What Xp Backup Software Do You Use?

YardApe · Joined: May 27, 2003 Posts: 36

:huh:

Since experiencing a new hard drive failure... this is a LARGE blip on my radar screen...

User: inactive Posts:

I'm not using an actual backup program. I have Nero and backup what files I need on a nightly basis to CD-R. Works well for me. I know there are a couple good backup programs for XP out that have been mentioned here before though. May want to try searching the forum, if you haven't already done so.

VesperDEM · Joined: Feb 19, 2003 Posts: 6

Don't you find it rather expensive to backup to CD-R every day? Not to mention the wasted CD-R's...

horiz5 · Joined: Jun 10, 2003 Posts: 10

Norton Ghost is what i use, although by all accounts the built in system backup in XP works perfectly well (for xp home edition it has to be installed seperately from the CD) , still makng copies of your important documents onto CD's on a regular basis and storing them away from your system is a good idea.

Jtimes2003 · Joined: Dec 28, 2002 Posts: 851

I use System Restore (I know it takes up space on the HD), so if I'm testing a downloaded utility or something and the install goes south I can easily restore to previous.

Have a good weekend.

bigd1 · Joined: Jan 25, 2003 Posts: 1721

System Restore is good for recovering from install problems, but it is of no value if your hard drive crashes.

I use Ghost to image my hard drive to another hard drive a couple of times a week (depends on what I've been doing). About once a month I use Ghost to burn to CD's. 11 Gig takes about 9 CD's. At 10 cents each, that's pretty cheap.

aipforum · Joined: Jun 04, 2003 Posts: 53

I use Drive Image by PowerQuest. I'm using version 2002. They have a new version out, but from all accounts that I've read, it's as buggy as a Florida summer night. I've been using Drive Image for about 3 years now, and I couldn't be happier. I do an image once a week to a 2nd hard drive, then I install all kinds of freeware and shareware that possibly interests me and then decide which to keep. I then restore from the image files and install the one's I decided to keep.

I keep the image files I create on a 2nd hard drive, but I do put most on CD as well. It's also nice that I have a complete install of WinXP ready to install with all the drivers and settings just right. It's saved my butt several times.

I know others might disagree, but I keep that one partition where I save the image files as a Fat32 drive. That makes for very easy restore. DI is also very good at recognizing the different types of drives and restores things properly.

For daily backups of documents, I use WinBackup.

If you go the Drive Image route, I doubt you will be sorry -- that is if you don't go for the latest version. Stick with 2002 or even earlier.

FINDRY · Joined: Dec 07, 2002 Posts: 115

Hey all. I have three ways to backup

1. XPs own back-up

2. Back-up plus costs 39 bucks

3. Backing up individual files to cd with roxio

As for xp itself I dont bother

IRS Cowboy · Joined: Jul 06, 2003 Posts: 3

I use drive image to make an image of my machine after the first install with all drivers and programs, utilities that I use loaded. That way if my machine decides to go belly up I just reimage. I also use NTI Backup Now and backup to CDRW on a daily basis. I treat it like a tape and only backup changed files during the week and a full backup on fridays. Now that I have a DVD RW I don't have to use more than one disk.

ndns · Joined: Feb 25, 2003 Posts: 95

As a few others have explained, I backup individual files and folders on a regular basis to CD's using Nero. In XP especially, everything is stored under Documents and Settings/your username so if you backup that entire folder you have all of your data (excluding applications and Windows itself, but those can easily be reinstalled).

orare · Joined: Feb 11, 2003 Posts: 378

I just back up to CD-R on a weekly basis... I have XP home, so it's fairly simple to figure out which ones should be backed up

User: inactive Posts:

Wow......

some of you who backup only a few programs gonna find out one day that this method is almost worthless. When you install a program, and this is especially true of big ones...like word, etc...well it's not only the program in the Program Files, but also all the stuff in the registry that goes with that particular program that very day. If I have learned one thing, it is that xp is in a fluid state all the time. Anything and everything you do changes many things behind the scenes, so just program backing is really wortthless....

There is only one way to back up anything to do with XP, and that is by making an image with DriveImage or Acronis' TrueImage 6. By doing this, you get a photo image of everything that is on the PARTITION. If you ever get a bug, then you can always restore your hard drive to exactly what you had on it at that particular time. Of course any work you have put on your drive since you made that image is lost....unless you copy it to another partition prior to restoring your c: drive.

From experience, because of the many files I download and play with and discard, I usually do a restore once a week maybe....but I usually Image my C:\ partition daily. Takes two CDRW's and 10 minutes........after a week or so, I erase them and use the cd's again....over and over....
(I do not use the cdrw's as drag and drop .......I use them just like they were regular cdr's.

albert

YardApe · Joined: May 27, 2003 Posts: 36

:blink:

Wow! Thanks for your responses!!! This was what I was looking for.... great info!!!

goretsky · Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2003 4:38 am Post subject:

Hello,

I have been using Stomp's BackUp My PC (BUMP) to back up my data volume to tape and DVD-RAM. I also use KarenWare's Replicator to back up my data volume and a volume containing drivers, updates and patches to an external 2.5" hard disk drive. The latter can be used for distributing things like service packs to clients without broadband connections, and so forth.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

lenjack · Joined: Dec 07, 2002 Posts: 92

Perhaps I'm too simple-minded, but all I use is the disk copy program on the floppy provided by my hd maker.

orare · Joined: Feb 11, 2003 Posts: 378

bigd1 · Joined: Jan 25, 2003 Posts: 1721

Lenjack,

And where are you copying to for a backup?

falliston · Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2003 2:20 pm Post subject:

I do a DriveImage of my OS partitions weekly, and run that to CDRWs monthly. The rest of the drives contents I have on CDs (music, video, docs, games etc) so I don't really have to back those up. Whenever I have 680MB or so of new stuff I burn it. The OS partitions use up 2 CDRWs, and I keep copies of the Images on my second PC (and copies of that PCs OS partition on this PC) so I usually have 2 or 3 recent images to work with in case of catastrophe, and clean install Images from original installation on CDR, to save me at reinstall time.

And just to show off some professional paranoia, I have a full copy of everything that a friend keeps at his home. I can recover from anything: a virus, a harddrive failure, even an all consuming housefire!

Phred.

biday77 · Joined: May 02, 2003 Posts: 3

Try this freeware program--Very Good

Great backup program...
Backup4All v1.3.0 32-bit for Windows 9x/NT4/2000/ME/XP/2003 is one of the most powerful disk + file backup + restore tools: Backup Wizard, Backup Scheduler, multiple file filter sets, incremental backups, multiple scheduled backups, customizable ZIP compression levels, customizable restores also supported by standard unzipping tools, supports all local and mapped network drive letters, UNC paths and removable media, CD-R(W)/DVD-R(W) etc, highly customizable.
Direct download [2.08 MB, freeware].
http://www.backup4all.com/Downloads/b4all130.zip