ntbackup & intermittent hard disk failures
 

When I run ntbackup on Windows XP Home SP2, it occaisionally finds a file
that has a block on the track and unfortunately after a couple of tries it
stops the backup when it sees and I/O error. I have a hard disk that is
experiening problems. Diagnostics are telling me that I am losing/lost a
track/head. So I wanted to make sure that I have an up to date backup copy to
migrate to a new drive. I would like to see ntbackup continue and get
everything it can off the disk rather than stop without me having to manually
intervene and iterate, deselecting the bad files/dirs each time. Any
suggestions?

Also while on the topic of ntbackup, if have a few use case questions that
none of the documentation seems to address. Such as, when should I 'replace'
vs 'append' a backup? Any suggestions on where to go to get in depth
understanding of the use cases and implications of choices? Most of the
documentation I have found illustrates how to set switches on commands vs why
and the implications of a choice.

--
regards,
PCC

ntbackup & intermittent hard disk failures
 

Peter,
"i have a few use case questions that
none of the documentation seems to address. Such as, when should I 'replace'
vs 'append' a backup?"

Well, you use replace when there are files in the backup that you want to
update and you use append when you just want to add new files to an existing
backup.

Regards the problem that your hdd has at this point the iterative process
seems to be the only way. You may want to try and search for a tool that can
tell you which file is on which part of the disk and accordingly you can
separate those that are on the damaged part and first backup the rest. But in
the end if you do want any of the files that are left you will have to still
do go through an iterative process but this will be a lot quicker.

yogi

"Peter" wrote:

When I run ntbackup on Windows XP Home SP2, it occaisionally finds a file
that has a block on the track and unfortunately after a couple of tries it
stops the backup when it sees and I/O error. I have a hard disk that is
experiening problems. Diagnostics are telling me that I am losing/lost a
track/head. So I wanted to make sure that I have an up to date backup copy to
migrate to a new drive. I would like to see ntbackup continue and get
everything it can off the disk rather than stop without me having to manually
intervene and iterate, deselecting the bad files/dirs each time. Any
suggestions?

Also while on the topic of ntbackup, if have a few use case questions that
none of the documentation seems to address. Such as, when should I 'replace'
vs 'append' a backup? Any suggestions on where to go to get in depth
understanding of the use cases and implications of choices? Most of the
documentation I have found illustrates how to set switches on commands vs why
and the implications of a choice.

--
regards,
PCC

ntbackup & intermittent hard disk failures
 

Thanks yogi.. a followup.. if I backup one user and then separately backup
each user on the system, while appending to the backup file.. I think this
means that upon a single restore operation I should be able to see or expand
the backup file, left pane in ntbackup, and restore all users from the same
backup file at the same time. Or to put another way, I can chunk the backups
by user and append to the to a single backup file yet when restoring see them
all contiguously.
--
regards,
PCC


"yogi" wrote:

Peter,
"i have a few use case questions that
none of the documentation seems to address. Such as, when should I 'replace'
vs 'append' a backup?"

Well, you use replace when there are files in the backup that you want to
update and you use append when you just want to add new files to an existing
backup.

Regards the problem that your hdd has at this point the iterative process
seems to be the only way. You may want to try and search for a tool that can
tell you which file is on which part of the disk and accordingly you can
separate those that are on the damaged part and first backup the rest. But in
the end if you do want any of the files that are left you will have to still
do go through an iterative process but this will be a lot quicker.

yogi

"Peter" wrote:

When I run ntbackup on Windows XP Home SP2, it occaisionally finds a file
that has a block on the track and unfortunately after a couple of tries it
stops the backup when it sees and I/O error. I have a hard disk that is
experiening problems. Diagnostics are telling me that I am losing/lost a
track/head. So I wanted to make sure that I have an up to date backup copy to
migrate to a new drive. I would like to see ntbackup continue and get
everything it can off the disk rather than stop without me having to manually
intervene and iterate, deselecting the bad files/dirs each time. Any
suggestions?

Also while on the topic of ntbackup, if have a few use case questions that
none of the documentation seems to address. Such as, when should I 'replace'
vs 'append' a backup? Any suggestions on where to go to get in depth
understanding of the use cases and implications of choices? Most of the
documentation I have found illustrates how to set switches on commands vs why
and the implications of a choice.

--
regards,
PCC

ntbackup & intermittent hard disk failures
 

Peter,
When you create a backup, it is not specific to a user rather it is
specific to a computer and if you take a complete backup of the system once
that will automatically cover all the other users as well.

~~~
yogi
~~~

"Peter" wrote:

Thanks yogi.. a followup.. if I backup one user and then separately backup
each user on the system, while appending to the backup file.. I think this
means that upon a single restore operation I should be able to see or expand
the backup file, left pane in ntbackup, and restore all users from the same
backup file at the same time. Or to put another way, I can chunk the backups
by user and append to the to a single backup file yet when restoring see them
all contiguously.
--
regards,
PCC


"yogi" wrote:

Peter,
"i have a few use case questions that
none of the documentation seems to address. Such as, when should I 'replace'
vs 'append' a backup?"

Well, you use replace when there are files in the backup that you want to
update and you use append when you just want to add new files to an existing
backup.

Regards the problem that your hdd has at this point the iterative process
seems to be the only way. You may want to try and search for a tool that can
tell you which file is on which part of the disk and accordingly you can
separate those that are on the damaged part and first backup the rest. But in
the end if you do want any of the files that are left you will have to still
do go through an iterative process but this will be a lot quicker.

yogi

"Peter" wrote:

When I run ntbackup on Windows XP Home SP2, it occaisionally finds a file
that has a block on the track and unfortunately after a couple of tries it
stops the backup when it sees and I/O error. I have a hard disk that is
experiening problems. Diagnostics are telling me that I am losing/lost a
track/head. So I wanted to make sure that I have an up to date backup copy to
migrate to a new drive. I would like to see ntbackup continue and get
everything it can off the disk rather than stop without me having to manually
intervene and iterate, deselecting the bad files/dirs each time. Any
suggestions?

Also while on the topic of ntbackup, if have a few use case questions that
none of the documentation seems to address. Such as, when should I 'replace'
vs 'append' a backup? Any suggestions on where to go to get in depth
understanding of the use cases and implications of choices? Most of the
documentation I have found illustrates how to set switches on commands vs why
and the implications of a choice.

--
regards,
PCC