No apologies I'm at it again.
Loads of posts about hard drive failures and no backups, so don't let it happen to you.
Backup today, before it's too late.
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No apologies I'm at it again.
Loads of posts about hard drive failures and no backups, so don't let it happen to you.
Backup today, before it's too late.
You have that right.
Hell yeah to that!! i lost 5 gigs worth of family photos and home vids it was painfull let me tell you all those late nights transfering our vhs tapes onto the computer
Remeber do regular backups because you think it won't happen but it will!!!
Given all the backup options available today and the speed and ease with which backing up can be done there's really no excuse not to follow some sort of backup regiment. Unless of course everyhing one has on their computer is just unnecessary/useless clutter.
Doc, that is usually the case in most computers users. :(Quote:
Unless of course everyhing one has on their computer is just unnecessary/useless clutter.
I hate to admit it, but I've never done a back up and usually, or should I say thankfully, never had a crash.....well, unless you call having a brand new Seagate that wouldn't boot to XP Pro, a crash. ;) But I've got Norton's Ghost 2003 (with tutorial) now and plan on doing my first ever backup this week.
Any suggestions before I start this project?
There is always "some" files one has that they don't want to go bye-bye it would seem. And even if not, people may have customizations, tweaks, whatever. It is far quicker to restore an image with a snapshot of what ya had then to go through a reinstall and recustonization. Heck, even if ya don't have a hard drive crash or the like, having a viable backup can help one more quickly overcome a bad software install/change, recover something accidentally deleted/changed, etc.
But of course its always up to the individual as to whether they want to be bothered or what they want to be bothered with.
Ok one question has me wondering. When I get this started and then at the point in time, I want to restore the backup to the computer, does this mean I can do so without having to reinstall all my programs? That's the reason my daughter gives in my reinstalling the o/s when she has computer problems. If I ghosted her computer I could restore without having to reinstall all programs and drivers?
If you back up a mirror image of a HD, incl. the MBR, then I believe that you should be able to restore it without having to reinstall anything(applications, drivers, etc.) if the HD which receives the mirror image is assigned the same letter as the previous HD.
Photolady, whenever I build a machine for anybody I always partition their HDD into at least two partitions, one of these I keep FAT32 and name it Restore.
Once the install of XP is perfect with all the correct drivers etc I then image the C partition into a folder on the Restore partition.
This means if they completely stuff their machine it can be put back to how I gave it to them, in 10 mins.
So the image file is an exact copy of that partition at the time you done the image.
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My backup method
My computer is setup with two removable HDD caddies and an external USB 2 HDD caddy; this means that any of my HDD’s are able to go in any of three slots.
I do a perfect install of Windows, I then use Norton Ghost and make an image of my C: drive into a folder on another partition D:\Restore, that image remains there and is also copied to my USB external Hard Drive and to DVD.
Periodically I'll take further images of the C drive which is kept on my USB external Hard Drive and DVD’s if important enough.
Everything that I create myself I keep in folders on my D: drive, this includes my e-mails and copies of my address book etc. Then about once a week, I create a folder and name it with that days date. I then copy all my creations to that folder and burn the whole folder to CDR and also copy it to my USB external Hard Drive. Of course once burnt to CDR the folder with today’s date can be deleted, as the originals are still in their positions on the D: drive.
If disaster strikes my C: drive I would simply restore my computer with my ghost image from D: and carry on working or playing as all my own creations are also stored on D:
If the Hard Drive dies and has to be replaced I would then restore from my USB external Hard Drive or CDR backups.
It's also a very good idea to keep your backups away from the computer. HDD failure is not your only problem it could be stolen or in a fire, then the backups go with it.
It works for me.
Thanks Phil. I guess I should start this process asap, for with all things, what can go wrong, will........in my situation. ;) But provided I follow your suggestions, then what goes wrong can be fixed. :)
My present drive is a 20gb WD; however, next week I'm installing a new Seagate 80gb. How hard is it to partition a drive? I've never done this either. Well, my drives have always been kind of small in gb's, so I saw no need to partition them. ;)
You don't mention just how you're going to do the backup--to another hard drive? That is the method I use and highly recommend. It couldn't be easier and it backs up EVERYTHING exactly as it is at the time of the backup. You have an exact duplicate of your main drive. If something goes wrong or you suddenly have a problem you can't solve simply ghost the backup drive to the main drive and you're exactly where you were a the time of the backup. Also, if you have a hard drive crash and have to replace the main drive you simply install the new hard drive and ghost the backup and you're back in business in minimal time. I've recommended this to method to family and friends and have gotten thanks many times. It can really save you lots of time and aggrevation. If you want to make major changes or experiment with your system simply do a ghost backup prior to messing around and if you foul up big time just ghost back and there ya go. Once you set this up you'll wonder how you lived without it.
Good luck!
It's very east to partition with FDISK and a complete doddle with partition magic, there's plenty of tutorials around, any problems I'll find one for you.
If you don't want to go down the partition route you could install your O/S on your new HDD and use the old one for backups, as long as they don't get too big.
dneilson, probably on DVD since I just got a new burner and I'm dying to try it. So far, I've only watched movies with it. ;)
Phil, thanks, I think I'll just keep the larger drive unpartitioned and use the smaller one for backups. Since getting the DVD burner will be used to store photos and such, I won't need the 20gb for that anyway. I get most confused when it comes to clusters. :eek:
dneilson, as I said above I copy the image to an external HDD and to DVD, having another HDD is great except you're not covered so well for fire or theft.Quote:
Originally posted by Philgo
I do a perfect install of Windows, I then use Norton Ghost and make an image of my C: drive into a folder on another partition D:\Restore, that image remains there and is also copied to my USB external Hard Drive and to DVD.
Philgo--Agreed, your method is excellent. Any method that has your complete system backed up is the way to go.
photolady--You may be missing an important point. You might want to reread my post and give it some thought. Suppose right after reading this your computer irretrievably crashed. You wouldn't even be able to look at those great photos on DVD until your system was up and running again. I don't know what all you have on your system but I'm sure we're talking at least many hours and possibly days to get it back to where you are right now. With a ghosted back up of the entire drive it's a matter of minutes. Not trying to give you a hard time---just trying to make a very important point.
dneilson, I believe that photolady is going to store an image of her C drive onto her old HDD.
Then as her HDD gets full she plans to store photo's onto DVD's.
I see nothing wrong with this method, although I would store the photo's on an external HDD as well.
Philgo--I see nothing wrong with that method either but I didn't read her post as that was what she was going to do. Old age is truly hell. Whatever she does let's wish her well.
I know how you feel, some days I'm 138:D
Back ups by burning to disk can be accomplished as the last step of a maintenence, malware dertection, and backup session which when set up does not take as long as you might think.
In other words clean out your computer files, run malware programs, and back up in that order. I guarantee your computer will be a happy optimum running computer. (Not so apt to lose a HDD either) :)
Actaully, phil I have no intention of putting my photos on anything other than a DVD or CD, depending on sizes of folders. The originals are still in film format not digital. If I ever get around to this, I wanted them on DVD to start a "card catalog" for easier finding. Looking through thousands of negatives for one photo isn't my ideal conditions. ;)
GG1 I always run spyware/malware software.......at least twice a week, if not more. Depends on if I download and install programs I'm not familar with.
I plan to ghost the drive I'm using now to the 80gb, and would like to have a backup several times so as not to have to do what I usually do, and that's wipe and painstakingly reinstall all programs/drivers.
That should explain my questions better. ;)
Photolady, Don't forget the first step - maintenence- which gives the best results in how your machine runs. You don't back up junk this way. Keep it as lean and mean as you can.
And when you work with photos you're working with alot of MBs.
:) ;) :)
Yes, GG1 I will run maintenance on this before I do the ghosting. I have lots of photos on here now that need burning but wanted to scan more first....photos folder only has 304mb so far...not even enough for a cd yet. ;)
Plus I'll probably just burn what's in my documents folder then empty that before starting.
From my experience,even a backup 'program' can go wrong. I had this happen with Acronis TI once. Tried to restore from dvd's using the boot cd I created with TI. The boot disk worked ok,but when the dvd was put in,it gave an error that it couldn't read the disk. Same with the second disk. Thought about it awhile,then did this. Wiped the C drive. Did an XP-Pro install from scratch. After it was up n' running,installed TI. Copied over the backup from the dvd's to a partition on my second HDD. Did a restore from Windoze and it worked fine. At the Acronis forum,read where others had the same problem. Nothing is infallible I 'spose.:(
Photolady, with 'me' it's music and ol' time radio shows. I keep these on a second HDD. I also burn them to dvd with the udf format using Nero. What used to take up 30+ cd's can be put on about 7 dvd's.
Not all that familiar with ghost 2003,but with TI, I can do incremental(add-on) backups to the primary backup on a schedule or whenever I like. Depending on whether i've recently installed a program update or made other changes. A snapshot is taken of the C drive and only the 'changed' portion(s) is re-written to the original backup.
If I consider it important enough,such as a service pack or M$ hotfix, I also re-copy it to dvd. Try to keep my C drive uncluttered enough so it fits on 2 disks. Oh yeah, TI also lets you 'split' the backup into sizes that will fit on more than one disk. I tell it to use a 3GB split. Works well for me...:)
If ya use Ghost how i have done in the past, you wouldn't need to do any maintenance, cuz if you don't use or abuse the PC prior to Ghosting then there is nothing to be maintained... In other words, start off by making an image of a clean unused install, then install your software, drivers, settings, tweaks etc and create another image... at this stage there would be no junk on your system and no reason for any maintenance, then at any point in the future when the PC needs any kinda TLC just restore this image you made and everything will be back to clean and lean again...
As time goes by and the software within this image becomes outdated, you update it by just restoring it, then install/update any new software/drivers etc and create a new image for use next time things go to pot... It's so easy to do, and restoration is very fast, one of the main downsides to disk imaging is the amount of disk space you will require for storing these backup images, the other downside is for those that have more than one system.
Don't forget about unattended installations guys/gals, it's totally free and can achieve pretty much the same goal as disk imaging, but cleaner... It's of more benefit to someone with multiple systems too, or someone that installs systems for a friend/customer, but would work just the same no matter how many PC's you own... It's much easier to maintain than Ghosting (ie, new version of a program just means swapping an executable, old for new), it don't require any extra disk space for storage of many backups and with just a single disk you can restore every PC you buy even if they all have different hardware... I'm sure some of you appreciate the power of unattended installations already, but for those that don't I'd say it's worth looking into at-least, however, if ya don't know what a batch file or VMware is then it's probably best you use Ghost or something else.
Philgo, i know you already do unattended installations of windows, just wondering if you'd got around to including drivers, tweaks and all your software yet? I'm still using it here and wish I'd have known about it earlier.
Regards :)
Hi Lotus, no I still haven't got around to it, I'll give it a go next time I'm sitting at my computer wondering what to do.
You'll have to put them on the HDD first:DQuote:
Originally posted by photolady
Actaully, phil I have no intention of putting my photos on anything other than a DVD or CD, depending on sizes of folders. The originals are still in film format not digital. If I ever get around to this, I wanted them on DVD to start a "card catalog" for easier finding. Looking through thousands of negatives for one photo isn't my ideal conditions. ;)
Lotus, you are as sad as me, using your computer this time in the morning:D
LOL, true :D
BTW, good to see one of these type of threads again.
So you'll be making one of these unattended CD's next time ya switch on your PC then? :D
Yes, I'll definately give it a go.
Cool, you'll probably enjoy the challenge, it's real nice when it does just what you want and all's going to plan, takes a bit of trial and error mind (well, for me it did)... but that's all part of the fun... :)
Yeh, I hate it when things work first time, lucky it doesn't happen very often :D
Lotus, you caught me. What is an unattended installation? :)
greengoose1, I made a bootdisk to do an unattended install, here http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sho...ght=unattended
Lotus, has since gone a lot further by finding tools to add software, drivers etc.
Hi Plilgo, I missed all this I'm afraid. But like to make up disks. I remember JT Doom's "Butter" as he called it. But as I recall he did not go in this direction.
Looked at the thread you refered to and got that info. If LotusAstra can add to this with some of the details when he shows up, I for one, would appreciate some more of what he has done. Like to play with boot disks. Sure helps the on hands learning process.
Lotus, talked about it in this thread http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sho...ght=unattended
Thanks Philgo. :)
Cheers Philgo, that could have saved me some typing :D, but I've typed it now so here's some more info anyway... :)
Hi greengoose1, essentially an unattended installation is the same as an attended install, except it's unattended (ie: you don't have to be there to push buttons and answer questions), you pre-configure everything before-hand so when it comes to time to install/recover the system you just boot from the install disk, select the partition to install to and half an hour later the OS, service pack & hotfixes, drivers and software is all installed for you, all customisations to the OS (inc user accounts/rights, IE and explorer views, start menu, theme, wallpaper, icons & menus etc) can also be included so you get everything how you want it, just like you would do manually, except you would be creating scripts to automate things for you.
The reasoning behind doing this is that once you have a complete unattended install setup you can immediately cut down or remove the need altogether for doing regular OS backups on every system you own, which is a great bonus for those of us with several PC's or multiple OS's, this leaves us to concentrate on backing up just our data files, the important stuff.
For further info, see the "unattended XP Install" guide (linked in my signature), read the intro, and if it (and what I've said) sounds like something you'd benefit from, go ahead and follow the rest of the guide to create an install disk that will be useful/expandable for many years to come, it can be quickly adapted to work for Windows 2000/2003 and i believe even longhorn may use a similar installation routine, so it should have a use many years down the line. That's the guide i followed, all step by step, and their forums usually have most questions already answered for you, it's all their for the taking...
You can use multiple CD's, a hard drive, or a DVD to include all those large programs you install, i don't have a DVD burner yet, so a second CD containing some of the more larger installations like Office, Audio/Video/photo editing stuff etc is what i use, i used WIHU (link also in my sig) to create the menu for this second CD so that choosing what to install is just a case of selecting from a series of check boxes. I also added Partition/Boot Magic and Ghost to the main install CD, got a nice menu that appears up after booting the CD, if i eventually go the DVD route I'd probably include BartPE on it too. I do find it all rather addictive as some of you probably guessed :)
Automation, love it... one of the great things about PC's is they do exactly what they are told to do :)
Regards :)
Hey LotusAstra, I appreciate the info. When the same thing is said different ways it helps clarify the subject. I use both floppies and CD's in the saving of data as well as data disks you have to open up to get to the file and bootable disks. Also you can make them to help in maintence and general tools for the "toolbox". As you said alot of time can be saved in different tasks.
Thanks for your views. It all helps as I be a slow learner. :D :D
No worries mate, i hope people find it as useful as i do...
Gotta admit tho, people here surprisingly don't seem to be very impressed with the unattended install method, or maybe they just don't post their opinion? but anyway, i think it's a very relevant option for PC recovery and I find it very useful to have.
Regards :)
I find the idea of interest, but to find the time to mess with it is something else again. Definately going to have to cut back on other projects. :(