Backup Program

Hello Forum,
I'am looking for a backup program,I have never used one before so a nice and easy one to start with. I have only used System restore.please can someone head me in the right direction.
Badcompany.

 

Hello,
Files or entire partitions / drives? Free or money?
Mrk

 

Sorry forgot to say: Entire partions Paid.My problem was, i was playing about in the registry and when i re-booted i only got the Welcome screen so i had to re-install the OS again,I dont want this to happen again.

 

Try ShadowProtect from StorageCraft (free fully-functional evaluation for 30 days):

ShadowProtect Desktop Edition:
http://www.storagecraft.com/downloads/SPDesktop_Setup_SP2.exe

ShadowProtect Server Edition:
http://www.storagecraft.com/downloads/SPServer_Setup_SP2.exe


Also try Acronis True Image:

http://www.acronis.com


Also try Norton Ghost:

http://www.symantec.com

 

Hello,
I would suggest Acronis True Image.
Mrk

 

I use the combination :
1. Acronis True Image Home for image backup : image backup is a MUST.
2. FirstDefense-ISR for immediate system recovery : this is luxury, but very convenient and much faster than image backup. It's a kind of replacement for Windows System Restore, but it does alot more than that.
Both softwares make me feel invincible since I have them on my computer.
I suggest an external harddisk for your backup, this is the safest and fastest solution. Don't fool around with CD/DVD's for backup, they crash more than harddisks.

 

I recommend Image for DOS (IFD).

IFD is cheap. It is simple (my 8-year-old granddaughter uses it). It fits on a floppy. It cannot get screwed up by Windows. It works with ALL versions of Windows & Linux. The support is superb, but 99.999% unnecessary.

 

Hi bellgamin,
Thanks for your reply,I don't understand the difference between Image for DOS and Image for Windows.Do you need both.

 

I'm not surprised, but lots of IFW/IFD-users will explain it to you.
Small tip : IFW is for backup and IFD is for restore.

 

I can vouch for Image for Windows, it's very nice.
Imaging typically is a slooowww process, though.
I prefer simple file backup for day to day backups.
I've had SmartBackup http://www.jam-software.com/smartbackup/ for years, think it's great. You select the files you want to backup in a simple Explorer-like interface.
It "remembers" the fileset, so after the initial backup, it's a simple one-click deal to incrementally "refresh" your backup taking only a minute or two.
I have two filesets, one for backup box, other for portable USB HD.
Small money +/- $19. Been getting free upgrades for years.
PS: Yes, it does registry backups as well.

 

Partly correct. Image for DOS will do back-ups (full images) and restores. It does BOTH of those jobs. It does those jobs EXTERNALLY to Windows. It will do the restore job even when Windows has crashed and won't startup.

Image for Windows (IFW) will do back-ups from WITHIN Windows only. Even so, it uses Image for DOS (IFD) in case you need to restore. The reason is simple...
1- It's handy to be able to back-up while Windows is operating.
2- When you need to do a restore, it's most often the case that Windows is not working so good (or might be infected) so a restore is best done from outside of Windows.

If you buy Image for DOS (it costs $18.96), you do NOT need Image for Windows. IFD does everything you need. However, some folks like the handy ability to be able to do back-ups from WITHIN Windows, so Terabyte* will throw in a copy of IFW for just $8.03 more. (By the way, Image for DOS includes Image for Linux at no added cost.)

IFD is essential. IFW is nice-to-have but not essential.

~~~~~~~~~~~
*NOTE: Terabyte is the outfit that makes IFD, IFD, & IFL.

 

bellgamin,
Thanks for correcting and informing me. I saw IFW a few times, but I couldn't use IFD, because it gave me a strange start menu, which I didn't understand.

 

I think that's generally pretty good advice. There's a boatload of potential problems that go along with archiving to optical media, such as:

1) The longevity/integrity of the media itself (not as good as a hard disk)
2) The speed of the media (much slower than a hard disk)
3) The compatibility of the media (may not be readable on other drives)
4) The compatibility of the file structures place on the media (may not be readable on other drives or platforms)
5) The firmware of the drive you use to burn and/or read the media (may cause your archive to be inaccessible if the firmware on the burner and/or reader drive has a bug).
6) The capacity of the media (blu-ray is finally approaching the realm of practiality for large backups, but CD/DVD system backups often require you to feed in many discs which is a tedious, time consuming, and user-error prone process).
7) You can't mount image files that are split across multiple optical media discs (well, theoretically you could, but you'd be swapping discs in and out for eternity, just to get the file system to mount).

Disk-to-disk (meaning hard disk to hard disk) is generally a much better option. In fact, when compared to blu-ray, disk-to-disk is much cheaper too.

 

grnxnm,
You gave a very good summary and I know from other posts, you know alot more about backup than me. I look at backup as an average user.
In all these years, I never had a harddisk crash, but I had several crashes of CD's and that was enough for me not to use CD/DVD's anymore as backup of harddisks.

Another problem for average users is that CD/DVD's are pretty slow and that is often the reason, why users aren't very enthousiastic to test the restoration and they only will restore if it is necessary and sometimes they find out that the restoration doesn't work.
If you use an external or internal harddisk the restoration is alot easier and faster to test. You only need the courage to do it.

After I bought my image backup software, I've done much more restorations than backups in the first month, even without reason and that's how I learned to trust my restoration.
Backup is the EASY part, restoration is something else and many users are afraid to do it. I don't have that problem anymore.

 

I like Acronis True Image. It's quite powerful and easy to use. It looks and works just the same running in or out of Windows. You can also create images in Windows and start to restore them from Windows (although it will ask you to reboot to do the job).

 

I would say for what you are describing either Rollback Rx or Acronis True Image. Rollback Rx will not backup your drive to another storage area but it will backup your partitions manually or automatically to where if you mess up your registry or anything else bsides total drive failure you can be back up in seconds not minutes. There is way to much other stuff to list here but you can see it here http://www.horizondatasys.com/page.aspx?id=169614 and it's simple to use.

Thanks,

Chris

 

Hi All,
Thanks for all your help and opinions very much appreciated.Will look at all the programs and then decide.
Badcompany.

 

If you're archiving to DVD media, this article may be interesting to you:

http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media/

Basically the author argues that DVD+R media from Taiyo Yuden is the best choice.

 

I'm an Image for DOS booster. Great little program!

My 2 cents on using optical media for images... If you have tons of stuff to image, even DVDs can be a pain. In those cases, hard drive storage is the way to go. But if the image program does a good job burning, and you don't have huge amounts to backup, optical media can be a very good way to go.

I have used DVDs with IFD for almost 2 years and never burned a coaster yet. If IFD says it's verified, then it's restorable. I restore from recent DVD images every month or two (after software tests and such) and the restore is always 100% a-ok.

Maybe the same can't be said for other programs though...

 

Just to add another option that you could consider: Farstone RestoreIT.
Besides the feature of system rollback, this solution will keep track of the changes you make to your documents.

It also creates partition images that you could store on DVD.

Worth your examination.

 

@Badcompany
FDISR: Remarkable software particularly if you want to experiment.
Check the forum here: amazing tool.
Instant System recovery: does what it says.
Support is outstanding

And
The Terabyte apps are a solid fave for me too.
Lean and mean.
Echo Bellgamin and Han, but get the works; fork out $50 and get the lot.
IFW/IFD/IFL/Bootitng: you wont regret it.
Support outstanding again: developers always on the case.

The Storagecraft tools are getting some attention now too.
They need to pay some attention to pricing or bundling.

There are lots of very good file by file back-up/synching tools around.

As noted think about an external HD.

Regards.