KenK wrote:
Yesterday I backed up my C drive and system state. In the report afterward
it told me that several dozen files had been in use by another spplication
and were not backed up. I didn't look at them all but those I looked at
were Kaspersky Internet Security files. Evidently it decided to update its
database while the backup was running. This is the first time this has
happened. I'm debating on whether to run the backup again. What do you
think? I think it's not necessary. I backup the first of every month.

Using XP Home.

TIA


You can boot the backup software from its emergency CD and
do the backup from there. Then, the OS files should all
be available for backup.

*******

An alternative next month, is to:

1) Unplug network cable.
2) Reboot machine.
3) Run backup (to external USB).

The idea in that case being, less can be going on, if the network
is cut.

Obviously this won't be a very convenient option if you use
a NAS for backups. You could pull the WAN cable, leaving
the LAN working, and that way, Kaspersky won't be doing an
update.

*******

As to whether to re-run the backup, I like my backups "clean",
so I'd rerun it (who knows what happens to Kaspersky if it is
caught in an inconsistent state).

I like to keep the quantity of files on C: to a small
number, so backup time won't be an issue for C: . If I had
a movie collection, I'd keep it on D: and potentially back
it up with a different frequency than C: .

The average backup time for a C: here, is around 10 minutes.
To back up the machine I'm typing on (all the data partitions),
that would take all day. So naturally that doesn't happen
quite as often.

In terms of ratio of "partitions to containers", I try to back up
one partition per output container, so that if there is a problem
with the backup (bad CRC), then only that partition is damaged.
So I don't, say, back up all the partitions into one giant image.
Because during restoration, there might be an error in the backup
that prevents access to a certain partition of the set. If I have
12 partitions, then I have 12 files for the month of June (kept
in the same folder).

On Vista+, where there is a system partition and a boot partition
(the labels you see in Disk Management), I would tend to put those
two into the same container, as a "complete set" for boot purposes.
Usually, one of those two partitions is tiny, and not fit to be
managed alone without its partner for company. I try to assign a
descriptive label to C: , such as "WIN10RLS" so I will know
later, what machine that belongs to. The Win10 that doesn't
get used much on this machine, would be "WIN10P5E" named
after the motherboard.

Paul