Jeff,
Thanks for the information. The ASR backup looks like a
terrific concept. Too bad MS didn't think it was valuable
enough for us poor Home users.
-----Original Message-----
The following is from Woody's XP Watch #2.05 (2/4/2002):
Last week I promised you that I would tell you about
backup techniques for Windows XP/Home. If you'll recall, I
told you that Windows XP/Pro has a downright decent backup
and restore wizard, which runs as part of Automated System
Recovery, accessible by clicking Start | All Programs |
Accessories | System Tools | Backup. I also told you about
the way Microsoft decided to include the backup half of
the wizard in Windows XP/Home but, uh, neglected to
include the restore part. In my WinXP book, I say "that
makes XP/Home's backup just about as useful as a Ferrari
Testarossa with no wheels."
If you really, really want to use the ASR backup routine
in XP/Home (it's the NTBackup program that Windows 2000
users have come to know and love), you can install it from
the Windows XP/Home CD. To do so, put the XP/Home CD in
your CD drive. When the installer asks, "What do you want
to do?" click "Perform additional tasks" then "Browse this
CD", navigate to VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP and double-click
NTBACKUP.MSI.
But don't bother installing the program until you've the
rest of this newsletter. It should send a chill down your
spine.
I tried a few experiments and learned a few surprising
things about XP/Home backup. There's an MS Knowledge Base
article that's supposed to tell you what you need to do in
order to perform an XP/Home restore, but I tried and tried
and couldn't make heads from tails out of the article. The
boot diskette generated by the backup program, following
the description in the KB article, doesn't work on any of
my systems. The steps detailed there for creating a backup
file do work - you have to manually override the wizard's
settings - but in the end, the backup isn't much use.
Microsoft outright lies in their Knowledge Base article
Q309340 where it says the restore feature "applies to
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" when it most assuredly
does not - any backup that you make in XP/Home is
essentially worthless. Even if you tell the
XP/Home "Backup or Restore Wizard" to restore the entire
contents of the c: drive, it misses parts.
The only way I found to restore the c: drive, after using
NTBACKUP to create a backup file was to boot from the
Windows XP/Home CD, completely delete the partition that
held Windows, re-install WinXP/Home, re-install NTBACKUP
using the steps I outlined above, and immediately run the
restore using the Advanced settings in the wizard.
You know the worst part of it all? At every turn, it
appears as if everything is working correctly, No error
message. No warnings. No nothing. The Knowledge Base
articles occasionally warn you that the procedures don't
work with XP/Home - then go ahead and give you specific
steps for performing the procedures that don't work!
Unless somebody's clued you in, you'll only get heartburn
over XP/Home's clueless backup when you need it - and find
out that it didn't do what it was supposed to do.
Trustworthy computing, eh?
So now I've spoiled all your illusions about Backups in
Windows XP what can you do? In the next issue I'll tell
you what I do and what options you can try.
From #2.06 (2/12/2002):
There are a million ways to back up your system, and at
least a half million of them work.
I've been playing the backup game for a long time, and
I've only bumped into three basic scenarios where I really
needed a backup. Mind you, I'm not a major multinational
corporation, and I don't have a server farm. Although I do
have an orchid farm. But that's another story.
I need backups for three reasons.
First, sometimes my c: drive dies. When that happens, I
need to stick a new drive in the machine, boot, restore
the hard drive, restore my data, and get going. I also
lose at least two hanks of hair and at least one night of
sleep.
Second, sometimes I screw up a file so badly I need to go
back and retrieve an earlier copy. When that happens, I
know about it right away: I shout and kick the computer
and swear a few times, then go spelunking to look for an
old copy of the file.
Third, on rare occasions, I'll make a change that needs
to be undone and not catch it right away. I can only think
of a couple of times I've done that, and it usually
involves dial-up networking settings - I get the wrong
password typed in, or I forget the name of a mail server,
or something else equally obscure, and it's a couple of
days later before I realize that I changed something I
shouldn't have.
The technique I use for backup works very well for the
second kind of problem, and pretty well for the first
kind. It doesn't do beans for the third type.
My method is really simple. I like it that way.
1. All my PCs have two hard drives. The second one is
primarily for backups, but I'll also stick device drivers
and Service Packs and other not-critical-but-a-pain-to-
download files on the second drive. The second drive also
has copies of my old Outlook files, which I cycle manually
once a month.
2. Every week or two (or whenever I'm going to do
something fun like install new software) I run
PowerQuest's Drive Image and create a full backup image of
my main boot drive on the secondary drive. Drive Image
generates boot disks and all the other goodies necessary
to recovery from a crashed c: drive.
3. Every day - usually at the end of the day, I run a
little batch file that copies all of my important data
files from the main hard drive onto the backup drive. This
is really a bailing wire 'n chewing gum approach, but it
works fine for me. To make your own batch file that copies
your data files from the c: drive to the d: drive, just do
this:
a.. Right-click on the desktop, pick New | Text document
b.. Immediately type the name backup.bat and hit Enter.
Windows will warn you not to change the file name
extension. Which is really weird because Windows doesn't
bother to show you file name extensions in the first
place, but such is the Wonder of Windows. What you have is
an old-fashioned batch file.
c.. Right-click on the new backup.bat file and pick Edit
d.. Type in this line:
xcopy "c:\Documents and
Settings\*.*" "d:\Backup" /d /e /c /h /y
a.. Close backup.bat.
b.. When you want to run a backup, double-click on
backup.bat. The first time you run it, Windows will ask if
you're trying to create a file or directory. Type "d" for
directory. After the first time, it'll run without a hitch.
Hate to disappoint you, but that's my entire backup strategy.
That strategy might not suit you, not all of us have to
install beta versions of Office and Windows from time to
time.
XP/Home users have some other options. For example,
Microsoft has a set of six (six!) setup boot diskettes
that you can download. Those diskettes will let you boot
from your floppy drive, so you can run Windows XP setup
from the CD, if your computer won't boot from the CD.
The archives are at
http://www.woodyswatch.com/winxp/archives.asp.
MS was originally not even going to include ntbackup in
XP home but (apparently) someone talked them into
including it, with reduced functionality.
I used ASR with XP pro, it worked as advertised. However
I now use an imaging program from
www.acronis.com
TrueImage which works very easily and does the job much
better.
--
Just my 2¢ worth
Jeff
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