Backup software necessary?

no if you copy paste your files onto usb/external drive but you're leaving you os to possible failure without imaging software

 

Ahh, the 'to backup' or 'not to backup' question.

I am actually quite suprised at how many people out there who use a computer daily at home or work never want to learn more about 'backup software'.

In the sense of 'backing something up', you can easily copy your data (music, pictures, documents, etc) to some external drive or other media. Many people do this, and this is not what I am referring to.

I refer to 'disk imaging', aka a system backup.

Since I have been using computers, I have been imaging. For many years, it was for a disaster recovery, only making images rarely. Sometimes a piece of software was installed that I did not want to reinstall or had lost the keys/serials to. That was back in 9x, when you could plaster that image onto about any machine and it would work after it found the new hardware.

I then entered a segment of time where I made lots and lots of 'Unattended CDs', that scripted just about everything. This was about when XP came out. I had no problem installing, frome a cd/dvd, a dozen times a week.

Now remember, I am a hacker/tweaker. I don't use my computer to use a program, I use my computer to see how the computer works and what can be changed. For me, reinstalling always kept my system full of new settings, corrected botched mistakes and always running with the 'fresh' feeling.

After some years of this madness, I started playing with PE (bartPE). PE led me to ever 'more better' boot discs. Eventually I found how to boot into PE from the HDD, and have the PE load into RAM. This was the end of installing from a disc or share or USB drive for me.

Since that point, I have steadily increased my usage of disc imaging softwares. Currently I am using Macrium, and have been for some time.

Why use backup software you ask? For me, it is because, as others have said, I can make an image directly after install. Then, at any point in time, I can revert back to that nice clean 'fresh' state. The timespan it takes is about 4 minutes to create the image (it is written to another hdd than the OS drive) and roughly 5 minutes to restore it (this includes the boot time for BartPE to load into RAM).

I now make incremental images. I mean, after my clean install, I start installing programs or making changes to the OS. After I have some new stuff implemented, I make a new image. 4 minutes of my life gone.

Once my new image is in place, I play. I might install new programs, or mess with new settings. If things don't turn out so well, I spend 5 minutes and 2 reboots to restore my image to the last one I made.

I do use vmWare and Sandboxie to test things out, and sometimes ShadowDefender as well. But nothing beats installing/tweaking on the real live box.

Not everyone is interested in doing this. You do have to be somewhat organized. Many people I have offered to help set this up, they have agreed. Most of them find they use it more than they thought they would. A few dont' like it. But, many people did not take me up on that offer, and scoff at such non-sense. I can't say one way or another that it is right or wrong. But I can say that those who have adopted disc imaging have far fewer calls to me or the geek squad to fix thier stuff once they open that one email that they should not have lol.

I am currently working on getting a PE to work off the hdd in Win 7 Ultimate. I have it working for the most part. Is anyone interested in finding out more about that?

Sorry for the long post. I have been hammering away on this very topic for a few days so I have lots to state.

Sul.

 

Sully,

Nice. Interesting post.

I have Active@ BootDisk and BartPE running off their own partitions on the HD. Booted by BING. They will run the usual Windows backup apps and connect to the network.

 

Yeah, good (as most of yours are) post Sully. Good for the thinker - not the "know-it-all" types we've got float'in around.

 

I don't keep sensitive data on my hard drive(s)
Anything in that catagory is quickly transferred to a CD and stored for future reference.

I use imaging (Macrium Reflect and Paragon 10) to "start over".
I try lots of software out of curiosity and even though I use Comodo Time Machine to roll forward or back, after awhile I feel the need to start fresh, just as was stated in Sully's post.

I have extreme basic installs of XP Pro, XP Home, W2K, and Vista Ultimate which include only the base operating system, necessary drivers for that basic install, and any applicable MS updates/hotfixes.
From any of those images, I can add whatever applications I wish.
I also have imaged fourteen other hard drives having full or partial OS installs, some with a full compliment of applications except for antivirus and a third party firewall.

So for me, imaging serves more to promote experimentation than for pure security.

 

Ya, thx Sully: always nice to see where the cutting edge is at. Nice post.

@Brian: Love it
What made you try that?

I'm trying OK, just give me another 5 yrs or so and I might get there..

 

The George Mallory answer, "Because it's there".

 

My thoughts regarding backups have remained constant

 

Kind of the same here as Sully, except not in the same league technically as Sul. I love to try different things all the time and really have no interest in using my home machine as a daily, dependable production environment (that's what my job is for), using the same mundane programs to achieve repetitive tasks over again. The copy/paste of data is easy enough and sufficient for that purpose, but the imaging of the O/S is essential imo, because it means it affords the feeling of complete freedom to do whatever you please to your machine in the quest to learn something new. So you screw up and blow away the O/S. Who cares!? Restore in mere minutes and back in business. Gotta love that Linux is my latest interest so I can install whatever I please, although the VBox is nice, but I want to install on the real system as well, so I can dual boot; I like linux enough to keep it abreast of Windows. Since win 9x days I've probably done close to 100 installs. That's enough for me. Re-installing Windows several times over is a great experience because there's clearly a right way of doing it and a wrong way. Nearly 100 times is more than enough, I think, and time is more important to me now than ever (getting old, better make the most of it) so a snappy restore is the dog's bollocks I figure

 

OK, I should install some back up software now, Thanks for the reply