Data Backup Question

Hi guys and girls !

In the last months my effort investment in the backup of my data (computer data that is) has increased considerably. It is an obsession right now.

I will not go into details about how I organize all this between my two computers as this is irrelevant for my question.

Right now I am using an external HD for a weekly back-up and a DVD-burner every three months or so. We are looking at about 50GB of data in addition to about 45GB of the intended backup of the C:\-partition for a total of 100GB.

Windows won't let me backup C:\ at all with some stupid error messages.

So ...

--> what's the best plan for backup in general?
--> software?
--> how do I backup the system drive with Windows and installed software?
--> how would I re-install that on my new drive in case the old one dies?

Thanx!!

bernie


P.S.: I do have "Instant Backup" of Steinberg as software ... would that be of any use?

Rule of thumb for backups is "how much do you mind loosing".

As for your C: drive not sure if you have a prob or not but you need an image tool to make an exact mirror copy or image of your C: drive.
Ghost has been around a long time, also drive image but I think Symantec bought then so it prolly won't be getting any updates.

There are a few other newer open source also included on whats called the "Super Boot CD" which can be found on many torrent sites. It uses Win Pe and has great utils. Then there is Winternals which can keep a live Backup or mirror of a server or sys also I belive.
Let me know if you can't find SuperBoot CD.

X.

If you can find it, try to find out more in the external hard drive's manual.
"Some" external drives' manuals come with the info you are seeking.
Some do not.

Edit:
If you have room for additional drives inside your pc, many "retail" packaged hard drives come with backup software that may help.

I just have a backup drive in my pc in addition to the main drive. Then I just keep all my critical files in specific folders and have a program sync the folders between the drives. If my main drive goes I'll have to reinstall windows and my applications, but I don't really mind since a hard drive wipe is long overdue anyway. If both drives go from a power surge from the PSU then I'd be out of luck.

Two words: Acronis TrueImage.

I use Acronis True Image to create images of my OS partitions. I use Windows Backup to back up the data on my D partitions.

I'm more careful with my Outlook PST files. I back them up daily to an external USB hard drive attached to my main PC. I simply cannot afford to looks my Outlook files.

All my images and backups are sent to an old box with alot of storage. It's only purpose is a file server. I call it a poor man's NAS device

You won't regret using the Acronis product. Here's how I look at it: My time is worth more than $32 an hour. If I save 1 hour by purchasing Aronis True Image, it's more than paid for itself. To date, it's saved me over 30 hrs of rebuilding a machine.

It also has a backup feature, which lets you backup individual files and folders. Although I don't use this feature, it's great knowing it's there.

I install Acronis TI on my PC, create the bootable rescue media, then uninstall it. I create all my images through the rescue CD.

FWIW you can get a free copy of Partition Manager here:

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=489617

It has some imaging and backup features but I've never used them. I did use it today to repartition my drive, and it worked fine for that.

a possible answer is incremental backups... that is if you are not backing up a dynamic database.

for most folks only certain accessed files like email, word doc's, excell, bookmarks, other data files, etc.

if this fits... please consider organizing data in such a way to allow easy backups.

for data that seldom changes, they are archived in numerous backups already. concentrate on what changes and you backup load will greatly reduce.

note data burned on CDRW and DVD are not always stable. even best stored optic discs can deteriorate.

USB memory sticks prices have come down so much. it's now possible to purchase sets of say (5) sets of 2gig USB memory to make backup of critical incremental data in rotation.

in no way am I say not doing cold backups of entire drive. that's alway a good idea at set time points.

So you guys are saying that I have to use a boot-cd in order to be able to make an image / backup of my system drive (C:\) because it won't let me do it while running Wondows XP? :huh:
Did I get that right?

Going from there ... I can use program like Acronis TI to make such a CD and then use this CD to actually create the backup of the HD? Sounds complicated and dubious to me (dumb user, I admit).

Other options are Norton Ghost or those boot-cds X_Marone mentions, but for those there are only removed download links everywhere, so I take it they aren't exactly legal?


And to actually perform a rescue operation ... say ... on a new HD ... how do I do that? With the image or backup on an external HD and an empty new HD in my computer ... :thinking: ... I am clueless

bernie


P.S.: no software on my external HD (Philips 500GB USB disk, but the HD itself is a Hitachi)

cy ... I do not trust programs to plan my backups. I'd like to be in control, which is why I do only full backups. It is KISS ... I know that all of it is in one space ... and it is all the most recent version. And it is independent of any software, just data.

However, thsi doesn't work for c:\

I use www.drivesnapshot.de/en

The good thing about it is the whole program is a single file, you can backup an entire partition while is running (live image) and then when is done, you can use the same program to efortlessly mount the backup image as a virtual drive.

In my system I have two partitions (320gb disk):

30gb for applications/system/boot
290gb for data

My backup schedule makes a complete image (not incremental) of the 30gb partition every day of the week, so I always have the last 7 days ready for full recovery. I do the schedule using windows scheduler

In case of a crash (God forbid!) you put a new hard disk, boot from any device (for example CDrom) and using the same program from a DOS screen restore the whole disk. You can restore to a bigger drive without problems too.

My 2 cents (of peso)


Pablo

You can use True Image while the OS is up and running. I meant that I choose to use the recovery CD because I get a clean, "no files running" image. The rescue boot cd has the exact same UI as the Windows program, so you don't have to be an IT pro to use the rescue CD. I just don't trust creating an image while the OS is running, it's just a preference. I've been using Ghost for years @ work, and I much prefer True Image.

Bernie, Windows won't let you make backups of some of the system files on the C:\ drive while Windows is running because it's using them and has them locked. Programs like Norton Ghost will restart the machine in a command-line mode which allows those files to be backed up because Windows isn't running at that point. It's just one of those Windows annoyances.

My point exactly . . . This is why I use the rescue media to create images, no system files are running, and thus not locked.

So ... I use a software like True Image to create an image of C:\ ... via a rescue CD I created earlier which is used as a boot-cd to do all this. This image is then saved on my external USB HD.

In case of a disaster ... I have a new HD installed in my computer ... I run the same rescue CD ... and then I can use the image on my USB drive to re-create my computer like it was before?
Or won't it work with an USB ext. HD?

And I need to do the restoring in DOS via the rescue disk?

And no other program / rescue disk can make use of the image created by True Image, right?

Sounds not that complicated :green:

bernie


P.S.: thanx to all. You are really helpful !! :thumbsup:

PhotonWrangler said:

Bernie, Windows won't let you make backups of some of the system files on the C:\ drive while Windows is running because it's using them and has them locked. Programs like Norton Ghost will restart the machine in a command-line mode which allows those files to be backed up because Windows isn't running at that point. It's just one of those Windows annoyances.

Click to expand...

Sorry, but NOT TRUE, the program I mentioned in my previous post allows you to make a FULL BACKUP live, you just hit the start button and keep working. Thats the beauty of it


Pablo

There was a program called Casper, the Friendly Ghost which I bought a computer or two ago which ran in Windoz and cloned an entire drive onto another. It worked sometimes, and saved my butt once. Curse you, WDD!

Larry

Acronis TrueImage v.7.0 is currently a free download.
It has more than enough features to satisfy most backup needs, handles external USB, optical, and networked drives.

There is another cpf thread on data backups, more info can be found in it.

Yep Acronis TrueImage is the go although its not cheap. You do need to make a Rescue CD/DVD in case you really DO have an emergency you need to recover your entire hard drive from. But I don't do backups on CD/DVD anymore - I just use an external USB hard drive to store the backup images - and should you need to get individual files from one of these backup images you can 'mount' the image and copy the said file from it just like it was on your hard drive (which in effect it is).

This probably sounds a bit complicated but it is not - very intuitive after a bit of practice.

ALSO - and best of all, you can 'transfer' an image of you old hard drive to a new computer with quite different hardware configuration using Acronis Universal Restore which is an add-on to True Image.

all my incremental backups done manually. that's why I suggested organizing files that need to be actually backed up.

for example: if you organize all critical data that changes into a folder called say: Critical Data

then make Critical Data your new home for all files that need backing up regularly. naturally you will not be able to do this for all files.

this reduces number of folders to down to a manageable of say 3-5 folders that need backing up. also since you are doing incremental data only. this usually reduces changing data to well under 2 gigs. even with data bloat.

this allows very_fast backups using multiple USB memory sticks in rotation. IMHO for mission critical data... one week is too long.

other critical data that almost never change is archived during cold backup of entire drive. which you should not stop doing.

backing up to another partition within same platter is not a good strategy. hard drive failure is what you are backing up to prevent.
this is a good paper to read concerning disk drive failures. http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

Kiessling said:

cy ... I do not trust programs to plan my backups. I'd like to be in control, which is why I do only full backups. It is KISS ... I know that all of it is in one space ... and it is all the most recent version. And it is independent of any software, just data.

However, thsi doesn't work for c:\

Click to expand...