Back up strategies

I have recently discovered the value of using back up software other than what is supplied in Windows. I, personally, prefer Acronis TrueImage, but there are others that are almost just as good. One convenience is the ability to assign a drive letter to a back-up file, for easy micro-management-style recovery.

Though, Windows' Back Up is adequate, if you just can't bother with anything else.
 
I use the Dantz Retrospect (and it worked on a necessary restore as well!!) However, I'm not quite sure how it works. If you backup the entire system to a Restore Point on the external drive, you have copies of everything, but in "their" format, right? What if I just want to restore one file, or delete a file off the backup? Say I need more space on my backup drive, and I realize I copied some video files over which I no longer need and can be deleted. How do I get those off the backup drive without restoring the whole thing?
 
alfaniner said:
I use the Dantz Retrospect (and it worked on a necessary restore as well!!) However, I'm not quite sure how it works. If you backup the entire system to a Restore Point on the external drive, you have copies of everything, but in "their" format, right? What if I just want to restore one file, or delete a file off the backup? Say I need more space on my backup drive, and I realize I copied some video files over which I no longer need and can be deleted. How do I get those off the backup drive without restoring the whole thing?
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Dantz's interface allows you to restore one file. Retrospect maintains a catalog of what is in each backup and allows you to select individual files/folders/etc... for restore. It'll then prompt you for the correct media to insert.

Should be in the help on how to do it (I've used so many different versions of Retrospect I can't really tell you the exact steps to use.)

Oh, and Dantz got bought by EMC so it's EMC Retrospect now
 
kevin said:
Dantz's interface allows you to restore one file. Retrospect maintains a catalog of what is in each backup and allows you to select individual files/folders/etc... for restore. It'll then prompt you for the correct media to insert.

Should be in the help on how to do it (I've used so many different versions of Retrospect I can't really tell you the exact steps to use.)

Oh, and Dantz got bought by EMC so it's EMC Retrospect now
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Great, I'll check on that when I get home. Do you know if you can delete a single file off the backup disc? Or is that an option when restoring, like "Save or delete backup file?"
 
My backup strategy is "hope nothing bad happens". I just don't have the money to spend on a backup hard drive or disks or something.
 
Retropect has two different modes: backup and duplicate. Backup is generally to removable drives, and being usually to optical, deletion is neither necessary nor desirable. Duplication is where it keeps an up-to-date copy of a whole disk, or server, or folder as it exists at the time of backup, in which case it will delete any files that exist on the existing backup but no longer on the source.

If you're doing backups to a hard drive or similar, I'm not aware that you can delete individual files, as Retrospect seems to use its own file system. I'm not sure why you'd want to, though.

Cheers,
Rat.
 
Upchurch said:
Do tell.
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I don't wish to oversell utility products, such a backup software. I'm usually more of an applications-centric person. But I will tout a few more useful features of 3rd party products. This list applies to at least Acronis, because that's what I've got.

One convenient advantage, I mentioned already, is the ability to assign drive letters to a back up resource files ("plugging an image" they call it). You can restore files as easily as copying from one folder on a drive to another. The latest version (9.1) apparently also allows you to boot from a back up file!

A much more user-friendly and intuitive interface. (which is important for some folks, I guess)

The option to do Differential back ups - similar to incremental back ups, but only records changes from the initial full back up, so restoration is faster, and does not rely on a long chain of separate files.

A better system for examining and repairing corrupt files. (though, I have not needed to use it, yet.)

More options in all sorts of other places, for those who like to micro-manage their software.
 
I'd just like to point out that

RANT! A system back up doesn't mean #$%#$ if your @#$#-@#$# system back up file is @#$# corrupted!!!! $%$%@#& @# $%#$ @#$%% !!!!!
 
How about this: Does anyone know of a software that will automatically do a straight sync of one directory to another at a specified time of day? I don't want any compression and I would like to be able to go to the synced directory and pull out individual files from any computer that has access to that directory.
 
I'm trying something called AJC Directory Synchronizer. It looks promising, but I haven't tried the scheduled backups yet.
 
Dark Jaguar said:
My backup strategy is "hope nothing bad happens". I just don't have the money to spend on a backup hard drive or disks or something.
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For most of us, it's the personal stuff we want to keep, which usually isn't that big. If the computer dies, all we really need is the pictures, emails, etc, which typically (or though that is changing with digital cameras), don't take up that much space. Just a dump to a DVD or CD should do.
 
kevin said:
Microsoft has a free product called SyncToy that is supposed to be very nice.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

It's weird but I've found these types of Microsoft utilities -- written on the side by employees, released for free, to actually be pretty good. It's their official stuff I hate.
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Wow, that's pretty good. I'll see how the scheduled run works this afternoon, but I like what I'm seeing so far. Plus it's free.
 
I would hearty NOT recommend a utility called "Handy Backup", I've been using it for a quite awhile and had done some partial restores but just when I needed it (my primary PC has died - no idea why - not PSU, not CPU, not hard disc - I assume the MB is knackered) what do I find? Its "index" file won't restore the thousands of files I have backed-up and the only support I got from them was after a week (yep that's right it took them a week to respond to a fully paid up registered users, a week for BACK-UP utility!) and all they have been able to offer is a command line utility that can restore only one file at a time!

:mad:
 
I had a similar abject failure from Norton Ghost 9.0. It seems incapable of recognizing that there is a hard drive connected to my system when it is in recovery mode. I consider that something of an essential property to have.

A co-worker who is higher up on the food chain than I am has had words with Symantec over this and found out that they are coming out with a higher powered corporate version if Ghost under a different name. We're going to be part of the beta testing group to see if it does what Ghost 9 couldn't. He's going to use a spare machine to test against, but we're also going to make an image of my machine, just in case.
 
My backup strategy

I have my hard disk in two partitions. The data (basically "my documents") is saved to the second partition. Every month I burn everything there to DVD. In addition, things like the mail folder, faxes, favorites all sit in the second partition. Each DVD backup has all the information I need in a complete system crash.

I hate installing Windows, the drivers, the updates, the patches, the software. What I use is BartPE with the plugin DriveImage XML. This makes a complete image of the hard disk partition.

After the last format and reinstall, loaded everything needed, and made an image of my boot partition. I can recover the entire hard disk with minimum trouble.

I am really impressed with the software, but I don't think I am doing justice to it in this post.

BartPE homepage
DriveImage XML plugin homepage

I have used this software. I formatted my hard disk and managed to recover everything in about 20 minutes. I was so impressed with it I made an ISO image and uploaded it just in case my friends wanted a copy.

My copy of BartPE plus DriveImage XML ISO. This is BartPE CD ISO with the plugin already integrated.

All the software is free.

ETA : If you do go to download the ISO, I have split the entire ISO into 10 MB chunks. Running the executable will merge all the files. The utility used was Splitter and Merger 5.5
 
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