Drive Backup Software

Archive for April, 2010

What I want to do is a main backup each week and then differential daily. How do I do this, so the diff. works off the weekly full backup, is it possible? Right now I have a weekly setup as weekly.bkf and then a daily.bkf, but the daily does not appear to work off the weekly. Suggestions on how to best set it up?

Are you using windows backup or is it Veritas backup exec, because (Veritas does not come with windows).

If you are using windows backup (not sure if I understand what you want to do). On the backup utility, go to schedule jobs tab, click on weekly.bkf, properties, task tab, use the following parameters: /v:yes /r:no /rs:no /hc:off /m normal /j "weekly" /l:s /f "X:\weekly.bkf"

Do the same think for daily backups with the follwoing parameters: /v:yes /r:no /rs:no /hc:off /m normal /j "daily differential" /l:s /f "G:\daily differential.bkf"

My computer is corrupted, i need a windows xp disk to start over from reinstallation. The only recovery disk i have is in my back-up disk which contains some documents and windows xp. When i run it up in my computer, it says backup, but i don’t want to back it up. I want to use the windows xp to help start the reinstallation, see when i backed it up it made my hard drive disk full. How do i extract it and use it?

Windows XP is a protected operating system which means it usually can’t be copied. If it could be copied, people all over the world would be giving copies to their friends and Microsoft wouldn’t be making any money Having said that, there’s a couple of things you can try.

Have you tried doing a custom startup to see if you can "uncorrupt" your system? At startup, press the F8 key repeatedly and it will take you to an Advanced Options Menu. One of the choices will be Last Known Good Configuration. Use the up/down arrows to highlight it and press enter. It will try to boot XP using the last hardware configuration that actually worked. If this fails you can again access the Advanced Options Menu. This time highlight Safe Mode and see if you can use a System Restore Point that will return your machine to a time in the past before the corruption occurred. (Click start > help and support > system restore > restore my computer to an earlier time > next > follow prompts.) I’d scroll throught the calendar and pick the earliest restore point you see (maybe in a previous month.) And if this doesn’t help, you can try looking through your system files and recovery disk for XP setup.exe.

If you can access safe mode, try to run a full system search for something called an i386 file. This file (if it’s on your computer hard drive) will be at least 200MB, probably closer to 500MB and is an exact copy of the Windows XP operating system. If you have it, you can use it to reinstall XP. If it’s on your hard drive you’d have to copy it to a separate disk because any formatting of the hard drive erases everything, including the i386. So I’d try an advanced search.
Click start > search > all files and folders.
Type in i386 in the all or part of file name box.
Look In: My Computer (using drop down arrow.)
Click on More Advanced Options.
Check mark Search System Folders, Hidden Files and Folders and Subfolders. Uncheck the last 2 items.
Run the search. You might find some i386 files that are 50MB or so but the one you need will be at least a couple hundred MB. This article gives a bit more info about the i386 file:

http://ask-leo.com/so_just_what_is_the_i386_directory_anyway.html

Finally, if you can’t find the i386 on the hard drive, I’d put your recovery CD in the reader and look for the i386 on it. If you find it, the i386 should contain a setup.exe file that should get you going again, or you might find an XP setup.exe file all by itself. But no guarantees. Hope this helps and good luck.

plrr

A while back I turned my master hard-drive into the slave (E:\) and am looking to uninstall a few programs (such as games) that take up quite a bit of room. My backup disk is used for music and movies and I’m short on room. I cannot run this disk as the master as I have a rebuilt computer and the OS on this disk is malfunctioning. I can access any and all information on the disk via USB connection and wish to retain the music and videos I have without reformatting. I cannot manually go into folders and uninstall the programs because most of the time there is no application that allows me to do so. I wish to completely remove any and all traces of any software without formatting.

Can anyone direct me to a software that will allow me to do what it is I wish or is there not such a thing? I’ve looked for about an hour and was unable to find anything. Any advice please help. Thanks.

You cannot uninstall because the program is not actually installed. You could reclaim most of the space by deleting the program’s folders. (Follow the properties of the Start button’s icon to find the folders.)

There are also entries in the Windows folder structure on the slave drive. Try renaming the folder to zWindows and see if anything breaks. After a week or so, delete it. Program Files is also a likely target.

I use Norton Ghost together with DVD-RW as the media for backing up. Unfortunately, as the DVD burner I use (Liteon SOHW-1693) only burns DVD-RW at 4X,it requires more than 10 hours, plus I have to be there to keep changing the DVD-RW. Is there a backup software out there that recognises external hard disk drive (connected through USB 2.2 port) as the backup media and is fast. Thanks!

I would highly recommend CasperXP. It’s saved me a few times now and makes a complete bootable clone of the disk. The best thing is that it can backup whilst you are still using XP and has smart clone technology so that on subsequent backups it will only backup changed sectors of the hard disk reducing backup time considerably. It will work with external USB hard disks.

I have a couple of small (10meg) data files that I would like to be backed up every time I shut down my pc. Is there any free software that will do this?
At present I manually do it to a skydrive account or to an external HDD, which is fine, so long as I remember to do it!

I use GFI Backup Home Edition (free) in conjunction with a free ftp server called Drivehq (1 gb free storage) or with an external drive.

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/gfi-backup-home-edition/gfibackup.html

create a backup task – specify what you want to backup and where – then use the scheduler to start the backup on shutdown – very easy to set up and reliable.

If you need a free ftp server try DriveHQ

http://www.drivehq.com/ftp/

another free alternative – syncback

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/SyncBack/SyncBack.html

I just want to get a good idea on what everyone thinks is the best backup software, period. Free is okay, paid is okay. I already have Ghost 12.0 and the full versions of Nero I could use, but it also has to be compatible with an encrypted pc.

I’ll be storing the backup on an external USB HD but the ability to burn a backup on dvds would be a plus. Thanks.

Robert

I read Kim Komando, the computer goddess, and she has some ideas. I also read Gizmo Richards, the 46 best ever freeware utilities. He makes his picks, but they are not just right. I have also used 7zip. And it is not bad. Frankly, I do it by hand because it is faster and I hate it.

And will it also keep all drivers, settings and documents and everything excactly how it was incase something goes completely wrong with my upgrade to a new OS?
I will be using Acronis True Image.

I can’t believe no one has answered this yet.

Of course it will. Acronis is about the best there is out there for what you want to do.

Basically you are making a compressed image of your hard drive with everything on it. I use it to copy clients’ hard drives before trying to remove malicious infections, etc.

Here is a writeup on it: http://www.hddoctor.net/disk-imaging-software-acronis-true-image-home-2010/

I have a wd 1.5tb home edition with esata when i drag and drop I can transfer about a 7GB program file in 5mins or less but 1 gb with the wd anywhere backup software by memeo take about an hour or more per GB. Is it the program or is generally all backup programs significantly slower than drag and drop? And why shouldnt I just drag and drop to backup? Thanks

This is because that the backup software is doing more than just copying the file. It’s also compressing the file that is being backed-up in order to save space on the backup drive.

If you didn’t do the compression, then you’d use up your drive very quickly.

Actually, there’s a lot more than compression going on, but that is where the majority of the time is spent.

I am looking to backup my main hardrive to a second harddrive.

I want to have both drives having the same info on them, and when using a file it gets it from the mina hardrive, and when i save it it saves it on both hardrives, so it is like a real time backup system. Or if that is not around, then maybe have something that backsup files that have been used, but has the same layout on the second drive, that also has the ability to create folder etc when i create new folders on the main drive.

Thanks

In terms of making an entire image of one hard drive, nothing tops Acronis True Image Home. It works great, and I’ve never had any problems with it. You make a full backup, store it on the hard drive, and then you schedule it to make incremental backups as often as you like to that second hard drive, and there you go.

It sounds like what you’re looking for, however, is a sync utility. I would suggest Syncback, because you can set it to watch both drives, so that when a file/folder is created on one drive, it’s created on the other, as well. Also, you could create a batch file to do this with a few lines of code.

xcopy c:\ d:\ /E /S /I /Y

is pretty much the only batch line you need, because this copies the entire contents of c: to d:. You could refine this to only copy new files. If you want, go to the command prompt and type help xcopy, and you’ll see what all the command line switches mean, etc. Hope that answers your question!

I have Western Digital My Book Essential 2.0
external hard drive for data backup.

At the moment i am using Memeo Autobackup, but it works
slowly and along with backup files creates .dcm extention
files which contain information about backed-up file for
periodic syncronization in my opinion.

But in order to boot from external backup drive i will have to
move backup to the top level of external hard drive, because
Memeo Autobackup initially doesn’t create backup there.

And did i mention that Memeo Autobackup has 30-day trial limit?

Additionally i have heard of the following softwares:

1) Cobian Backup
2) SyncToy
3) Acronis True Image

Which of the above softwares will work faster and let me
backup data so i will be able to boot from external hard
drive in case of emergency?
Update: I have found SyncBackSE software, and wondering if it allows me to boot up from external hard drive’s backup plus allows file deletion in destination backup in case the original file in source has been deleted. Kind of syncronization.

I use Symantec Ghost to make a bootable copy of my hard drive, so if my main hard drive fails, I can connect the backup one to my computer and use it just like my old one. You can even copy your hard drive onto a USB or external hard disk, and then copy the files back onto a new hard drive, if your main one breaks. I use it to backup the servers at my work and also use it to copy files onto many computers simultaneously, over the network they’re connected to. It’s a simple program and I highly recommend it.

If you do want to use one of the programs you’ve listed, use Acronis. I’ve used them all at different workplaces before before, and I like Acronis the best