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Best Backup Program



 
 
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  #31  
Old May 12th 10, 09:31 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Anthony Buckland
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 526
Default Best Backup Program


"Stan Brown" wrote in message
t...
...
I'd go with Acronis True Image, but I bought my copy in 2005, which
is about a century ago in computer years, so I don't know if the
current version is still as good.
...


I continue to use TI, but am careful about new versions.
Acronis tends IMHO to let loose beta versions loose on
the public for them to find the last few bugs, which can
be risky for the one program you have to be able to
rely on in a disaster. I wouldn't do anything irrevocable
to my system until after I'd created an image, verified it,
and made a recovery, which is a time-consuming
checkout. I'm currently using version 9, build 2337,
and have made a successful recovery during the last
12 months. "A century ago" indeed, but a byte is a byte
regardless of the versions of everything else on my
machine, and I continue to rely on that build.


Ads
  #32  
Old May 12th 10, 10:19 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Milt
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 313
Default Best Backup Program

David,

I'm sure that many of the imaging programs are fine. I have been using
Norton Ghost for about fifteen years, as best as I can remember. I make
monthly new images and daily incremental backups.

It has worked the eight or ten times I've used it to restore a corrupted or
damaged HD. I'm now using Ghost 9 on two machines and Ghost 10 on another. I
back up the images to a second HD, and then copy them to a 16 gig. thumb
drive for off site storage.

Milt



"David" wrote:

I am looking for recommendations on the best backup program available.

My workstation is currently running XP PRO/SP3, but may eventually
upgrade to Windows 7, so compatability with both is a plus.

I would like the ability to mirror my main c: drive to a bootable
external drive.

I would like to be able to backup an entire internal or external drive
to a different external drive.

I do not plan on backing up to DvDs or optical disk.

Being able to backup individual directories/files would be a plus.

Compression is unimportant. My external drive is 1TB & I have 150 GB
internal capacity. I'd prefer to have a plain vanilla backup - that
is I'd be able to use Windows Explorer to view the backup & retrieve a
file if I choose.

Quality, reliability, and ease of use take precedence over cost. If I
can not accomplish what I want with one program, multiple programs are
fine.

.

  #33  
Old May 12th 10, 10:19 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Milt
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 313
Default Best Backup Program

David,

I'm sure that many of the imaging programs are fine. I have been using
Norton Ghost for about fifteen years, as best as I can remember. I make
monthly new images and daily incremental backups.

It has worked the eight or ten times I've used it to restore a corrupted or
damaged HD. I'm now using Ghost 9 on two machines and Ghost 10 on another. I
back up the images to a second HD, and then copy them to a 16 gig. thumb
drive for off site storage.

Milt



"David" wrote:

I am looking for recommendations on the best backup program available.

My workstation is currently running XP PRO/SP3, but may eventually
upgrade to Windows 7, so compatability with both is a plus.

I would like the ability to mirror my main c: drive to a bootable
external drive.

I would like to be able to backup an entire internal or external drive
to a different external drive.

I do not plan on backing up to DvDs or optical disk.

Being able to backup individual directories/files would be a plus.

Compression is unimportant. My external drive is 1TB & I have 150 GB
internal capacity. I'd prefer to have a plain vanilla backup - that
is I'd be able to use Windows Explorer to view the backup & retrieve a
file if I choose.

Quality, reliability, and ease of use take precedence over cost. If I
can not accomplish what I want with one program, multiple programs are
fine.

.

  #34  
Old May 12th 10, 11:14 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Shenan Stanley
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,523
Default Best Backup Program

David wrote:
Perhaps we could reinitiate this conversation in a more amiable
manner. I was hopeful you might have a solution to my real problem
- making the USB drive XP/PRO bootable.


In general - Windows XP will not boot from an USB drive.

If you _cloned_ your disk to it (with your favorite imaging program), took
it out of the USB case, put it in the machine - it probably would work just
fine - boot and be happy after a few tweaks in the BIOS and *maybe* one to
the drive itself.

BartPE and its children-projects will boot from USB/CD/DVD - but you
wouldn't be making an image of what you have to to that - not the way it
works and it would be quite limited in functionality in comparison to what
you want.

With any imaging application worth its salt - the size of the cloned-to disk
is only a concern if it is smaller than the data on the original source
disk. Usually a good cloning application would give you the choice of
taking up just what you need *or* the rest of the disk you are cloning to
(or something in-between.)

I believe your best bet would be one of two things:

1) Imaging the disk to an external file(set of files actually) for
restoration at a later time. This way you can keep your external drive
formatted as is/use it for other things, etc. This could just be a
directory on the external disk. The disadvantage is that to really get a
good solid image with most applications of the entire disk - you should
likely boot to something other than what you are taking the image of for
speed and 'files in use' reasons. That means having a BartPE or UBCD for
Windows CD, boot from it, mount your external drive, start up your imaging
application, make your image, boot back to the internal hard drive.
Advantage - the process to restore it back to that point in time is the same
in reverse - apply the image to the disk (or any disk you put in that
machine.) Also - you could have several different images representing
different points in time - as long as you have space on the drive.

2) Just get a drive exclusively for backup - the Seagate Replica is a good
example. It can back up all your files/folders, keep 'versions' of files
you change often so you can go back to yesterdays, the day before, etc and
can do a bare metal restore if needed. (Everything crashed - you need to
start over.) Not ot mention if you get the 500GB version - you could use it
on multiple machines to work its full magic.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


  #35  
Old May 12th 10, 11:14 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Shenan Stanley
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,523
Default Best Backup Program

David wrote:
Perhaps we could reinitiate this conversation in a more amiable
manner. I was hopeful you might have a solution to my real problem
- making the USB drive XP/PRO bootable.


In general - Windows XP will not boot from an USB drive.

If you _cloned_ your disk to it (with your favorite imaging program), took
it out of the USB case, put it in the machine - it probably would work just
fine - boot and be happy after a few tweaks in the BIOS and *maybe* one to
the drive itself.

BartPE and its children-projects will boot from USB/CD/DVD - but you
wouldn't be making an image of what you have to to that - not the way it
works and it would be quite limited in functionality in comparison to what
you want.

With any imaging application worth its salt - the size of the cloned-to disk
is only a concern if it is smaller than the data on the original source
disk. Usually a good cloning application would give you the choice of
taking up just what you need *or* the rest of the disk you are cloning to
(or something in-between.)

I believe your best bet would be one of two things:

1) Imaging the disk to an external file(set of files actually) for
restoration at a later time. This way you can keep your external drive
formatted as is/use it for other things, etc. This could just be a
directory on the external disk. The disadvantage is that to really get a
good solid image with most applications of the entire disk - you should
likely boot to something other than what you are taking the image of for
speed and 'files in use' reasons. That means having a BartPE or UBCD for
Windows CD, boot from it, mount your external drive, start up your imaging
application, make your image, boot back to the internal hard drive.
Advantage - the process to restore it back to that point in time is the same
in reverse - apply the image to the disk (or any disk you put in that
machine.) Also - you could have several different images representing
different points in time - as long as you have space on the drive.

2) Just get a drive exclusively for backup - the Seagate Replica is a good
example. It can back up all your files/folders, keep 'versions' of files
you change often so you can go back to yesterdays, the day before, etc and
can do a bare metal restore if needed. (Everything crashed - you need to
start over.) Not ot mention if you get the 500GB version - you could use it
on multiple machines to work its full magic.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


  #36  
Old May 13th 10, 12:30 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Daave[_8_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,461
Default Best Backup Program

It looks like you missed Ken's other post where he said:

"Glad to hear you say that, and I hope you're right and I was wrong."

You seem to be confusing the terms image and clone.

An image is one gigantic archive file (or it can be a series of such
files) that contains the "essence" of the totality of what is on the
hard drive. You can store this archive anywhere you'd like: on an
external drive (but it would be non-bootable *in that state*) or on a
DVD (or several DVDs, depending on the size of the archive -- even with
compression, images can be quite large!)

You can use the same software that created the image to restore it back
to the same hard drive (or another hard drive in its place, say if the
first drive physically dies). Once the image is restored, the result is
a hard drive effectively identical to how it was when the image of it
was made. Therefore, it would be bootable.

If for some reason, you desire to make an exact copy of the hard drive
directly to another hard drive, this would be a clone. If this other
hard drive is in an external enclosure, unless it is eSATA, you would
need to remove it and place it in the correct slot in your desktop tower
(probably where the original one was). This drive would also be
bootable. It's like an identical twin.

Note that if you restore an image to a bare metal drive, the result is
the same: something that is effectively an identical twin.

Cloning is preferable if you do not want to take extra time to restore
the image. You can configure your motherboard's BIOS to boot off an
eSATA clone, even if it is not in the tower. With eSATA, the PC doesn't
distinguish between internal or external drives.

If you clone your drive to a drive that is in an external USB enclosure,
it will only boot if you physically remove it from the enclosure and
place it inside the tower. It will not boot from the external enclosure
if there is no eSATA connection (despite what WaIIy stated).


David wrote:
Ken:

Perhaps you just wanted to argue with yourself. I don't know. In any
case, I used the wrong term. Does a mistake like that constitute an
arguement?

The whole point that I tried to make is I want my external USB drive
to boot Win/XP PRO in case the main hard drive fails. I had thought
an image would require a second hard drive exactly the same. I am not
sufficiently well versed to know. In any case my main hard drive is
150GB and the USB drive is 1TB. The 150GB drive is listed in my
paperwork as serial-ATA. The 1TB USB drive is an IOMEGA eGO desktop
USB drive in its own case, type unknown.

Perhaps we could reinitiate this conversation in a more amiable
manner. I was hopeful you might have a solution to my real problem -
making the USB drive XP/PRO bootable.



On Tue, 11 May 2010 16:50:32 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 19:31:09 -0400, "Daave"
wrote:

The term "mirror" is used for RAID technology:



I tried to tell him that, but since he just wanted to argue with me,
I didn't bother replying to his second message, quoted below.




http://www.bestpricecomputers.co.uk/glossary/raid-1.htm

http://www.recoverdata.com/raidfaq.htm

This does not sound like what you were asking about.

From your description below, you are referring to cloning. Is your
external hard drive specifically an eSATA hard drive? Does your
motherboard support eSATA hard drives. If you answer yes to both,
then you can use a cloning program to accomplish what you want.

Also know you can create an image of your hard drive and then
restore that image to the same or a different hard drive and your
new drive is *effectively* a clone of the original. It takes
longer, but it still safeguards all your data and allows you the
luxury of not having to reinstall the OS, updates, applications,
etc.

Or you can choose to clone directly. Your choice.


David wrote:
Ken:

I do mean mirror, not copy.

Unless I am mistaken, when you copy one drive to another, you get
the contents of the first drive copied to the second. This means
that the contents are the same, but the location on the second
drive may not be the same.

Mirroring a drive (at least to me) means just that. Not only are
the contents copied, but the exact locations on the second drive
are the same. Mirroring, I believe, also copies the boot tracks
which is essential if the mirrored drive is to be used as a
replacement boot drive in the event c: fails.

I have an external USB hard drive. the bios on my workstation
allows the external USB drive to be bootable (assuming I read the
manual correctly). I want the c: drive to be mirrored to the
external USB hard drive so I have a functional backup hard drive
in case c: fails.

David

On Tue, 11 May 2010 08:04:26 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 05:18:18 -0400, David wrote:

I am looking for recommendations on the best backup program
available.

My workstation is currently running XP PRO/SP3, but may
eventually upgrade to Windows 7, so compatability with both is a
plus.

I would like the ability to mirror my main c: drive to a bootable
external drive.


What do you mean by "mirror." That term is normally used just for
RAID1, which is very different from backup.

But if you just mean something like "copy," no problem.


I would like to be able to backup an entire internal or external
drive to a different external drive.

I do not plan on backing up to DvDs or optical disk.

Being able to backup individual directories/files would be a
plus.

Compression is unimportant. My external drive is 1TB & I have
150 GB internal capacity. I'd prefer to have a plain vanilla
backup - that is I'd be able to use Windows Explorer to view the
backup & retrieve a file if I choose.

Quality, reliability, and ease of use take precedence over cost.
If I can not accomplish what I want with one program, multiple
programs are fine.


Acronis True Image.



  #37  
Old May 13th 10, 12:30 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Daave[_8_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,461
Default Best Backup Program

It looks like you missed Ken's other post where he said:

"Glad to hear you say that, and I hope you're right and I was wrong."

You seem to be confusing the terms image and clone.

An image is one gigantic archive file (or it can be a series of such
files) that contains the "essence" of the totality of what is on the
hard drive. You can store this archive anywhere you'd like: on an
external drive (but it would be non-bootable *in that state*) or on a
DVD (or several DVDs, depending on the size of the archive -- even with
compression, images can be quite large!)

You can use the same software that created the image to restore it back
to the same hard drive (or another hard drive in its place, say if the
first drive physically dies). Once the image is restored, the result is
a hard drive effectively identical to how it was when the image of it
was made. Therefore, it would be bootable.

If for some reason, you desire to make an exact copy of the hard drive
directly to another hard drive, this would be a clone. If this other
hard drive is in an external enclosure, unless it is eSATA, you would
need to remove it and place it in the correct slot in your desktop tower
(probably where the original one was). This drive would also be
bootable. It's like an identical twin.

Note that if you restore an image to a bare metal drive, the result is
the same: something that is effectively an identical twin.

Cloning is preferable if you do not want to take extra time to restore
the image. You can configure your motherboard's BIOS to boot off an
eSATA clone, even if it is not in the tower. With eSATA, the PC doesn't
distinguish between internal or external drives.

If you clone your drive to a drive that is in an external USB enclosure,
it will only boot if you physically remove it from the enclosure and
place it inside the tower. It will not boot from the external enclosure
if there is no eSATA connection (despite what WaIIy stated).


David wrote:
Ken:

Perhaps you just wanted to argue with yourself. I don't know. In any
case, I used the wrong term. Does a mistake like that constitute an
arguement?

The whole point that I tried to make is I want my external USB drive
to boot Win/XP PRO in case the main hard drive fails. I had thought
an image would require a second hard drive exactly the same. I am not
sufficiently well versed to know. In any case my main hard drive is
150GB and the USB drive is 1TB. The 150GB drive is listed in my
paperwork as serial-ATA. The 1TB USB drive is an IOMEGA eGO desktop
USB drive in its own case, type unknown.

Perhaps we could reinitiate this conversation in a more amiable
manner. I was hopeful you might have a solution to my real problem -
making the USB drive XP/PRO bootable.



On Tue, 11 May 2010 16:50:32 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 19:31:09 -0400, "Daave"
wrote:

The term "mirror" is used for RAID technology:



I tried to tell him that, but since he just wanted to argue with me,
I didn't bother replying to his second message, quoted below.




http://www.bestpricecomputers.co.uk/glossary/raid-1.htm

http://www.recoverdata.com/raidfaq.htm

This does not sound like what you were asking about.

From your description below, you are referring to cloning. Is your
external hard drive specifically an eSATA hard drive? Does your
motherboard support eSATA hard drives. If you answer yes to both,
then you can use a cloning program to accomplish what you want.

Also know you can create an image of your hard drive and then
restore that image to the same or a different hard drive and your
new drive is *effectively* a clone of the original. It takes
longer, but it still safeguards all your data and allows you the
luxury of not having to reinstall the OS, updates, applications,
etc.

Or you can choose to clone directly. Your choice.


David wrote:
Ken:

I do mean mirror, not copy.

Unless I am mistaken, when you copy one drive to another, you get
the contents of the first drive copied to the second. This means
that the contents are the same, but the location on the second
drive may not be the same.

Mirroring a drive (at least to me) means just that. Not only are
the contents copied, but the exact locations on the second drive
are the same. Mirroring, I believe, also copies the boot tracks
which is essential if the mirrored drive is to be used as a
replacement boot drive in the event c: fails.

I have an external USB hard drive. the bios on my workstation
allows the external USB drive to be bootable (assuming I read the
manual correctly). I want the c: drive to be mirrored to the
external USB hard drive so I have a functional backup hard drive
in case c: fails.

David

On Tue, 11 May 2010 08:04:26 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 05:18:18 -0400, David wrote:

I am looking for recommendations on the best backup program
available.

My workstation is currently running XP PRO/SP3, but may
eventually upgrade to Windows 7, so compatability with both is a
plus.

I would like the ability to mirror my main c: drive to a bootable
external drive.


What do you mean by "mirror." That term is normally used just for
RAID1, which is very different from backup.

But if you just mean something like "copy," no problem.


I would like to be able to backup an entire internal or external
drive to a different external drive.

I do not plan on backing up to DvDs or optical disk.

Being able to backup individual directories/files would be a
plus.

Compression is unimportant. My external drive is 1TB & I have
150 GB internal capacity. I'd prefer to have a plain vanilla
backup - that is I'd be able to use Windows Explorer to view the
backup & retrieve a file if I choose.

Quality, reliability, and ease of use take precedence over cost.
If I can not accomplish what I want with one program, multiple
programs are fine.


Acronis True Image.



  #38  
Old May 15th 10, 06:52 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Unknown
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,007
Default Best Backup Program

Any professional in the know would be a liar if they recommended any Norton
product.
You had best go back to your dorm room and study.
"ANONYMOUS" wrote in message
...
David wrote:
I am looking for recommendations on the best backup program available.




Norton Ghost 15 or Norton 360; highly recommended by professionals in the
know.

I don't take any advice from Microsoft Valuable Pigs or MVPs after their
name as some form of microsoft tag to isolate them from ordinary pigs not
eaten by jews and muslims.

hth



  #39  
Old May 15th 10, 06:52 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Unknown
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,007
Default Best Backup Program


Any professional in the know would be a liar if they recommended any Norton
product.
You had best go back to your dorm room and study.
"ANONYMOUS" wrote in message
...
David wrote:
I am looking for recommendations on the best backup program available.




Norton Ghost 15 or Norton 360; highly recommended by professionals in the
know.

I don't take any advice from Microsoft Valuable Pigs or MVPs after their
name as some form of microsoft tag to isolate them from ordinary pigs not
eaten by jews and muslims.

hth



  #40  
Old May 15th 10, 07:18 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Anthony Buckland
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 526
Default Best Backup Program


"WaIIy" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 May 2010 19:30:42 -0400, "Daave" wrote:

Cloning is preferable if you do not want to take extra time to restore
the image. You can configure your motherboard's BIOS to boot off an
eSATA clone, even if it is not in the tower. With eSATA, the PC doesn't
distinguish between internal or external drives.

snip

Another feature is the ability to pull a file off the clone if need be.


Acronis True Image lets you mount an image as a partition, making
it easy to find, read, copy or restore individual folders or files.
Someone else might know whether other imaging programs offer
the same utility.


  #41  
Old May 15th 10, 07:18 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Anthony Buckland
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 526
Default Best Backup Program


"WaIIy" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 May 2010 19:30:42 -0400, "Daave" wrote:

Cloning is preferable if you do not want to take extra time to restore
the image. You can configure your motherboard's BIOS to boot off an
eSATA clone, even if it is not in the tower. With eSATA, the PC doesn't
distinguish between internal or external drives.

snip

Another feature is the ability to pull a file off the clone if need be.


Acronis True Image lets you mount an image as a partition, making
it easy to find, read, copy or restore individual folders or files.
Someone else might know whether other imaging programs offer
the same utility.


  #42  
Old May 15th 10, 09:04 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Unknown
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,007
Default Best Backup Program

No, she doesn't resemble your mum at all.
"ANONYMOUS" wrote in message
...
Unknown wrote:

Any professional in the know would be a liar if they recommended any
Norton product.
You had best go back to your dorm room and study.


How's your mum these days? Is she still in jiggy jiggy business to
finance your drug habits?

hth



  #43  
Old May 15th 10, 09:04 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Unknown
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,007
Default Best Backup Program


No, she doesn't resemble your mum at all.
"ANONYMOUS" wrote in message
...
Unknown wrote:

Any professional in the know would be a liar if they recommended any
Norton product.
You had best go back to your dorm room and study.


How's your mum these days? Is she still in jiggy jiggy business to
finance your drug habits?

hth



  #44  
Old May 15th 10, 11:20 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
William B. Lurie
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 811
Default Best Backup Program

Andy wrote:
Norton Ghost properly set up


And I have had great success and superb support from Symantec
(live chat) on the successors to Norton Ghost, i.e., their
Save & Restore, patterned after PowerQuest Drive Image.
I know, Norton has had a bad rep for years, and they
*earned* it.......but in the last 5 years they've come
a long long way.
  #45  
Old May 15th 10, 11:20 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
William B. Lurie
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 811
Default Best Backup Program

Andy wrote:
Norton Ghost properly set up


And I have had great success and superb support from Symantec
(live chat) on the successors to Norton Ghost, i.e., their
Save & Restore, patterned after PowerQuest Drive Image.
I know, Norton has had a bad rep for years, and they
*earned* it.......but in the last 5 years they've come
a long long way.
 




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