Image For Windows Question

I am very impressed by the depth and detail that you can go in to using the command line option for IFW. I have added the following command to the drive context menu in order to further automate the process, without the password of course:

My question is this, is it possible to change the command line so that it does a couple of things for me:

1. That it changes the filename to a date and/or time stamp?

2. That it asks where I want to save the image to, in case I wan to write it to an optical drive?

Also, is there any way to only get this menu entry on my C:\ drive? I never back the others up

Thanks

 

n8chavez,

I use batch files but I'm not familiar with your format. You could have two batch files. One that wrote the C: drive image to a HD partition and named it with a date. Another batch file that wrote to optical media.

Have you seen these?

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=276

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-image-for-windows.htm#addon (Sample backup batch script)

 

Wow, thatnks for this! But I must be a complete idiot because I don't know where to begin with this, or just how to accomplish what I want with .bat files. Is there any way to streamline or simplify the process?

Either way, thank you. I'll try to wrap my head around this tomorrow?

 

The batch files I use are considerably simpler than those TeraByte ones. Simple but practical. They run on a schedule, twice daily. No input required from me. Image and verify done in the background.

Let me know what you would like to do on an automatic basis.

 

Pretty much everything I mentioned earlier; Full backup of an active partition (C:\), image file store on D:\ (filename by a date/time stamp), validates, validated bfb, standard compression, encrypted (all set the password later). If possible I'd like the option to create to an optical drive.

Thanks for your help!

 

Do you have a folder containing the IFW Console files (imagewc.exe)? IFW GUI works, but not as nicely from a batch file. You can get imagewc.exe to run minimized. Not so with imagew.exe.

 

No, I don't think I have the console. Where can I get it?

 

https://terabyteunlimited.com/product-download.php

If you can't get it we could use the GUI version but I prefer the console.

 

Thanks for that! I've got the win32 console now.

 

OK. Put all the console files in D:\IFWC and I'll write a batch file for you. Give me 30 minutes to test it.

While you are waiting, double click imagewc.exe and get a feel for how it runs manually.

I assume your C: drive is in the first partition (w0@0x1)

 

Yes, that's my C:\ drive.

 

Paste this code into Notepad. Save it as full.txt. Then rename the file to full.bat. Accept the warning.
Double click full.bat. If will create C_full.tbi and then rename it to todays date. It will be in your D:\MyBackup folder.

IFWC will run minimized but you can bring it out of the Taskbar to see what is happening.

Let me know what happens.

 

The bat file does run, once I changed the console location and entered a password. But the filenames are always the same, C_full.TBI, and are always overwritten when I create a new image. The image is originally named C_full.TBI during creation and the it is supposed to be rename according to the date after that, meaning that all images would, in effect, have the same name. But Windows can't allow that and the oldest one gets deleted.

 

Strange. In my computer

changes C_full to a date.

It's just an introductory batch file. Only designed to make one image per day. Tomorrows image will have a different name. You will need to make changes if you want more than one image per day.

If you want to run it daily or weekly, then make a schedule from the batch file.

 

I'm really confused now. I've used all combinations of both commands below that I could think of and I still am not having any success.

Any ideas what could be going wrong? The IFW manual says that this is what I should use:
“Backup on %~YYYY%-%~MM%-%~DD%”

But it's not working in my command-line.

 

n8chavez,

Many people want dates in the filename. I don't. I can see the date in the "Date Modified" column of Windows Explorer.

I have a schedule that creates two differential images daily for a week. Then a full backup and more differentials. My diffs are simply labelled diff_01, diff_02, diff_03 etc. It's obvious on which date they were created. You probably hate this system. I can't help with dates as I've never taken an interest in learning how to do it.

Does my batch file change C_full.tbi to 200508.tbi ?

Did you put the console files in D:\IFWC? My batch file wants them in that folder.

 

No, it doesn't. Nothing happens the filename.

No, the console file are in the main IFW folder. But I've changed the .bat file accordingly.

 

It must be a Regional setting. I'll see if I can find the USA equivalent. I'm in Australia.

Then you need to change the Path to

You don't need Path info in the command line.

 

In Regional and Language Options, Regional Options, Customize, Date Tab. Make sure your Short Date Format is MM/dd/yy

That should fix it.

You can test by using this batch file.

Create test.txt in the same folder as the batch file. Run the batch file.

 

Was your original Short date MM/d/yy ?

 

MM/dd/yy

 

Damn. My original one was d/MM/yy and it didn't work. dd/MM/yy works for me (Australia)

 

My mate in Florida uses this.

 

n8chavez,

Instead of this in the original batch file

Try this

It should create a dated folder with C_full.tbi inside the folder. You could add a 1, 2 etc to the folder name as the day progresses so the folder doesn't get over written.

 

Okay, I got everything to work!

I used this version:

But what I did need to modify my regional settings from M/dd/yy to MM/dd/yy.
Everything works fine now, as I want it to.

Brian K - Thank you very much for your help. I appreciate it. If I can ever do anything for you please don't hesitate to ask.