Computer Hard Drive Backup

Some backup software do place data onto an external hard drive or server in an encrypted format for security. Not recording or remembering the password to decrypt these files can become a bother. The very goal of backup of software is to prevent data loss in the event of hardware failure. I don't understand where or how you came to the conclusion that software backups are only to the same hard drive. This is a foolish configuration.

Thanks for reply.

Actually I use Norton Ghost 14- To recover a back up it needs the "Recovery Point" which it has stored for that back up.

If you make a new installation for Norton Ghost ,then it does not have the Recovery Point for the previous back up though the back up it is there on the external Hard Drive ?

This just confirms my belief that Norton stuff is crap. Sorry this isn't much help.

Well, do you know about other useful Backup software can do back up on an external hard drive and recovered on different computer internal hard drive ?

Yes, but I had to write it myself. And sorry. but while it works for me, it's not yet in a state where I could publish it.

Acronis Is pretty good software for cloning and imaging software.

I have Acronis software installed on my PC HD and a 3 TB external HD tied to the PC with a USB cable, but I have no clue how to get my internal HD to backup nor how to configure the software properly. Oh sure, when i turn on the PC the external HD light flashes briefly, but nothing is on the external HD as far as I can determine. The local computer geeks here installed it some time ago, but left the last steps for me to do at home. Problem is that the damn "help" section of the software is all IT jargon, which doesn't help me one bit!

I'm tired of throwing good $$$ to the geeks....they're no help at all. Can anyone help me with this issue? It doesn't seem like anything has been copied yet!

HELP!!!!

May I ask which version? The older version were not that user friendly. But the newer are pretty self explanatory.

Hey Ozzb, this is what I have installed on my HD:

"Acronis True Image Echo Workstation with Acronis Universal Restore". I don't see a version number, but only a "Build 8,072" and Copyright 2000-2007. It was installed in the Spring of 2011.

That pretty old. I use Acronis True Image Home 2012. Much more user friendly then the older versions for work stations. Which were designed for IT's to use on work station.

You can get a copy relatively cheap as software goes at most local shops. Less the 50 dollars US

The newer version will do real time back ups. If you have a USB 3.0 port to external drive that is USB capable never know it running in back ground. Most of the set up is menu select.

I've been happy with Acronis True Image Home 11.0. It makes either incremental or full backups, depending on your needs. One caveat: if you're upgrading to a larger hard drive, Acronis will migrate your files just great, but it may be a one-way road. I don't believe it (or any other software that I'm aware of) will let you migrate from a big drive down to a smaller one because of the partition sizes involved. Of course, there's probably a partition sizing scheme to get around that, but I haven't had made time to play with it enough to see.

Or, if you've got the $$, a hardware-based hard drive cloner might do what you want. Here a link to one at Tigerdirect (usual disclaimer). Other places have similar devices, I'm sure.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5648869&CatId=2785

I've actually used one of these and it'll work with IDE or SATA drives or (I think) any combination. It is kind of slow, though, compared to Acronis. And, you have to yank out your hard drive to connect it to the device. I don't think this kind will let you do a big-to-little clone because it looks at the entire hard drive instead of individual partitions.

Hope this helps!

I agree. Once (and I'm sure still by many) thought to be the premier antivirus software companies, Norton and McAfee are now nothing but bloatware (IMHO).

I use to use a much earlier version of Ghost myself and had no problem at all with it. I could restore a complete machine, operating system, applications and data files from scratch with out any problem. It took a lot of time doing this from scratch but it worked fine back then. This permitted me to recover from one crashed hard drive and to easily upgrade to a much larger drive on an old machine. I suspect you have a setting wrong but it has been so long since I used that system that I really cannot help you. Have you looked over the Norton FAQ files or contacted them?

Why not just copy the files you want to protect to another storage device?

Yes,that is what i need - a software which can automatically "copy" ( not to backup) a selected files into an external Hard Drive according to a scheduled time.

MS--MSBackup...simple

**nix--not sure of anything else, I've used full ghost images...not restore points.

If all you want to do is backup some files do it online with iDrive. www.idrive.com. 5Gb for free and works seamlessly.

If you want to completely backup your disk use Acronis. www.acronis.com But you'll have to take the copy somewhere else otherwise whatever destroys your hard disk may also destroy your copy disk.

Or do both. Take a complete image with Acronis but backup your data files very regularly with iDrive. But bring the Acronis copy back from time to time to update it.

Frankly, unless disk trashes happen regularly just backup the data files and accept that if your main disk /does/ go yo'll have to spend ages re-installing the OS & software. Otherwise you'll spend more time ensuring you've always got a backup copy of the whole disk than it would take to re-install everything.

I use xxcopy to copy files to a "mirror" drive as a backup. xxcopy c:\*.* e:\ /clone /ff/yy

This is a copletely readable copy of the whole directory tree minus open files. The /backup switch will "refresh" the copy and can be faster the second time around. If a file is deleted by accident, it's easy to walk someone through finding it on the backup drive and copy it back that day.

Use a .cmd script and run it from the schedule program in control panel and that's it.

It won't boot from the "copy" but the data files will be there for recovery.

For bare-bones restore, I use "dd" and "ddrescue" from Linux. This is what Acronis is doing, plus they are compressing "tar.gz". I clone the OS drive with dd and that creates a bootable clone. It works to clone any OS even though it must be run from Linux and both drives have to be unmounted at boot time.

I also use rsync in Linux for live backups of running systems. I can refresh a backup, compress it, and even syncronize it over the Internet to an off-site drive through an ssh tunnel.

I would recommend using two external drives, one a dd clone that is bootable that you put away for a bare bones-recovery, and the other use xxcopy for the data that changes after the dd clone is made. Then, if you need it, You can dd the bootable drive back into your system, and then xxcopy the updated data for a full recovery.

Excellent answer!

It's been a long time since I have had to deal with Windows, but I believe the same technique I use for my Linux systems should work for you. Rather than backing up individual files, or only those files that have changed since the last backup, I make an image of the complete hard drive- usually shows up as an *.isi file. Search for "disk imaging software". Then, when I run in to problems with my hard drive, or really screw things up with my experimenting (more common than hard drive problems), all I have to do is reformat the hard disk and burn the image to the hard drive. Reboot, and I am back where I started. I believe the same capability is possible with Windows, although maybe some of the more recent versions with their anti-piracy protections, may create some difficulties with this approach.

Marzoky, cwarner et al,

1 We need to keep OS and Program data separate from 'your data'

2 'your data' can be readily backed up by copying it to an external hard drive on a regular basis. I set my machines to do a number of things overnight, AV Scans and Backups for example. If you wish, software is available to assist. Win7 and other OS's will have software that you can use. I am using Fgp which I have access to.

3 OS and Program material has to be Imaged as stated above because you are trying to replace the exact configuration of all that program material. The Program material has to have the same hooks as the earlier installation, by the byte! Again a different & separate HD (or partition) is required to Image the OS and Program material to. And after an event the remote image can be downloaded to the original or, worst case, replacement hard disc. Software to do this is available from Acronis, amonst others.

4 For a more detailed explanation and recommendations I suggest that you talk to PCBUILD who run a daily service for hardware and OS issues; detailed Software queries are addressed under PCSOFT at the same address.

Good Luck

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I am no Computer geek but this is what I do.

a. connect an external USB hard disk

b. go to Accessories in 'All Programs". I use XP

c. Click on "Backup"

d. The wizard guides thru the options to select what you need to back up and where to backup. Select the drives/files to back up and the external hard disk as the location to save back up files

e. There is a provision for incremental back up which backs up only those files which have changed since last backup

Hope this helps

I have not had the need to restore the system from backup so I do not know how to.

This is why I always have 2 hard drives, 1 for the OS & a 2nd drive for data. If Windows screws up I can re-install & still have all my data intact.

Reliable backup requires both reliable software and reliable hardware. A single external hard drive is not reliable hardware. You can avoid the problem of losing backup data on a crashed drive by going for a RAID system. I use a networked RAID drive with 4 hard drives linked in a RAID 5 setup. It is so reliable that I can remove a drive and replace it with a fresh drive without losing data. It is hassle-freedom worth paying for.

Which ever way you do it, it will require diligence, effort and money.

These are scarce resources in the common arena.

normal operation (system setup) doesnot require too frequent "System Copy"

the norton utilities likely can do the "HDD image" from 1 puter to another through USB maybe more - copyng T-bytes may take hours = not practical for daily backup

in my old workplace they used system duplicate servers (1 crashed (cople a times in a week) the "copy" hooked up causing 20-30 minute delay)

with uncrypted Windows 98 it was enough to restore the "HDD content" only (system files directories from bacup dataDVD)

with uncrypted Windows XP (the WINDOWS DIR crash) was resolved from
(1) - fresh CD install to another partition of the same HDD
(2) - SP3 update of a newInst
(3) - Copy WINDOWS Dir over to oldInst
(4) - Rebuild registry from COM prompt only BOOT to oldInst
(5) - post sync

so good practise is to keep your SYS , Apps , Data in separate partitions/HDDs
apply different backup strategies to each of ...

I am guessing only (aren't we all here!!), but doing an explorer copy to an external disk may be part of the problem(s).

You probably needed the actual software to make the copy onto the external drive...

Furthermore, if the data is so important, maybe you should have been doing all backups to CD or DVD........or even mag tape if the data is larger than 4.7 GB..

As it is, you have not supplied enough info to get detailed help on the problem you have now.....

Well, what i mean is, if your Hard Drive became defective, then you have to make a new installation ( Windows and the Backup software) on a new Hard Drive but unfortunately the old back up becomes useless because the new installation does not carry the recovery point of the previous back up ?