Backup problem

Well, I decided to give the backup via the rescue CD a try. Everything went smooth and it said it had about 6 hours left on the verify. Ok, I can dig that. Then I came in about 6 hours later and it said it had 2 days left on the verify. That was unacceptable. I checked it again this morning and the progress bar actually regressed and indicated the total backup job was only about 20% done whereas last night it was about 75% done. I stopped the backup and will initiate it again via normal Windows TI 10 backup. It sometimes seems funny how people will buy software just after being influenced by reviews on Amazon. I was one of them....

 

I think that the Linux based rescue CD is actually a weak spot for TI because the Linux drivers included perform poorly or not at all with some hardware. For some folks it works just fine. I personally use BartPE Mustang's Beginner's Guide to Create a BartPE CD with one of Mustang's TI plugins. Are you trying to backup a lot of photo and/or video files? If so the fact that they are already compressed will result in a considerable performance hit because TI attempts to compress them further.

 

Thanks for responding Tom. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am trying to back up a large amound of digital files, with a lot of them being 32 megs are larger. I will switch back to the windows version of doing backups with TI 10 Home and see what that produces. I have yet to test a restore, so that is what I will do this weekend after I picked up a spare hard drive to test it on and still will have my C: drive in case it fails to restore. The BartPE thing is all foreign to me so I will educate myself this weekend on its functionality and application for me. I've heard that term on here alot and from what I've read, it's everything from a Godsend to a panacea. Thanks again!

 

By digital files, I assume you mean photos. The photos are already in a compressed format and you do not gain any compression by using True Image to back them up. It is much better (and safer) to simply copy them (using Windows Explorer) to your backup drive. Or when you have enough to fill a cd or dvd, burn them as data to those.

 

I have 3 separate drives to backup: 1) C: with system and applications; 2) D: RAID 1 with personal data; 3) G: with photography business data including accounting and large amount of digital photos.

I am thinking of just cloning C: and then having a virgin drive to use when I want to start fresh after reloading windows and all the software I need and get it just the way I want it. I will then clone C: on a weekly basis so I can restore without starting fresh if that is what I want. i.e. keeping my outlook express emails, etc.

I will then backup D: and G: to separate USB external drives using no compression. Question: if you don't use compression, does that leaves the file structure in their native format for all intents and purposes creating a clone of my data?

Since I don't run a dual-boot or have more than one partition on a drive, I don't think partitions will give me any trouble unless the source drive become larger than the destination drive where the backup will reside.

Does my strategy seem to make sense? Simply doing a Windows explorer giant folder copy from one drive to another drive I believes leaves too many doors open from problems. After all, there is not a verify in that regard unless you want to go to a dos prompt in the command shell and compare files.

Thanks for your comments!

 

I would also make a backup image of the C: drive, since you have more options with that than a clone and can use the universal restore add-on with a backup, and sometimes cloning a drive that has hardware manufacturer things on it, like boot to dvd player rather than windows, and the reset the hdd to factory condition "recovery" partition can cause problems.

Any databases/accounting data seem to compress REALLY well. Had a database at work, bloating up to 400mb when in use and squeezing down to 20mb when exported and zipped up.

Also note that windows can leave a file open and un-copy-able because it thinks it's being helpful in case you want to open the file again, but forgets to tell you that it didn't copy the file. Or a program that forgets to tell windows that it's finished with the file after it has exited, and windows forgets to clean up after the program by closing all of the files that the program opened (as is the job of the OS which is supposed to be in charge of your computer)

 

Beowulfnode, thanks for the reply...your comments were helpful, especially about backing up C: also, because if I absolutely had to, I could go the workstation version of TI and get universal ? and possibly save my rear.