Backup of Windows XP, Vist, etc.

[SrDriver]

Price of external USB Hard Drives is now affordable and under $100.00 for a good sized drive. You can install an extra internal drive too in your system and use it for backup.

Install the free program called DriveImage XML which will backup Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista only. Program can backup, image and restore drives formatted with FAT 12, 16, 32 and NTFS.

Link To DriveImage XML

Made a free CD boot disk (see the following web site) and read the insturctions at the DriveImage XML web site to add driveImage XML to the boot CD.

Link To Boot CD Site.

This is a simple free method for backup and restore of your data and it works great (have used it many times on several different computers.

With this program you can restore the entire hard drive or just one file, etc., and you can't beat the price!

It is not a question of if, but when!

If you are running Linux on your computer in a dual boot mode, this will not backup the Linux Partitions.

Although not free, later versions of Norton Ghost will backup all the Partitions on the hard drive including Linux.

Check the Norton Ghost web site regarding your version if you have purchased Ghost and check if it is compatible with your distribution of Linux.

Hope this info helps! It has saved my you know what several times!

 

[XS650]

That looks good, and also easy.

My present back-up philosophy is to keep all my data backed up on an external drive (using Karen's Replicator) and to know where all my software install CDs are. I figure if my PC bites the dust I can move the data to another PC and use it immediately if I have to.

The advantage to that is an enforced clean start which is a good thing in MS windows.

But, you have me thinking that the software you wrote about is easy enough and free enough that I just might use that for a complete backup of my system on my other external drive. That won't prevent me from rebuilding my installation properly when my system bites the dust, but if I'm feeling lazy I'll be able to just rebuild the existing mess, ancient ugly registry and all, all at once.

 

[drm7]

I've used XS650's approach with success. When my desktop died I bought a laptop. I plugged my external drive in and restored all my data to the new laptop. Not the prettiest but a cheap and easy solution. I use SyncBack from here: http://www.2brightsparks.com/index.html. I set up individual tasks to copy specific folders to my external drive. I then set up a group task that executes my individual tasks every other night. On opposite nights my virus scan is set to go.

 

[XS650]

I tried DriveImage XML. Easy to install and it did an image of my 60Gig of stuff on my hard drive in just under an hour.

and thanks.

I have a 160Gig external USB drive from Iomega with their backup software. I wasn't using it because the Iomega software was so slow and a PITA to use. I thought it was a drive problem, but it wasn't.

 

[sprintman]

Acronis TruE Image

 

[SrDriver]

Quote:

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Acronis TruE Image

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True Image is a commercial program and for the average home user, don't see that it offers any advantage over the free DriveImageXML for the average user.

With DriveImageXML you can backup drives and partitions to image files.

View and/or extract files.

Restore your files to your hard drive or another drive and copy from drive to drive + schecule automatic backups.

One thing that DriveImageXML does not do is backup or restore EX2 or EX3 Linux Partitions.

Acronis True Image does make a version that will backup Linux and in a business environment offers many options.

For the average Linux desktop home user there are other free options for backup too.

 

[XS650]

Quote:

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If you are running Linux on your computer in a dual boot mode, this will not backup the Linux Partitions.

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SrDriver

Does the DriveImage ghost job also backup the boot sector so GRUB will work?

I have my Linux partitions on a separate drive and it's just there for self-education and fun now, so I'm not backing it all up. I think I will start backing up any worthwhile data files I create in Linux to an NTFS partition so DriveImage will back them up.

 

[SrDriver]

I have an internal hard drive of 250 gigs. Have it partitioned with half NTFS and the other EX3 and a 4 gig Linux swap drive.

Used the software that came with the drive and did away the EX3 partition and swap drive and formated the drive out to one NTFS partition.

I then booted off the Boot CD I mentioned above and restored Windows XP.

The GRUB menu was not there and it booted directly into Windows.

I then reinstalled Ubuntu Linux and it partitioned the drive as it was before.

I had backup my Home Folder to an external NTFS USB drive and restored it after the reinstall.

Do a search in the Synaptic Package Manager for NTFS and you will find a package that you can download that allows you to mount both internal or external hard drives so you can read and write to them.

After the install you will find it under Applications - System Tools.

When not using this feature, I keep them disabled for security reasons.

I have done a complete restore more than once from an external drive by using Norton Ghost.

It will backup FAT32, NTFS, EX2, EX3, etc.

After restoring with Ghost, you can reboot and GRUB boot manager will be there along with your Windows XP, Linux, etc.

Check the Norton web site if you have a copy of Ghost and see if your version supports Linux. Newer versions do.

 

[Mystic]

One good thing about Mac OS X is that it is easier to copy the entire operating system and applications and documents to an external hard drive. Microsoft and makers of software applications for Windows are so concerned about somebody copying their software it is harder to copy an entire Windows hard drive.

You do need software like Carbon Copy Cloner or Retrospect to make the copy however.

 

[SrDriver]

DriveImageXML makes it a simple job and is quite fast for backing up an entire Windows Hard Drive to an external drive, to another drive, etc.

Regarding Linux Ubuntu 7.04 go to Applications then to Add/Remove. Install Simple Backup. After the install you will find it under System - Administration Make sure that you configure it as you would like it including what is excluded, etc. Works well once you configure it.