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Old May 4th 21, 11:33 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default O.T. Missing Folder/files

Robert in CA wrote:
I tried it both ways:

https://postimg.cc/Jt5KGSDp

https://postimg.cc/k6c8g318


The first picture is more likely to work.

You need to put some space characters in that command,
to separate the fields.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu True


btw I like your idea of moving all the data to a dedicated external hd
but I was thinking if I do that then I'll also have to create a backup
hd for that, correct?

I realized that I don't need to move anything once we clone the drives
with Win 7 Pro. I just need to delete everything off the 8500, one folder
at a time, correct?
I thought what I would do is take a screenshot of all the folders of My
Documents from the newly created hd that we'll use as a dedicated data
drive and use it to check the folders as I delete them off the 8500 one by
one
Not get ahead of the problem were having with the 780 but how do I
create a backup if my data is on an external drive? Can I do a backup
from an external drive to an external drive? If so, could you please give
me numbered step by step instructions like you did before when we get
to that point?

Since I'm already backing up the 8500 and the 780. I think I should
buy more hd's next month so I have spare hd backup's for all the computers.

Thoughts, suggestions?


I like your enthusiasm, but you don't want to fall into
a trap like me, and end up with way too many hard drives
around the house :-)

You could partition a hard drive like this. You don't
have to keep the Downloads on an external drive,
you can just keep a partition next to C: . The
advantage of this, is with C: being unloaded occasionally,
you can keep C: from getting too big.

+-----+-----------------+-------------+----------------+
| MBR | System Reserved | C: 100GB | D: Data 800GB |
+-----+-----------------+-------------+----------------+

Maybe C: gets backed up once a month, D: is backed up once a year.
My illustration, is to show that you can have two kinds of files,
and have different backup practices for each.

But really, you have a good scheme as is. A backup is
a couple hundred GB so it hasn't gotten completely
out of hand.

If you purchased Macrium, then you could use a feature
called "Incrementals Forever", and your first backup would be
around 200GB, but the next month, the backup might only be 5GB.
That's because the combination of the two, 200+5 is read
back, to prepare the Restore later. Incremental backups
rely on more than one backup file being intact. The
"Incrementals Forever" feature, adds to that, the
squashing of the 200+5 thing, down to the
approximately 200GB it really represents, then
adding more incrementals on the end. It's
a kind of sliding window of incrementals.

The purpose of all this manipulation, is to
make the backup drive last longer, and hold
more months of backup. By not doing the Free
Version "Full" all the time, some space is
saved. Incrementals de-duplicate, so if
mypicture.png is already stored in a backup,
it does not have to be recorded a second time.
The Incremental feature keeps track of which
files belong in the Restore, based on any
time point you select for restoration.

Again, that's an example of how some people
arrange their backups.

Now, me, I just use "Full" ones like you,
and I occasionally toss some, to make room
for new ones.

But in any case, when making backups, the
temptation is to hold onto too many backup
images, buy too many hard drives, spend long
hours moving files from one big drive to another
and so on. It can easily turn into a zoo.
And I don't want you to make the same
mistakes I've made (with the buying drives thing).

When I make suggestions, I'm trying to give examples
of various ways you can slice a pie. But not
everyone likes their pie that way, and you have
to think through the consequences of these
ideas, to their logical conclusion.

You had a decent collection in that picture you
showed me, because you had a series of monthly
backups. And say the backspace key problem, wasn't
fixed by restoring last months MRIMG. You could
go back a second month, and test there.

Only on one occasion, did I need to go back
two years, and I did move forward again later,
when via Googling, I found another solution
to my problem, and then I didn't need to keep
using the two year old restore. Would I keep
monthly backups for two years ? The demonstrated
need shows that once you have a year of backups,
you can keep just one of them per year so
that is your "yearly". So maybe a couple yearly
ones, and a bunch of monthly ones.

Jan 2019
Jan 2020
Jan 2021
Feb 2021
Mar 2021

Maybe later in the year it looks like

Jan 2019
Jan 2020
Jan 2021
Apr 2021 == ditched a few monthly ones, so quarterly
Jul 2021
Oct 2021 \
Nov 2021 \___ Monthly for the most recent
Dec 2021 /

And maybe that will fit on a single 2TB drive.
And those can be "Fulls", like you're making now,
because the storage device has just enough room
for the proposed backup set. No need to purchase
Macrium, within those constraints.

Since you're no longer using Windows XP, you
can use huge drives for backups. The ones you're
using now, seem reliable enough, and there is nothing
wrong with them. You can get drives, like 14TB,
you prepare those with GPT partitioning on
Windows 7 and you're allowed to have one giant 14TB
partition. But I don't buy drives that big, because
it takes too long to move the data off them.
The biggest drives I have today are 6TB. That's
enough to hold two 3TB sets of backups for me.

The pricing curve for drives, sometimes there's
a kink and sometimes not. When they're linear
with capacity, then there isn't a lot to be gained
from buying huge ones. If there was some economy from
the bigger ones, it might be more fun to buy them.
But if a big drive costs $500, who needs that exactly.
It's like buying a steak which is too big for one
meal, and some going to waste. And if the big drive
breaks, now you're out $500 (unless you want to
pursue the warranty, and at that price, you have
an incentive to do so).

If there was a Free backup with Incrementals,
I'd be testing that for myself :-) But that tends
to be a paid feature.

I think you're in pretty good shape as is. You're
making backups. If you get ransomware, there's a chance
you'll be able to recover from it. You won't be like
the guy in another group - he tells me he's got data
files that end in myfile.xls.osiris and that osiris
thing means "ransomware". And the guy has no backups.
It took *months* for him to do clean installs,
try and tip computers upright and so on. It was a
real mess. That's the only case of ransomware I've
heard of in the newsgroups. How did he get it ?
He opened an email from GoDaddy domain registrar,
with an attachment called "invoice" and when he
clicked on the "invoice", ransomware took over.
The email wasn't from GoDaddy, it was forged.
And why did the forgers send it to him ? When he
registered his GoDaddy domain, he used his real
email address (and the registration can be
seen publicly). The perps just grab all the
email addresses from those registrations, and
they "spray" all the victims with "invoice" emails.
That was the infection vector. Email.

Paul
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