OT PC Backup

[Wesley]

Can I use something like this to backup my PC. Its making funny noises at the moment and I would like to back up the hard disc including the OS. I'm using Windows XP.

[Mentalguy2k8]

as long as it's big enough to hold all your stuff.

Just remember that you need to "clone" your C: drive if you want to copy your OS onto another drive to use as you were before. This creates an exact copy, if you just drag and drop the files from C: to a backup and then onto a new C: , it won't boot or work properly.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I have never seem thepoint of backing up a nasty windows equipped unreliable PC onto something even nastier cheaper and more unreliable, frankly.

[Mentalguy2k8]

>>> Yes, as long as it's big enough to hold all your stuff.

Oh, OK.

[Martin]

>Yes, as long as it's big enough to hold all your stuff.

If you buy a 1 or 2 terabyte Samsung USB external hard drive it includes back up software.

[Martin]

If you don't know, why not say so?

[Wesley]

>>>Yes, as long as it's big enough to hold all your stuff.

Cheers guys :-)

[NT]

I've also never seen the point in backing up windows. If you need to reinstall it, do it the windows way. Yes its slower, but youre asking for trouble otherwise, IME its just not worth cloning.

One thing I did to save time was to copy the apps in /program files en masse, and just copy them straight back into windows. Its surprising how many work fine this way - some will still need reinstalling the windows way.

The way to backup your data is simply to add the 2nd drive, control a c in one pane, control v in the other. Job done, software pointless. Yes you can restore bookmarks, but I find its not usually worth it, I just redo the ones I want.

Switching to linux makes this process easier, this distro is a dream to install compared to win.

NT

[John Rumm]

>>> Yes, as long as it's big enough to hold all your stuff.

Failing that, download maxblast from the seagate web site - basically a cut down version of Acronis true image. It will image a system to either another drive, or a file on a network etc.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ok then, no you cant use something like that to back up windows because in my EXPERIENCE - not opinion - what actually will die on you irrecoverably is the stupid storage device you used for backup.

Or rather its fine for backing up, but restoring is another matter.

[John Rumm]

>>>>>>>> Yes, as long as it's big enough to hold all your stuff.

However for the purposes of this exercise - i.e. preserving an image of a working system until a new drive can be procured, its perfectly adequate.

(having said that, if you need to order the external drive, you may as well get the replacement drive at the same time, and then clone the system twice - once onto the new drive, then onto the external).

[The Natural Philosopher]

?what? why not install onto the new drive and simply mount the other drive and copy what you want from it?

[fred]

In article , NT writes

For a new machine I take an image after the windows install and again after the major apps go on.

If it all turns to shit later then that saves quite a bit of time on the reinstall.

I only do backups of data (inc the mail databases).

Hmmn, not sure on that one.

It is nice to automate the backup even if you do run it manually. I wouldn't back up unless it was to an external drive, there are too many things to go wrong with a drive in the same box. A usb-network adapter is a nice way of keeping a usb drive nicely separated from the main box.

Windows has the apps.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Only two I couldn't do without, and they nestle nicely on a windows virtual machine. That gets backed up in its entirety every night as its 'just another linux file system' when all is said and done.

Unless you play windows real time games, there is no reason to keep a windows bare installation if you don't want to.

..and so many reasons not to.

[NT]

I did that at one time. But didnt use the images in practice. Usually things dont go that wrong, and if they do I tended to want a different setup anyway. With xp and on if you upgrade hardware at the same time, it wont work anyway. So it all gets a bit pointless.

I've only found one job linux apps didnt do as welll as I wanted, so one app runs on wine. No problem.

:)

NT

[fred]

In article , NT writes

Useful in the case of a system drive doing bad, it means a system can be back up and running in short order. The OS & apps image fits on a DVD so it's easy to have one in a drawer just in case.

It's nice to keep a copy if it's taken a while to get the best driver combo together, particularly on say a fussy laptop.

[Martin]

Unless you have boards/peripherals which aren't supported. Installing Win7 is straight forward.

[John Rumm]

Can't quite work out what difference the OS in use makes as to whether a system is worth backing up or not?

Its your data, application configuration, and installation set that matter.

Makes more sense if you also backup the HKLM/Software hive of the registry as well. However even that will still miss important stuff.

Its not a good backup strategy, since if you overwrite the the target you destroy your previous backup in the process and also lose any ability to go back to a previous version of a file. If you use a different target directory then it rather profligate with space since there is none of the de-duping that proper incremental would do.

Which would suggest there is less point backing up that OS than windows if you follow that argument through.

[John Rumm]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, as long as it's big enough to hold all your stuff.

Which is what I just said - with the added step of a second copy onto an external so that if you get an early life failure on the new drive, you can still get back to your current position.

[John Rumm]

But very sloooow... that's before you apply all the monthly patches, and reinstall apps. Bit of a mugs game when recovering from an image is so much faster and easier.