What is your PC backup software?

I am currently using a demo program called Argentum to back up my pc files. I back certain folders up to an external drive and periodically back up those files to DVDs. What I like about the program is that it saves the files in zip format, no need for the host software program to be loaded and present to uncompress and restore the files. What I don't like is that you can't pick a zip file size and have it create more then one file for the folder(s) you select. For example the backed up, zipped copy of My Documents is over 8 gig in size, too big to fit on a single DVD. I could go into the Argentum program and pick parts of My Documents to back up in separate tasks to get the zipped up file sizes under DVD size 4.7 gig but I'd rather just back up the whole folder. Any programs that will do that? What programs do you use?

geepondy said:

What programs do you use?

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Ghost 8.0 - old but still good 'nuff for me.
Have Norton Ghost 2003 on another machine. Not bad either.

Lightmania

I use Norton Ghost. Not sure which version.

I think WinRAR will do it, but I haven't tried it and I don't usually bother to run any archiver/compressor.

I have the same situation as you do. I don't usually compress the files though. I manually burn as many sub-folders as will fit on a DVD, try to remember where I left off, and then burn the rest on another DVD.

Compressing takes time and it isn't always that effective for me. Actually I have two of these humongous folders. One of them can be compressed to fit on one DVD. I did that a few weeks ago with WinRAR. But it takes time and uses a lot of horsepower and results in a big file I have to remember to erase after burning. The other humongous folder doesn't compress much so it still requires two DVDs. Part of the reason this one doesn't compress much is it has a lot of .jpg files in it.

Microsoft SyncToy.

I am really only concerned with backing up my data. I run it anytime I change my data files.

Norton Ghost V9, scheduled daily to back up OS and important data disk to a separate hard drive..

Great thing about Ghost V9 is that you don't have to shut down your PC and reboot under DOS like in the earlier versions and it will do a perfect "image" of the disk for restore.. You can also use Ghost to browse the image to restore only selected files if you need it.

For a free backup software, it looks like you can still get a Free serial number for Acronis Trueimage V7 by registering here.

rsync, usually weekly

Norton Ghost v9

Acronis TrueImage is the best I have ever used. I have used all versions of Ghost, MS, Drive Image, and others. I am a computer person for a living.

I am using Acronis TrueImage V7 for my Windows ME PC. It will let you specify the maximim size of the backup files so that you can then burn them to CD or DVD. You can create a restore boot CD to bring up TrueImage without the operating system to restore from a total loss of the operating system disk. Acronis is trying hard to have TrueImage be a full featured backup system - as a result it seems that they sometimes release new features before all the bugs are gone. I avoid using the latest features immediately - which is why I am still using V7 when V10 has just been released.

I tried the Acronis TrueImage demo and I like it. Biggest perk (for me) was its ability to automatically backup stuff over the network.

Lightmania

Acronis also allows you to make a "Differential" backup. A base level backup is first made, and the subsequential backups are differential to the base one. All you will ever need to restore is the base , then the very last differential. It is also the ONLY product that will deal seemlessly with different sized hard disks. If the amount used on the first disk will fit in the capacity on the second smaller disk, it does not even burp or ask you anything. It just does it - FAST. The recovery boot disk boots up completely in less than 30 seconds to a full featured version. The standalone will automatically detect any and all USB drives, and ANY system nearby on the network. You can image your disk to a nearby network system, switch out your hard disk, and restore from that nearby system to your new hard disk with ease that borders on the ridiculous.

David_Campen said:

I am using Acronis TrueImage V7 for my Windows ME PC. It will let you specify the maximim size of the backup files so that you can then burn them to CD or DVD. You can create a restore boot CD to bring up TrueImage without the operating system to restore from a total loss of the operating system disk.

Click to expand...

I do something similar with a Live CD of Linux. It can run the OS on the CD itself without doing an install to the harddrive. Then I just go into the corrupt windows install into "My Documents" folder on the C drive and drag and drop what I need from C drive to a slave drive. I love that feature. It bypasses the password too.

where can you download a copy of
Acronis Trueimage V7.0?

their site only has links to latest versions, after registering.


Oooops!
never mind.

WNG said:

where can you download a copy of
Acronis Trueimage V7.0?

their site only has links to latest versions, after registering.

Click to expand...

Acronis doesn`t want to sell versions that old. Versions 9 and 10 are probably all that is available. Version 9 has been out a while so the latest builds probably work pretty well. With any backup software you really do want to try to do an actual restore on occaision to make certain that it will work.

Acronis also has a TrueImage Discussion Forum that you can check to see what features people are having problems with:
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65

WNG said:

where can you download a copy of
Acronis Trueimage V7.0?

Click to expand...

For those that couldn't find it: Here's the link...

Sigman said:

For those that couldn't find it: Here's the link...

Click to expand...

To clarify, you need to register, then after receiving the email from Acronis, verify your email, then login to your account.

After logging in, click on "Registered Products" and you will see True Image 7 as a registered product. There is a link to "Download installation file" under this page, which is the installation for True Image 7..

Oops, now I see your previously posted link greg...thanks for the specifics as well.

Is version 7 worth checking out? I've got Ghost 9, but haven't opened it yet.

Sigman said:

Oops, now I see your previously posted link greg...thanks for the specifics as well.

Is version 7 worth checking out? I've got Ghost 9, but haven't opened it yet.

Click to expand...

Haven't actually tried out True Image myself since I'm quite happy with my setup on Ghost V9..

I've actually "recovered" my hard drive with Ghost V9 a few times after I've installed software that I didn't want so that it was "clean" rather than having a bunch of stuff left in the system after the uninstall procedure. It's quite fast, usually only taking about 20+ minutes after booting up with the Ghost Bootup CD.. This is also part of my periodic "testing" to make sure that Ghost is actually creating good images, since creating a bad backup image is the same as not having any backup at all..

Is version 7 worth checking out? I've got Ghost 9, but haven't opened it yet.

Click to expand...

I moved from Ghost to TrueImage (now using version 7) a few years ago. I needed something like the ability to access USB2 attached drives after booting from the standalone recovery CD and Ghost could not do this.