GoBack3 vs XP system restore ?

[aob]

Several weeks ago, I had problem with my XP computer and used system restore to restore my unit to how it was two days prior. I have no complaints.

Just got GoBack3, for my Win98 computer, and wonder should I install GoBack3 in XP, also. Does GoBack3 provide any advantages in XP to XP's system restore?

[Steve R Jones]

GoBack will backup a lot more than XP restore.

[DuaneB]

With GoBack3 you can retrieve specific files or restore your entire hard disk. System Restore is not intended to be a backup program. System Restore monitors most system files with .exe, .vxd, .dll, .com, and .sys extensions. It does not monitor user-created files (for example, files that have .txt, .doc, or .xls extensions), the My Documents folder, Temporary Internet files (including the Internet Explorer History, Cookies, or Favorites files), the Recycle Bin, or the Windows Swap (.swp) file.

[aob]

Thanks guys. This makes sense. I have sufficient hard drive space, so I think I will load in GoBack3, just in case I need it.

[Mike in Orange]

If you're serious about using a backup solution (and I don't really care which one you choose - GoBack, Ghost, DriveImage; it's up to you) you need to be aware of a couple things:

You'll have to create your backup image at the very least onto a second partition - you can't do it on the same partition as your operating system. Keep in mind that if you create a second partition for this backup but your hard drive physically fails, you're still out of luck. If you can't access the drive, you can't access your backup!

Because of this you're better off backing up to either CDs or DVDs (RW versions if you prefer) or backing up to a second physical hard drive. I use Ghost and back up my entire hard drive every week to a different physical drive, same with my wife's computer.

Also, make sure you understand how to use the software properly and that you've got emergency disks prepared. Just loading GoBack or anything else "in case you need it" won't do you much good unless you've made a backup first.

[aob]

Mike:

I have a second hard drive which I use now primarily for saving a duplicate of My Documents and for my grand's games. My idea would be to backup to this second hard drive on a weekly basis and restore from there. Does this make sense?

[Mike in Orange]

Yep, that's the way I do it. Like I said, I use Ghost, and it has saved my butt a couple of times. I like that you can also restore just the files you need in case of operator error. When I bought my new PDA I made a mistake with my first sync, and, well, not sure exactly what I did wrong but I wiped out my entire contact list in my Outlook .pst file. I just browsed my Ghost image and restored the file I needed. What a major relief.

Honestly, my concern with your post (and I may have misinterpreted it) was that you were going to install GoBack and then attempt to use it much like XP System Restore. You would have been left high and dry if that's all you did, and I didnt' want you to have a false sense of security. It is WAY too depressing to lose everything you've created - I should know; been there, done that, didn't even get a T-Shirt. I won't let it happen to me again!

[LotusAstra]

My advice, don't depend on either GoBack or System as your one and only line of protection... Both GoBack & System are not an alternative to a good backup routine... and if you have a good backup routine then you would probably find GoBack and System Restore useless hindrances that you don't need...

Remember that with a backup image, you make the image now (and store it safe), then at any time you can restore the whole (or part of) image and all should be good... Making backup images just requires a moment of downtime to create and restore images, but other than that it uses ZERO system resources and you don't need to install any extra programs to achieve this, ghost will run from floppy or CD... It's a complete protection that can recover you from ANY software/data/virus or drive failure that can happen (as long as you store the image safely and it's recent enough to cover loss)... if you currently have your system how you want it and you want to avoid installing windows/programs/settings/tweaks/etc again then backup imaging is probably the way to go.

When you really look at the practicality of things like GoBack and System Restore they are not too good or useful IMO... Both consume system resources and permanently slow down your PC, also most of the files they backup are probably useless without the complete collection of other files... either program will not restore a complete drive, so if your drive fails GoBack/System Restore won't help at all cuz everything would be gone with the dead drive...

Personally i think making backup images is the way to go for most people, if you keep a small %systemdrive% then things will be quick to restore, on a newish system it's quicker than a 1GB/min to restore so in some cases you could restore your a complete drive in less than a minute... I wouldn't put either GoBack or System Restore anywhere near my PC's (i bought my PC to use it's performance, not degrade it unnecessarily), i even remove system restore from XP so it's not even an option to enable any more.

If you really feel you need some kinda real-time protection then IMO an undelete program might be better suited (in addition to making regular backup images of course), it wont drain any resources and you only fire it up when you need it, it could get you out of a sticky situation if you accidentally delete something between making those backup images.

The only thing that gets to me about Ghost is the amount of space that's required to store multiple backup images, this is why you need to keep your %systemdrive% and consequently your images as small as possible to save space and make imaging quicker.

Another free option for installing XP is to do it the unattended method... then you can just pop in the CD, reboot and go away, when you come back your windows XP is installed and ready to use without any user input... you can also, optionally, have XP install most/all your favourite programs/drivers/updates/tweaks etc for you automatically while it's doing it's thing... i've recently been using this method and saving many GB's of space rather than all those Ghost Images.

Regards

[aob]

LotusAstra:

What software allows one to make a backup image?

Where do you store your backup image? CDs?

If the system becomes corrupt and you want to restore to the status of last week, for example, does the backup image actually replace the existing corrupt files, all files, or what?

You can tell by my questions that I am not sure how this works.

[Ridgerunr]

I agree wholeheartedly with LotusAstra, GoBack is a major resource hog. It can also cause problems when you try to defrag because it tries to repeat everything going on in defrag and can crash it. Sure,you can shut it off to defrag,but if you do,the restore points are gone. As far as 'system' restore goes,as the name says,only 'system' files will be backed up. So you can/will lose your personal files/programs more than likely.

Ghost is a good way to go for many. I,however, changed over to Acronis True Image several months ago. I like it's interface and the fact that it's run from Windows with no need for dos or shutting things down before using. It's rescue program can either be run from floppies or a boot CD it will make for you. You can set it to do incremental backups either on a schedule you choose or automatically. It has high compression and I can fit over 4Gigs(my C: drive) on 4 CD-R's. It also offers a 'virtual drive' where you can restore individual files and programs from.

Whatever you choose,as said,be sure to put your backup on a different drive and make a 'hard' copy of your backup to be safe...

edit: I was typing when you posted,but I use Nero to burn my backup image(s) after backing up. TI offers(as does ghost)to let you split the image to sizes that will fit on CD(s) You need to label the disks as #1,#2,etc. because they will be asked for in order at a restore. As to 'where to store',it depends on how critical your images are. In a fireproof lock box or off premise if 'very' critical...

[LotusAstra]

Originally posted by aob
What software allows one to make a backup image?

The most common programs i know of are "Norton Ghost", "PowerQuest Drive Image" and "Acronis True Image"...

Myself i use "Norton Ghost", i've used it now for just over a couple years and it's very reliable, it's saved my bacon many times. I've tried the other programs i mentioned too, they all seem to work well, just my preference to stay with Ghost due to the good experience i've had with it.

Originally posted by aob
Where do you store your backup image? CDs?

I store my backups on a separate HardDrive and use CD's for the stuff i want to archive (DVD's would be sweet too)... The separate drive i use is removable so i can pull it out from the PC to keep backups safer... You could use a second hard drive that's in the PC, but it's not as safe as it could be, and wouldn't protect against a bad virus or PC theft... As for how far you go to protect your data depends on it's importance to you... For extremely critical data it's wise to store backup's off-site to protect from 'almost' all eventualities, just burning an extra copy to store at a friends house should do.

If you wanted to use a removable drive you can buy a cage that will hold a regular hard drive, one part of the cage is mounted in the PC and the other part holds the drive... You just shutdown the PC and can pull out the drive (and/or swap it for another drive) as and when needed (similar kinda idea to the pull-out car radios from back in the day)... These cage's are quite cheap, i paid £7 each for mine a couple years ago and bought 3 of them so i can swap drives around easier.

Originally posted by aob If the system becomes corrupt and you want to restore to the status of last week, for example, does the backup image actually replace the existing corrupt files, all files, or what?
[/B]

When you make an Image it will capture the entire drive/partition as it is at that time, it will be identical in every way, it's an exact copy...

For restoring, as said you can either restore just some chosen files or you can restore the whole drive/partition in its entirity...

If you restore just some selected files then only what you selected will be restored (to any chosen location)... But if you restore the whole image then everything that was on the drive (including all problems) will be gone and replaced by the contents of the backup image --- I always restore the complete image, sometimes quite often so it keeps the system in top shape without building up junk, this way i never need to do any of the usual OS maintenance like uninstalling apps/cleaning up/defraging etc.

To make things easier to manage you will IMO be best to separate your OS and programs from your personal files/data... I never store my personal files/data on the %systemdrive% at all, i keep the %systemdrive% for just OS and programs and can restore it quickly (about 45secs) without losing any of my recent files/data that are on other partitions, this essentially make my %systemdrive% disposable, i can try anything, experiment and mess it up while learning from my mistakes and know that it can all quickly be back how it was.

I use Ghost for just system backups only (OS/apps etc), not for my other files/data... But you could use Ghost for your regular data backups to, it would be perfect for that, short or long term backups... but i wouldn't use it for long term archiving...

...like i said, my other data (word docs, email, audio/video files and everything else etc (everything except OS and apps)) are on other partitions, i occasionally duplicate my data to my removable hard drive and/or just burn this data to CD (regular data CD's) as and when i have enough to fill 700MB's...

In a similar way to the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket"... Don't put all your important files in one zip archive or ghost image... when i burn archives of my data i prefer to keep data in its original format so i can get easy access when needed on any system, and also have a greater degree of protection against CD scratches/decay.

A situation you want to try and avoid is where you have a ghost image of your PC that spans several CD's, if one of those CD's gets corrupt then the whole set is useless for restoring your PC, if this situation can't be avoided by either making the images smaller or using a hard drive, then do burn more than one copy for extra peace of mind... same thing for storing zip archives on CD if the archive gets corrupt the whole thing is probably gone...

No worries with the questions, keeps my fingers fit

Regards

[Sal_gal]

How often should I backup Home XP? I only backed up once, about 4 months ago. Each time I backup does it take up MORE space????

[SuperSparks]

I make a Ghost backup every couple of weeks, unless I haven't made any changes at all in that period, in which case there's no point. I have a system where I keep 2 images, and I delete the oldest image each time I create a new one. Also I have a master image on CDR with just the basic Windows installation with my settings and drivers, but nothing else - it's still a lot quicker than doing a clean re-install.

The size of the image depends entirely on how big the Windows partition is. For that reason I install most of my apps onto a separate partition, which keeps the Windows image files down to a reasonable size.

[Sal_gal]

Until I can get a bigger hard drive, is it OK to put the backup on an external drive? Maybe a Hard drive or Zip?

[SuperSparks]

Not only is it OK, it's actually better to do so - that way if your Windows drive fails you've still got the backup safe and sound. You won't fit the image on a zip disk though.