Where is back-up program in WinXP?

I want to backup all of my prog. before i re-boot my oOS.

 

Which version of Windows XP? Home or Pro?

A Search of the Windows XP forum archive turned up a number of hits when querying for backup. This is one:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5233&highlight=backup

 

thanks and clarification

Thanks for link . However my OS is xp Home and has come preinstalled on my ACER and doesn't have cdrom for WNXP.

How should I proceed ?

 

Hi panchal

As you know from reading that link, I'm in the same boat you are.

I have done two things, first I bought Instant Recovery and use it to make a complete drive image (burnt to spanned cd's) that can actually restore a bootable copy to the drive or another drive which is equal or larger in size.

Secondly. I use a nice freeware utility called XXCOPY to make a full backup to my secondary hard drive. You can do that manually or construct a batch file for the purpose. The XXCOPY program is quite powerful so do be careful and read all the instructions before proceeding. It will not make a bootable copy but it will get all of your data files and if you so elect, 99% of the system files.

If you're interested and want to see what I use for the batch file, let me know.

Good luck.
ps, I recommend that you complain to MS about their dilution of the product. I think if enough pressure is applied they will make the backup utility available for free downloading. I'm very disappointed in their policy. Their stinkin' backup was never that great but at least it gave the user something and served the beginner user until he got up to speed.

 

many thanks

Dear Zephyr , So kind of u for replying and spending your valuable time to guide me , this attitude of professionals is really appreciated .

I shall also follow your steps but wandering is it not MS moral duty to make it available in their OS itself as it is not a rocket technology . I shall take up this issue and even sometimes wander is the whole world succumed to MS such poilicy can't a genius discover OS which can be available to PC lovers as replica to MS-OS. there is much awaited PC from INDIA named simuter costing 1/4th normal PC ,,,as major cost of PC is indeed OS cost .In your reply you included link for instantrecovery which took me straight to site how one can do it ? guide me .
Secondly is there another way to do backup from system/recovery cd supplied by ACER to me for rebooting (it contains winxp OS)by retrieving all OS files

Panchal

 

panchal I think the recovery disks supplied with OEM machines are not very useful. When you use one of those you will lose all documents and programs you have created and also any drivers for hardware that you have added. That's much to inconvenient for a restoration.

If you use Instant Recovery, or something similar, it will store the entire drive contents of any drive you select as the source, to any place you want to store it, whether it be another hard drive or a cd burner. The resultant copy will be fully bootable if it is placed on another drive of equal size or larger (can't reduce drive size). It operates regardless of the system you have installed, works for DOS,Windows (all versions), Linux, OS2, whatever else. It merely copies ALL the data and all hidden bootloader and MBR files and copies in binary mode so it couldn't care less what kind of system you have installed.

It has two options, you can let it compress the data it stores or else you can do a simple "Disk Copy" that will leave it all readable when you finish. The Disk Copy method will create a bootable copy onto another physical drive. I have done that and it works well. I have also restored from a compressed copy made to cd's and it is also bootable without any problems.

As for making links in posts, here's the method. First you must either make the site available on your clipboard or else type it in manually. The clipboard method is easiest. Just visit the site and copy its address from the address bar of your browser. Then open a post and select the http:// button in the taskbar above your compose field. Then type any name you choose to give the link and press OK. Then in the next screen, paste or type the address of the site. Click OK again and that's it.

You can also merely paste the address directly into the message body if you like. It works easier that way.

Regards.

 

xx copy using

Hi, Zephyr,

Your reply was interesting , I had xxcopy program installed after unzipping and intalling all files are in WINDOWS /system32 but I don't know how to use this program have I to use DOS command ,kindly let me know step wise how to use this pl.
and also what batch file u made .I understand that u had used this program as an additional backup to INSTANTRECOVERY program .
Thanks

Panchal

 

It would be helpful to know more details about your hardware setup but I will show you what I use for my particular setup.

****************************************

@echo off
cd c:\
echo y | rd /s C:\tempor~1 > nul
echo y | rd /s c:\temp\ > nul
echo y | rd /s c:\windows\temp\ > nul
md c:\temp
md c:\windows\temp
XXCOPY C:\ F:\backup\ /clone /yy /Xhiberfil.sys /Xpagefile.*
echo Your last backup was made on: > "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\LastBackup.txt "
date /T >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\LastBackup.txt "
echo at: >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\LastBackup.txt "
time /T >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\LastBackup.txt "
pause

****************************************

Copy all the script between those lines and paste it into NOTEPAD and save it as C:\BACKUP.BAT Then create a Desktop shortcut to it. You can rename the shortcut to BACKUP if you like to get rid of the unnecessary text.

When you double click that shortcut, the batch file will delete all your Temporary Internet files and your other temp file directories on the root and in the Windows directory. Then it will copy the C: drive contents to a directory named BACKUP which is located on the F: drive (you must change that as necessary). Then it will create a Desktop text file named LastBackup.txt that will contain the date and time of your most recent backup.

The first time you run this batch file will require a very long wait for completion. That is normal since it must copy the entire drive. When it finishes, the report will show several errors. This is also normal since many XP system files cannot be copied due to sharing violations. You will also notice that the index.dat file in the Temporary Internet Files directory could not be accessed. That's normal also. I have inserted the pause command at the end so you can review the report.

The next time you run the batch, it will finish very quickly (couple minutes). It updates incrementally with each execution so only the first time takes a long period. (perhaps an hour or more) Remember this, any files you delete from the source will be deleted from the destination when you subsequently run the batch file. It always updates so that the source and destination are the same. If you want to freeze a particular session, you can do so by renaming the destination directory. (eg, backup1)

This will backup all your personal data, all program files and most system files. You can change the command to exclude any files or directories. It's very versatile so print out the help file and all the examples that are listed on the site page and get creative.

This batch I have presented is strictly for my setup and yours may be different. You must verify the location of your Temporary Internet Files folder. You can change it to match the path I use or change the batch script to suit your location. The location is easily changed by using the IE icon properties.

The initial learning process and setup may take you a while but once this is in place and workable, it is absolutely trouble free, quick, and very handy. Since it doesn't compress the files you can pluck data from it as needed. Of course it does require a good amount of space on a second drive. (either logical or physical) You may choose to edit it so that only your personal data files are backed up in order to save space. Any configuration is possible. You can even edit it to backup to a folder on your primary drive. I prefer using a secondary physical drive so if the primary fails, my backup will be safe.

If you have insurmountable problems setting this up, post back and give me details of your setup and what you would like to do, and I'll be glad to edit it for you. If you have doubts about what you have edited, post your version here and I'll review it for safety. XXCOPY is quite powerful and when applied improperly can cause loss of data.

Read, read, read. Don't get hasty. Be sure before you proceed. Post back as needed.

End of sermon.

 

thanks

Hi Zephyr,

Read your reply but i t seems it requires software writing skills which I donot have , MY hardware is Pentium 4 ,1.7 Ghz, 256MB RAM, ati graphic card 32 MB, dvdrom drive,BIOS award version 6.0 40 GB HD , ACER model EL 7217 .
If u can explain me in simple layman language I can make an attempt to do.

many thanks for your reply

panchal

 

I need to know how much free space you have on your hard drive since you only have the one drive to use. Also verify that you will change the location of your Temporary Internet Files folder to the C:\ root location.

If you have less than 60% free space, we will need to exclude something in order to slim it down to fit.

Post back with that info and we'll go from there.

btw, You need to consider installing a secondary hard drive and getting a cd burner.

 

feedback

hi! Zephyr,


Thanks for your reply, my HD has free space of 22 GB and also I agree for path to internet temp files , i did opened DOS and typed xxcopy and was able to copy files by giving command as
>xxcopy favorites.zip a:\favorites.zip just to see whether it copies to my floppy it deed , but donot know much how to locate OS folders and files and other essential programs, guide me step wise to proceed and typical DOS COMMAND to use with explanation what it means.


Bye
Panchal

 

Hi Panchal

Your drive only has 55% free space so I will be difficult for me to tell you what to exclude in order to trim any possible backup down to a reasonable size to fit your space available.

You should not reduce the free space down below 20% since it would not leave much room for added programs and other demands that are made on it. With that in mind it only gives you approximately 14 gigs for our use.

If you are running the Hibernate function we can eliminate that and also the paging file can be eliminated. Those are variable in size based on your system so I can only guess what help that may give us. I would estimate that we may be able to gain no more than 1 gig from those.

That only gives you 15 gigs for our purposes.

I would suggest that you exclude the entire Windows folder since you could restore it from your original disk. That will cut off at least another 1 1/2 gigs.

Then later, if you have some large games installed in the Program Files folder you should exclude them since they can be reinstalled by using the original disks.

So with that all in mind I come up with the following script that will be used for your backup batch file. You can run these lines individually from the command prompt but I suggest using the batch file for safety reasons. The /clone switch is very powerful and if you misuse it you can lose data.

Copy the following script to your Clipboard and paste it into Notepad. Then select "Save As" and type C:\backup in the name field.

@echo off
cd c:\
echo y | rd /s C:\tempor~1 > nul
echo y | rd /s c:\temp\ > nul
echo y | rd /s c:\windows\temp\ > nul
md c:\temp
md c:\windows\temp
XXCOPY C:\ C:\backup\ /clone /yy /Xwindows\ /Xhiberfil.sys /Xpagefile.*
echo Your last backup was made on: > "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\LastBackup.txt "
date /T >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\LastBackup.txt "
echo at: >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\LastBackup.txt "
time /T >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\LastBackup.txt "
pause


Copy from the @echo to pause only. Do not be concerned if the line wrap you see here appears to have corrupted the file since it will render correctly when pasted into Notepad. That may not be an issue but I mention it just in case.

That's the best I can come up with under the present circumstances. I'll look forward to hearing from you as to how it worked and how much disk space you have left after running it. Be patient since it will take several minutes (perhaps an hour or more) to complete.

You really do need some other media to use for backup purposes.

Best regards.

 

Another little tip

If you want to back up some file or folder to a diskette in the A: drive and it's too large for a single disk, use the following command syntax:

xxcopy <c:\source file> /sp a:\

That will allow for spanning multiple disks to accommodate the larger file or folder.

The XXCOPY command is very versatile so you will want to review all its potential switches by visiting the site. There are several examples given and some good tutorials referenced for further dos command and batch structure.

Good luck.

 

feedback

Hi,Zephyr,

Had received NTBACKUP utility from my pc vendor which I have installed it had options to backup and is working o.k.

I had another problem when I was working on all this suddenly my all program stopped working as .exe files went off somewhere
Finally, system restore utility used and resolved but am eager to know what might have happened (pl. see my new thread)

Also, now when I open MS WORKS ver.6 it prompts for Microsoft office 2000 and ask for cdrom to look for DATA.MSI file, on repeateadly ignoring this, then MS works opens ,it is also happening when I open to work on word processor till i ignore it to open. what is all this? If I remove MSOffice 2000 from system then MS WORKS o.k , isthere anyway to fix this without using original cdrom for ms office.

 

Thanks!!

I have followed advice and installed from Installation Disk. Excellent, as I had been using Simple TRAX and that's a bit unreliable - and always gets a sharing violatio. Why doesn't this Backup utility?

Curiously the README.TXT file in the CD says that you cannot directly target a CDRW - I've just done it with no problems it seems - might the file be corrupt?