Win XP Home Edition - Back Up Inquiry on Partitioned Drives

[Guest]

According to Ed Bott, Microsoft Press Author and Expert Zone Community
Columnist,
Ed indicated that Win XP is designed to make the BackUp task easy by giving
every user account its own personal profile, which consists of a set of
subfolders in the Documents and Settings folder. Where our profile holds our
personal files (in the My Documents folder), Outlook Express e-mail messages,
Internet Explorer Favorites and cookies, and information about your settings
and preferences. And, if we have personal data stored elsewhere, consider
moving it into the My Documents folder to make backing up easier.

My question is: What about Partitioned drives? The reason I partitioned my
drive is so that all software application is located in one drive (i.e. Drive
C
and all my personal files is saved on the second drive (i.e Drive D
By doing so, I now have my Favorites, cookies, personal settings and
preferences on Drive C: which is the default and all my other personal files
such as videos, photos, docs etc on drive D: I don't want to clutter my C:
Drive with all my personal stuff 'cause I want my system to launch
applications faster and also to prevent loss of personal files if I were to
be attacked (which mainly happens in the C: drive first).

Therefore in this case, if I wanted to save "my favorites, cookies, personal
settings and preferences etc., in one location with all my personal files"
(to make backing up easier) Would it be possible to change the default drive
for "Documents and Settings" to be saved in my (i.e. D: Drive) instead. Is
that possible?


Appreciate your help!

 

[Rock]

According to Ed Bott, Microsoft Press Author and Expert Zone Community
Columnist,
Ed indicated that Win XP is designed to make the BackUp task easy by
giving
every user account its own personal profile, which consists of a set of
subfolders in the Documents and Settings folder. Where our profile holds
our
personal files (in the My Documents folder), Outlook Express e-mail
messages,
Internet Explorer Favorites and cookies, and information about your
settings
and preferences. And, if we have personal data stored elsewhere, consider
moving it into the My Documents folder to make backing up easier.

My question is: What about Partitioned drives? The reason I partitioned
my
drive is so that all software application is located in one drive (i.e.
Drive
C
and all my personal files is saved on the second drive (i.e Drive D
By doing so, I now have my Favorites, cookies, personal settings and
preferences on Drive C: which is the default and all my other personal
files
such as videos, photos, docs etc on drive D: I don't want to clutter my
C:
Drive with all my personal stuff 'cause I want my system to launch
applications faster and also to prevent loss of personal files if I were
to
be attacked (which mainly happens in the C: drive first).

Therefore in this case, if I wanted to save "my favorites, cookies,
personal
settings and preferences etc., in one location with all my personal files"
(to make backing up easier) Would it be possible to change the default
drive
for "Documents and Settings" to be saved in my (i.e. D: Drive) instead.
Is
that possible?

There is a way to put it on a different partition during the installation of
XP. After XP is installed there is a way to move it involving registry
edits, but there might be some unpleasant side effects with 3rd party
software on the system. See this link for info on how to do it.

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/userpath.htm

The safer approach is to move some of the folders under Documents and
Settings to a different volume. Don't just drag them around. The easiest
and safest way to do this is use TweakUI, one of the MS powertoys. There is
a setting in there to specify a different location for many of those folders
under Documents and Settings.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

Storing data on another partition gives you only marginal benefit to prevent
loss of data files. The way to best protect yourself is to always have a
full and complete backup of important data which is what you are looking
into now.

One backup / recovery solution I recommend you look into is using a drive
imaging program. These programs save a compressed image of the volumes on a
drive which can be saved to external media such as an external USB drive.
Backups can be done on a file or volume image basis. Some of them also will
do file backups and disk cloning in addition to imaging. This type of
backup allows you to not only safeguard your data but gives you a way to
restore the system as a whole if some disaster hits.

Programs that do this are Acronis True Image Home, Norton Ghost and Terabyte
Unlimited Image for Windows. ATI is a relatively easy to use program with
nice features including volume imaging, drive imaging, drive cloning, and
file backup.

An external USB drive can be put together inexpensively. Get a regular ATA
hard drive (300 GB drives can be had for less than $100) , an external USB
drive enclosure (around $20-$30), and USB cable.

 

[Guest]

Rock,

I've heard about Acronis and just curious... when you say, "Backups can be
done on a file or volume image basis." Does that mean I can pick and choose
what I want to BackUp? And not necessarily back up everything?

Actually, right now, I'm in the process of doing a complete clean up of my
laptop.
Because, over the past 3 years of owning this laptop, I've been installing
and uninstalling programs and all sorts of junk cluttering up the poor thing
and never even thought of cleaning up the registry etc. So, I want to nuke
my XP and start fresh again (go through the whole re-install process,
partition my HD, re-install all hardware drivers/firmware etc.) The only
problem is, I haven't yet purchased the USB external 300gb ATA HD as you
mentioned previously (which I love the idea). The only thing holding me back
is that I'm currently living in Bangkok, Thailand and I'd have to go shop
around for a PC Central store of the sort. But right now, I'm working in a
time constraint atmosphere and the only backup option I have to work with is:
CD+R's, CD+RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R9. (bummer).

So, if Acronis can perform and imaging backup allowing me to choose what I
want as well, I'll definitely purchase it along with the external USB 300gb
HD.

Thanks so much for the info and the links to "edit the registry" and
"TweakUI - MS powertoys".

 

[Rock]

Rock,

I've heard about Acronis and just curious... when you say, "Backups can be
done on a file or volume image basis." Does that mean I can pick and
choose
what I want to BackUp? And not necessarily back up everything?

Actually, right now, I'm in the process of doing a complete clean up of my
laptop.
Because, over the past 3 years of owning this laptop, I've been installing
and uninstalling programs and all sorts of junk cluttering up the poor
thing
and never even thought of cleaning up the registry etc. So, I want to
nuke
my XP and start fresh again (go through the whole re-install process,
partition my HD, re-install all hardware drivers/firmware etc.) The only
problem is, I haven't yet purchased the USB external 300gb ATA HD as you
mentioned previously (which I love the idea). The only thing holding me
back
is that I'm currently living in Bangkok, Thailand and I'd have to go shop
around for a PC Central store of the sort. But right now, I'm working in
a
time constraint atmosphere and the only backup option I have to work with
is:
CD+R's, CD+RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R9. (bummer).

So, if Acronis can perform and imaging backup allowing me to choose what I
want as well, I'll definitely purchase it along with the external USB
300gb
HD.

Thanks so much for the info and the links to "edit the registry" and
"TweakUI - MS powertoys".

You're welcome. Acronis does offer a 30 day free trial version to try.
Version 10 is the newest, and they just released their first update to it.
ATI Home 10 will do a variety of different backups. It can clone one drive
to another (essentially making an exact duplicate of the drive contents), it
can image a drive to external media (and compress that image), it can make
an image of individual volumes on a drive which has more than one partition
and volume, or it can backup individual files. Files can be chosen by and
it will backup those file types wherever they are on the drive, and they can
be chosen by specific locations. So there is quite a bit of flexibility.

If an image of a volume is created, restores can be done of the whole image,
or of individual files in the image.

I use imaging rather than file backup, that way there is a means to recover
the system and/or individual files, depending on what might go wrong. It
will take more space for an image backup since the OS and data files are
included. Acronis offers three types of image backups, Full, Incremental
and Differential. A full one is just that, everything included. An
incremental backs up just what was changed since the previous full or
incremental backup. A differential backs up everything that was changed
since the last full backup. So an incremental or differential backup may
only be 1/10 or 1/20 the size of the full backup.

Drive imaging to an external USB drive is some of the best insurance and
peace of mind you can have.

 

[Guest]

Rock,

Thanks allot for your help. I've made note and will give it shot.

 

[Rock]

You're welcome.

Rock,

Thanks allot for your help. I've made note and will give it shot.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My question is: What about Partitioned drives? The reason I
partitioned my drive is so that all software application is located
in one drive (i.e. Drive C
and all my personal files is saved on the second drive (i.e Drive D
By doing so, I now have my Favorites, cookies, personal settings and
preferences on Drive C: which is the default and all my other
personal files such as videos, photos, docs etc on drive D: I don't
want to clutter my C: Drive with all my personal stuff 'cause I want
my system to launch applications faster and also to prevent loss of
personal files if I were to be attacked (which mainly happens in the
C: drive first).

I see that Rock has already answered your question, but I just wanted to add
a comment or two about what you say above.

Having your "personal stuff" on drive D: instead of C: does nothing to make
your applications launch faster.

Having your "personal stuff" on drive D: instead of C: is highly unlikely
to prevent the loss of personal files if you were to be attacked. The only
way to protect yourself against that kind of attack and loss is to have
backup of the files that are important to you stored on external media.
Anything else that you do by way of partitioning or backing up to internal
drives is just kidding yourself.

My personal view is that you should choose a partitioning scheme that fits
your backup scheme. If you backup only data files, then it help to have
those data files in a partition separate from everything else. But if you
image or clone the entire disk (as many people do), much of the rationale
for separating the data in a separate partition disappears.