.
I also Backup incrementally to a 2nd HD installed in the
computer.........using Acronis it will automatically do this at 2AM when I
am asleep.
think about it
peter
 
Hi and thanks all

that progie Acronis TrueImage sounds good but I have a progie from a
magazine kicking around somewhere I might use that and to all I wasnt
refering to my OS win XP I dont have anything that I cant put on again with
my cds but was refering to all my odd and other stuff on an 160 gig hdd.
from docs to A.G.S etc etc..

At the moment I have my primary ide port used with two Hdd's and the
secondary ide port with two burners one a dvd burner and the other a cd
burner. I might take the cd burner out (actualy unplug the ide cable -
taking it out is time wasting) and plug in a 80gig to copy and past the some
51 gig of stuff.

Paragon drive copy is a good progie too as you have the option to copy all
sectors one to one wich means the hdd you copy to the backup is exactly the
same as the Hdd copy spaces and fragmention and all.

thanks again all
GK
 
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