"Backups"

While checking the "Tools" section of of my HD properties, I noticed it says I haven't "Back-up" in over 900 days! What exactly does that mean? Now, don't get me wrong; I've "backed up" a certain files, etc., so I can salvage them if lost, but how do I do that to the whole HD? Further; to what do I back it up? Another HD? A CD? A Zip Drive? (Don't have one...) What happens when I push the "Backup Now" button?

 

Hi Miracleman
Found some easy reading for you. It's been a while since I've ran 98, so can't answer if you're given the option to save to CD.
Personally, I'd put more faith into a product such as Norton Ghost, but you can most certainly give the Backup utility a shot?
Let us know how it goes for you.

Daizy

*edit*
Found an even nicer tutorial!!!

 

Backups (Cont'd)

Daizy, what a great link! I downloaded it & it walked me thru the backup. I still have a few things to tweak, but I'm on the way.
Question: I have a CD burner (Creative Labs w/Nero). Apparantly I can make CD backups directly thru that!?! It seems easier. Do I have to backup thru 98's program, or is it "OK" to use my CD burner. Also, if I don't go thru 98, what do I do with that notice about not backing up for 900 days?

These may sound like really silly q's, but if you knew how many times I had to take my PC to the local "shop" for fixes & reloads before I found this BBS, you be amazed. I just wanna do it right, know what I mean? Thanx.

 

Hi again miracleman
Why not try both ways and see which way is better for you? If the "900 days" notice bothers you, then by all means, do a backup through the program itself.
Trust me...none of these are silly questions. What's silly is not asking, and having to pay for something that could have been easily learned.
At the risk of overstating it however, you might want to look into a stronger app, such as Ghost, that will be able to reload your system, programs and all, within minutes..... rather than selective backups?
I make incremental ghost images (to CD). On a clean system, after downloading all my critical updates, as well as a couple of apps, (such as my antivirus and zonealarm) I take an image. Then I continue with the other programs I always have on my computers (Such as Office and my image editting software)..and I take another image. They get labeled and put away. Should anything go south (And it has, too many times to count. ) I can put the image back on........ complete with software. I don't have to go through the tedious process of one thing after another.
Hope this helps a little?

Daizy

 

Backups (still)

Fabulous!! Makes a lotta sense. I'll check out "ghost "
Thanx

 

Check out True Image by Acronis while you're at it. I prefer it to all others for simplicity and versatility. You can image the boot drive while booted to Windows and not have to reboot to a DOS session. Really convenient.

 

Zephyr, how does True image compare to Powerquest "s Drive Image?
Paul

 

Paul, I have PQ Drive Image, Norton Ghost, NovaStor Instant Recovery, and Acronis True Image. I use True Image exclusively because it's faster and better. It happens to be cheaper than all except Instant Recovery. It's the only one that can run in Windows and image the drive while I do other things. No booting to dos is required. Absolutely the best with very little downside. Downside being; you can't do a direct disk copy with it, you must create an image first, then place the image on a disk. I don't need that feature so it's no bother.

Since it runs in Windows, you can easily use your USB drives for backup media.

You can easily open the image for exploration and retrieval of any file you need. That is to say, you don't have to restore the whole enchilada like one of the others requires.

I give it five-stars

 

Thank you Zephyr, I have a few other questions.
With True image beside the whole drive can I just backup selected items like-- "My Documents & Favorites" which I usually add to every day or do I hae to back-up the whole drive everyday?

When I had my little 200mhz laptop I was using an Omega 250 Zip to back them up and I could understand what I was doing.

Now that I got this this big old Dell with a 4X DVD+R/RW CD-RW Combination Drive I'm at a loss on how to back-up to the CD. My computer also came with Roxio Easy CD Creator Version 5.3.2.34.

I had someone who was supposed to know what he's doing but don't know how to explain it to novices like come over and he made me a shortcut to my desktop so that I could burn a data cd but the next thing I found out was that he added more stuff than just My Documents & Favorites and the backup ended up being larger than 700 mb discs.
Now I'm back to step 1-no back-up which I really need because I run a litle home based business and need the daily back-up--any ideas to help or should I just find someone who really knows what he's doing?
Paul

 

You can use msbackup with your cd writer just as you would if your were saving the backup to a hard drive. Format a cd (better to use a cdrw in my opinion) for direct cd. If you don't know how post back. After formatting the cd open msbackup and choose the files you want to backup. The files you want to backup can't total more than 532 mb if you're using a 650 mb cd. The rest of the space on the cd is taken up by the direct cd formatting. If you have more to back up you can save the backup job and then create another one (or however many you need) to backup the rest of the files that wouldn't fit on the first backup job. Just remember that for each backup job you create you'll have to allow for 118 mb less space on than the cd because of the formatting. There is no way to span across multiple disks with msbackup so this is the only way. To save the job to the cd, at the bottom left corner of the msbackup window, where it says where to backup, choose file. Then, just below that click on the browse button and browse to your cd writer drive. Give the file a name, click open and then click the start button in msbackup. It'll then backup to the cd just as it would if you had chose a location on your hard drive. It's always a good idea after you're done to remove the cd from the drive. If your computer should crash while the cd is in the drive it is possible to lose data on the cd if the cd is formatted for packet writing like this. A lot of people will say you should stay away from packet writing because of the chance of losing data like this. I have never had any problems with it and I suspect that those that say they have most likely had the cd in the drive when there puter crashed.

 

Food for thought

The backup provided in MS Windows is fine. It does do a decent job.

BUT, there is ( or may be ) a serious drawback. It requires Windows to make the backup.

It also requires Windows to restore the backup.

HHMMMM!!! What happens if Windows won't run ?

I say ( and always have said ( for backing up the system anyway)) use a backup program that can be run from good old reliable DOS.

I do not know for sure which one(s) will do this but I am sure they are available.

When it comes to backups etc. I stay away ( or would if I used any ) from all of the Microsoft stuff that I can.

Windows programs will not run If Windows itself won't run.

BTW. Experience speaking. System restore won't work either if Windows won't run.

BillyBob

 

Thanks for the info guys, Paul

 

Zephyr

I have Ghost and have had trouble with it in the past(Most my ignorance) True Image and they give current Ghost users a BIG price break for buying TI. I did so and I think I would like a lot if I could only get it to work. I select the partition to image and attempt to image to CD-R and I get an error message when try to type in file name and path to image to CD. I found on TI site that EZCD creates a problem with older versions of EZCD (I have 4.05 and is a problem one). I found I can image to a HDD so it is evidently the problem with EZCD that prevents me from imaging to CD. You must have different CD burning program? I am stuck at this point as I have only one HDD and a networked HP that has limited disc space so imaging to my single HDD would be pointless. Any ideas other than get other CD burning software?
(The first sentence is disjointed for some reason but the gist is there.)

BTW, I d/l True Image per your recommendation.

 

Zander, I would very much like to know how to Format a CD, matter of fact I didn't even know that you can do it.
Please let me know.
thanks
hawk22

 

If you have Easy CD Creator there will be an icon for direct cd in your system tray. That's assuming you haven't somehow disabled it in msconfig or some other means. It looks like a disc drive with a cd in front of it. Put a cdr or cdrw in the drive and then right click on the icon and choose format. From there it's pretty much self explanatory. Nero comes with something similar called Incd. Don't know how it works as I don't have it but I would guess it's something similar. People I know who do have it always have an icon for it in the tray. If it's there, right click on it and see what it offers. One thing to note. If you disable direct cd and then put a cd that's formatted for direct cd in the drive you won't be able to open the drive until you start direct cd again. This is done on purpose to prevent you from losing data accidently. The drive needs to be unmounted correctly by direct cd to prevent data loss.

 

And that is a 100% correct, true, valid statement. Use it right or lose it. I have had to re-format a couple.

With InCD you can right click on the InCD Icon and select " EJECT " If this is not done the data will ( or at least may be ) lost.

You can also do the same from My Computer.

This is not a problem with a Burned CD.

I have Nero & InCD. I do not always have the Icon in the Systray. I just start InCD when I want to use it.

I myself prefer to BURN the CD. I find them to be more useful in other machines. I just tired a CDRW in another machine ( no, make that the other CDROM in my machine ) and it would not read it. I make considerable use of a burned CD when setting up another machine that has not yet been connected to my Network.

So, at least for me I find a Burned CD to be more permanent and/or usefull.

Plus ( a BIG plus as far as I am concerned ) a Burned CD can be read from DOS. I am not sure If a CDRW can be. Never tired it.

I have two bootable ( same as 98 Windows Startup ), burned CDs. One with Norton Utilities for DOS on it. And one with Windows setup files on It. And they can be used on any one of my three machine. That is after I changed one of the CRDOM drives to a newer one.

I find that if used properly a CDR can be a HUGH advantage and certainly faster than a floppy. And most newer machines will boot from the CRDOM.

I myself keep the boot sequence set to A: CDROM: C:. And the only thing that SCARED me was when I first put the CDROM into the sequence and saw the message BOOT FAILURE. But then I realized that it referd to the CDROM. WHEW !!!

But to get back to the original subject of BACKUPS. I don't bother. cause if I did make a backup of say the C: drive this morning, tomorrow ( or even this afternoon ) it may very well already be out of date . I do keep all downloaded stuff backed up on a burned CD. And about once a month make a new one.

BillyBob

 

Thanks Zander,
I do use Nero and I had a snoop around and in Nero Express I did find a feature called " Bootable Data "
I guess that this is it.
I haven't tried it out as yet, but as soon as I have some time I will stick a RW in and have a play with it.
thanks
hawk22