Using Zip for backup/archive

Hello,

I need to develope a backup/archive solution that can be run from a
command console (cmd.exe). I was thinking of using the Info-Zip zip
program http://www.info-zip.org/ as follows:

zip -r -q -S Backup.zip c:\*.*

where

-r = recurse into directories
-q = quiet operation
-S = include system and hidden files
c: = the WinXP system drive

The purpose of Backup.zip would be to keep an archive that can use to
restore the c: drive by booting from BartPE and unziping Backup.zip
back to c:

Does this have a chance of working for a restore? Is there something
out there better than Info-Zip for this?

Thanks for any comments.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I need to develope a backup/archive solution that can be run from a
command console (cmd.exe). I was thinking of using the Info-Zip zip
program http://www.info-zip.org/ as follows:

zip -r -q -S Backup.zip c:\*.*

where

-r = recurse into directories
-q = quiet operation
-S = include system and hidden files
c: = the WinXP system drive

The purpose of Backup.zip would be to keep an archive that can use to
restore the c: drive by booting from BartPE and unziping Backup.zip
back to c:

Does this have a chance of working for a restore? Is there something
out there better than Info-Zip for this?

Thanks for any comments.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.



My personal feeling is that I will "never" use anything to backup that
compresses files or takes many files and coagulates them into one file.

I have seen way too many problems over the past 18 years where a person can
not get to his backups because of file corruption. If a .zip file containing
20,000 small files goes bad (it happens) you can't get to ANY file within
the container.

Just my thinking on the subject!

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I need to develope a backup/archive solution that can be run from a
command console (cmd.exe). I was thinking of using the Info-Zip zip
program http://www.info-zip.org/ as follows:

zip -r -q -S Backup.zip c:\*.*

where

-r = recurse into directories
-q = quiet operation
-S = include system and hidden files
c: = the WinXP system drive

The purpose of Backup.zip would be to keep an archive that can use to
restore the c: drive by booting from BartPE and unziping Backup.zip
back to c:

Does this have a chance of working for a restore? Is there something
out there better than Info-Zip for this?

Thanks for any comments.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.



My personal feeling is that I will "never" use anything to backup that
compresses files or takes many files and coagulates them into one file.

I have seen way too many problems over the past 18 years where a person can
not get to his backups because of file corruption. If a .zip file containing
20,000 small files goes bad (it happens) you can't get to ANY file within
the container.

Just my thinking on the subject!

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:04:16 -0400, "Richard Urban"
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

My personal feeling is that I will "never" use anything to backup that
compresses files or takes many files and coagulates them into one file.

I have seen way too many problems over the past 18 years where a person can
not get to his backups because of file corruption. If a .zip file containing
20,000 small files goes bad (it happens) you can't get to ANY file within
the container.

Just my thinking on the subject!


Good and valid point Richard.

However, that would be the case with any backup approach that uses a
single container file wouldn't it (e.g. DIxml image backup)? The only
way I can think of to avoid that is to make an uncompressed copy of
all the individual files on c: and that isn't an option due to disk
space limitations.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:04:16 -0400, "Richard Urban"
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

My personal feeling is that I will "never" use anything to backup that
compresses files or takes many files and coagulates them into one file.

I have seen way too many problems over the past 18 years where a person can
not get to his backups because of file corruption. If a .zip file containing
20,000 small files goes bad (it happens) you can't get to ANY file within
the container.

Just my thinking on the subject!


Good and valid point Richard.

However, that would be the case with any backup approach that uses a
single container file wouldn't it (e.g. DIxml image backup)? The only
way I can think of to avoid that is to make an uncompressed copy of
all the individual files on c: and that isn't an option due to disk
space limitations.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

One way that I have seen is to compute an xor of a suitable number of
sectors, At these intervals, the program writes an xor sector. A corrupted
sector can be recovered by computing the xor of the uncorrupted sectos and
the xor sector.

Of course, this method creates a file which expands rather than compresses.
But the purpose of a backup file is to be able to recover files despite
hardware errors.

Jim
"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:04:16 -0400, "Richard Urban"
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

My personal feeling is that I will "never" use anything to backup that
compresses files or takes many files and coagulates them into one file.

I have seen way too many problems over the past 18 years where a person
can
not get to his backups because of file corruption. If a .zip file
containing
20,000 small files goes bad (it happens) you can't get to ANY file within
the container.

Just my thinking on the subject!


Good and valid point Richard.

However, that would be the case with any backup approach that uses a
single container file wouldn't it (e.g. DIxml image backup)? The only
way I can think of to avoid that is to make an uncompressed copy of
all the individual files on c: and that isn't an option due to disk
space limitations.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

One way that I have seen is to compute an xor of a suitable number of
sectors, At these intervals, the program writes an xor sector. A corrupted
sector can be recovered by computing the xor of the uncorrupted sectos and
the xor sector.

Of course, this method creates a file which expands rather than compresses.
But the purpose of a backup file is to be able to recover files despite
hardware errors.

Jim
"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:04:16 -0400, "Richard Urban"
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

My personal feeling is that I will "never" use anything to backup that
compresses files or takes many files and coagulates them into one file.

I have seen way too many problems over the past 18 years where a person
can
not get to his backups because of file corruption. If a .zip file
containing
20,000 small files goes bad (it happens) you can't get to ANY file within
the container.

Just my thinking on the subject!


Good and valid point Richard.

However, that would be the case with any backup approach that uses a
single container file wouldn't it (e.g. DIxml image backup)? The only
way I can think of to avoid that is to make an uncompressed copy of
all the individual files on c: and that isn't an option due to disk
space limitations.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

Caesar,

You may want to look at Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acrontis True Image. I'm
sure that many other dedicated backup programs are good too.

I use Norton Ghost. It allows me to automatically make a monthly backup and
daily incremental backups starting the first of each month. It also can split
those files into 700 Mb. or 4 Gig. files so that I can copy them to CD or
Thumb Drive that's formated for FAT 32.

Others probably do those things too. I'm just not familiar with them.

Milt


Caesar Romano" wrote:

Hello,

I need to develope a backup/archive solution that can be run from a
command console (cmd.exe). I was thinking of using the Info-Zip zip
program http://www.info-zip.org/ as follows:

zip -r -q -S Backup.zip c:\*.*

where

-r = recurse into directories
-q = quiet operation
-S = include system and hidden files
c: = the WinXP system drive

The purpose of Backup.zip would be to keep an archive that can use to
restore the c: drive by booting from BartPE and unziping Backup.zip
back to c:

Does this have a chance of working for a restore? Is there something
out there better than Info-Zip for this?

Thanks for any comments.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

Caesar,

You may want to look at Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acrontis True Image. I'm
sure that many other dedicated backup programs are good too.

I use Norton Ghost. It allows me to automatically make a monthly backup and
daily incremental backups starting the first of each month. It also can split
those files into 700 Mb. or 4 Gig. files so that I can copy them to CD or
Thumb Drive that's formated for FAT 32.

Others probably do those things too. I'm just not familiar with them.

Milt


Caesar Romano" wrote:

Hello,

I need to develope a backup/archive solution that can be run from a
command console (cmd.exe). I was thinking of using the Info-Zip zip
program http://www.info-zip.org/ as follows:

zip -r -q -S Backup.zip c:\*.*

where

-r = recurse into directories
-q = quiet operation
-S = include system and hidden files
c: = the WinXP system drive

The purpose of Backup.zip would be to keep an archive that can use to
restore the c: drive by booting from BartPE and unziping Backup.zip
back to c:

Does this have a chance of working for a restore? Is there something
out there better than Info-Zip for this?

Thanks for any comments.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

"Caesar Romano" wrote in message

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:04:16 -0400, "Richard Urban"
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

My personal feeling is that I will "never" use anything to backup
that compresses files or takes many files and coagulates them into
one file.

I have seen way too many problems over the past 18 years where a
person can not get to his backups because of file corruption. If a
.zip file containing 20,000 small files goes bad (it happens) you
can't get to ANY file within the container.

Just my thinking on the subject!


Good and valid point Richard.

However, that would be the case with any backup approach that uses a
single container file wouldn't it (e.g. DIxml image backup)? The only
way I can think of to avoid that is to make an uncompressed copy of
all the individual files on c: and that isn't an option due to disk
space limitations.

I wouldn't consider that much of an issue with a well running,
uncompromised PC. ANY good backup application can compress and the
results are always in only one file. Uncompressed copies are completely
unneccessary and if it is a concern, then use the provided Verify
options where checksums are created and matched to the originals. It's
just not an issue. It's also a good idea to create permenent backup
records by copying them to DVDs periodically. Then even if the whole
computer gets fried, you hopefully still have the DVDs to get started
with again and a few different date choices to choose from.
Using DVDs also helps with the space limitations; delete it from the
computer disk after copying to DVD. Or better yet, get an external
drive to back up to. The one terabyte drives are very reasonably priced
right now.

HTH,

Twayne`

"Caesar Romano" wrote in message

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:04:16 -0400, "Richard Urban"
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

My personal feeling is that I will "never" use anything to backup
that compresses files or takes many files and coagulates them into
one file.

I have seen way too many problems over the past 18 years where a
person can not get to his backups because of file corruption. If a
.zip file containing 20,000 small files goes bad (it happens) you
can't get to ANY file within the container.

Just my thinking on the subject!


Good and valid point Richard.

However, that would be the case with any backup approach that uses a
single container file wouldn't it (e.g. DIxml image backup)? The only
way I can think of to avoid that is to make an uncompressed copy of
all the individual files on c: and that isn't an option due to disk
space limitations.

I wouldn't consider that much of an issue with a well running,
uncompromised PC. ANY good backup application can compress and the
results are always in only one file. Uncompressed copies are completely
unneccessary and if it is a concern, then use the provided Verify
options where checksums are created and matched to the originals. It's
just not an issue. It's also a good idea to create permenent backup
records by copying them to DVDs periodically. Then even if the whole
computer gets fried, you hopefully still have the DVDs to get started
with again and a few different date choices to choose from.
Using DVDs also helps with the space limitations; delete it from the
computer disk after copying to DVD. Or better yet, get an external
drive to back up to. The one terabyte drives are very reasonably priced
right now.

HTH,

Twayne`

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:15:35 -0400, "Twayne"
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

Using DVDs also helps with the space limitations; delete it from the
computer disk after copying to DVD. Or better yet, get an external
drive to back up to. The one terabyte drives are very reasonably priced
right now.

HTH,

Twayne`

Thanks Twayne. Good suggestions, but I'm opperating on a $0 budget. I
should explain.

A widow neighbor lady wants to keep in touch with her grandchildren in
Aultralia. She's on a very limited budget. I had an old computer
laying around that I had rebuilt from scrounged parts and given to her
so she could use email via dialup. The computer is pretty reliable,
but the widow lady doesn't know much about them, and will probably
screw something up pretty soon. I would like to have a generate a good
backup every couple months, so when the anticipated user error occurs,
I can boot a BartPE CD and restore the last known good backup via a
simple and free unzip.

She'll loose some email, but I won't have to rebuild the system. I'm
just wondering if using zip to make the backup and BartPE+unzip to
restore has a chance of really working.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:15:35 -0400, "Twayne"
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

Using DVDs also helps with the space limitations; delete it from the
computer disk after copying to DVD. Or better yet, get an external
drive to back up to. The one terabyte drives are very reasonably priced
right now.

HTH,

Twayne`

Thanks Twayne. Good suggestions, but I'm opperating on a $0 budget. I
should explain.

A widow neighbor lady wants to keep in touch with her grandchildren in
Aultralia. She's on a very limited budget. I had an old computer
laying around that I had rebuilt from scrounged parts and given to her
so she could use email via dialup. The computer is pretty reliable,
but the widow lady doesn't know much about them, and will probably
screw something up pretty soon. I would like to have a generate a good
backup every couple months, so when the anticipated user error occurs,
I can boot a BartPE CD and restore the last known good backup via a
simple and free unzip.

She'll loose some email, but I won't have to rebuild the system. I'm
just wondering if using zip to make the backup and BartPE+unzip to
restore has a chance of really working.
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:13:01 -0700, Milt
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

Caesar,

You may want to look at Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acrontis True Image. I'm
sure that many other dedicated backup programs are good too.

I use Norton Ghost. It allows me to automatically make a monthly backup and
daily incremental backups starting the first of each month. It also can split
those files into 700 Mb. or 4 Gig. files so that I can copy them to CD or
Thumb Drive that's formated for FAT 32.

Others probably do those things too. I'm just not familiar with them.

Milt

Thanks for the suggestions Milt. I should have mentioned two other
constraints. The solution needs to be freeware, and needs to backup to
the same drive (c:, the only drive available).
--
I filter all messages from google groups.

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:13:01 -0700, Milt
wrote Re Using Zip for
backup/archive:

Caesar,

You may want to look at Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acrontis True Image. I'm
sure that many other dedicated backup programs are good too.

I use Norton Ghost. It allows me to automatically make a monthly backup and
daily incremental backups starting the first of each month. It also can split
those files into 700 Mb. or 4 Gig. files so that I can copy them to CD or
Thumb Drive that's formated for FAT 32.

Others probably do those things too. I'm just not familiar with them.

Milt

Thanks for the suggestions Milt. I should have mentioned two other
constraints. The solution needs to be freeware, and needs to backup to
the same drive (c:, the only drive available).
--
I filter all messages from google groups.