what to backup

Hi all
I,m a brand new member. I bought ATI11 around 12 months or more ago from Harvey Norman in Newcastle.I have only just recently got round to installing it
I created a secure zone on a second physical hard drive of about half of 120 gb around 50 gb,s

On doing a full backup of "c' resulted in a message of not enough space??,I thought it would be plenty
I want to be able to restore my computer to an operative state should the hard drive fail, In other words I would replace the failed hdd with a new one and restore from the second drive hereby having a working computer
I have around a 1000 photos stored in "my pictures" and some music in "my music the pictures are also repeated in picasa 3 these are already backed up to disk
So my question is what REALLY do I need to backup to achieve this is it possible that c: documents and settings,program files and windows would be sufficient to get up and running
Boy I hope all that makes sense
Mike
PS running XP Pro sp2

 

I'll refrain from commenting about Hardly Normal - oh well i just did!

First things first. The Secure Zone isn't designed to work on a secondary drive and this might be what has caused your problem. It has been known to work, but it isn't designed to do so.

As you have a second drive, delete the secure zone and just make images to be stored on the second drive.

If you wish with TI 11 you can make a backup location which will be a folder that TI can use. There are some advantages to doing images this way. Be warned however, that if you were to upgrade to TI 2009, the backup location function was removed and now only exists in the Echo Workstation range.

Alternatively if you just want to make an image or incrementals etc, then you just choose the other drive as the drive to image to.

Your pictures are unlikely to compress much (another possibility for the error message) as they are already compressed unless they are in RAW format.

So to get yourself going, you need to:

1. Register your purchase at Acronis and check that you have the most up to date build of TI 11, and download the Safe rescue environment.

2. Make a restore CD and check that you can boot your computer with it.

3. Assuming number two works with no problems, decide what types of images you require.

a) one full image of your system as it is now - a default system so to speak.
b) only full images? If so what frequency (again note this is more difficult if using 2009)
c) a full image plus incrementals - again what frequency.

It might be a precaution to put a copy of the TI installer onto this backup drive along with a text document with your licence number, especially if you've downloaded a newer build.

Are you intending on using this spare drive for anything else? If not, then another option would be to actually clone your current main drive to the second drive, however you would then have to disconnect/disable the second drive when booting from your main drive.

If all you want to do is copy the contents of your My documents folder, then you still don't need a secure zone, just use the files and folders option, however as I stated above, don't expect much compression of your picture files unless they are in RAW/BIGTIFF format.

Colin

 

Hi mike01,

Once you have a full backup of your main hard drive are you going to update to SP3? I mention this because I believe over the next few months Microsoft will be removing the ability of users being able to block this update.
I have been using XP SP3 since it was first released and have had no problems with it at all.

Back to the job in hand. Unlike bodgy I am a long time user of a secure zone on a secondary internal drive. I agree it was not designed for this use but it works just fine. I would in fact recommend the use of a SZ on an extra internal drive for the additional security it provides over an open partition or folder. The simplicity of automatic FIFO management of full images beats any other method I have tried.

Now we have to find out why it does not work on yot machine. A secure zone should be sized to take two or more full partition or whole drive images. I read somewhere that Acronis recommend at least 2.5 times the image file size as a minimum . Because I like to have at least a week's worth of full images I sized my second drive to suit with some room for expansion.

When creating a backup of "My Computer" TI works on a whole drive/partitions basis. When a HDD fails the simplest way is to restore a whole disk image to a replacement drive. It may seem like overkill to regularly re-image everything but it has the merit of simplicity and ease of use. There is no risk of different backups being out of step when a new disk is installed.

There is a particular advantage in using an internal drive for your backups and that is speed. Even a sub 1GHtz computer should achieve 1 GB per minute when backing up and the same speed when restoring.

Xpilot

 

Mike01,

Create a recovery plan for yourself and then test it to make sure it works. In addition to your storing the images in your second drive, you need some additional alternate storage should your primary backup storage not be available--such as caused by an electrical spike, etc. More and more, people are having a 3rd disk stored away containing a backup copy of everything.

If you have some extra time and want to enhance your knowledge about the use of TrueImage Home, reading these some of these links would be helpful. Many are lengthy but the entire thread can be beneficial. These are only a few but there are many more available.

Xpilot backup procedure
Post #221
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1272558&postcount=221

SAVE MY MUSIC COLLECTION! PLEASE (29 replies --2 pages)
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=167710

Recommend backup scheme for photos, music 32 replies--2 pages
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=164175

Best way for making functioning images
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1047306

Backups
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1036066#29

Tatou rambling --one large drive with many externals
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1383642&postcount=13

Clone or Restore using Resize comparison
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1299861&postcount=9

When/Why do people mount
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=154735

Folder naming when storing backup archive images
Post #6
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=184414&postcount=6

 

Hi Groverh,xpilot,bodgy
grover
recovery plan? what is it I,m coming from a position of ignorance and to remedy this I will be scouring the links you sent, 3rd disc maybe but a spike will generate more probs than that like fried mobo
xpilot
sp3 probably big job for dial up what I reckon I,ll do is just backup "my computer" to the second drive 117 gb.s (no secure zone ) as bodgy suggests I can understand sz on your main drive
bodgy
Hardly Normal I would,nt be in the place except the kids got me a voucher
I reckon I,ll just make a folder on the spare drive called "my computer"
and back up my computer into it easy peasy
Make a restore cd how to do this?
Guys thanks I now have plenty to do

Mike

 

Before you make the Rescue CD, make sure you have the last build of TI 11 which is build 8101.

There is an option under Tools "Create Bootable Rescue Media", it is best to put the CD in the tray and let TI close the CD drawer. Some systems get error messages if they close the draw manually.

I suggest making it on a RW CD just to start with, that way if there is a problem you won't have wasted a CD, OTOH, they are cheap I suppose.

Might be an idea to give your My Computer folder for images a more personal name, just in case you decide to get whizzy and put images from other systems on there and of course as they say on planes 'in the unlikely event' of someone else trying to restore an image they get confused when they see a My Computer folder and think it's aWindows My Computer folder.

Colin