ASR without full backup in XP

[Tony]

I want to create an ASR in case of problems when installing SP3. But it
seems that ASR insists on copying pretty well the whole contents of my C
drive. It certainly does all of "My Documents" and "Shared Documents", so I
would need media capable of holding 50+ GB. This is fine if you have a tape
drive or a spare HD installed, which I don't. But I already have full
backups of my own data on DVD and USB drive. All I need from ASR is the
system files. So, can I stop the ASR wizard backing up "My Documents" and
"Shared Documents"? Or is there another way to be able to get the system
working again if all goes wrong? What do other folks do? Personal document
backup and system backup are not the same thing after all.

 

[BillW50]

In Tony typed:

I want to create an ASR in case of problems when installing SP3. But
it seems that ASR insists on copying pretty well the whole contents
of my C drive. It certainly does all of "My Documents" and "Shared
Documents", so I would need media capable of holding 50+ GB. This is
fine if you have a tape drive or a spare HD installed, which I don't.
But I already have full backups of my own data on DVD and USB drive. All I
need from ASR is the system files. So, can I stop the ASR
wizard backing up "My Documents" and "Shared Documents"? Or is there
another way to be able to get the system working again if all goes
wrong? What do other folks do? Personal document backup and system
backup are not the same thing after all. --
Tony W
My e-mail address has no hyphen
- but please don't use it, reply to the group.

I use a boot CD like BartPE (its free) and then I have access to all files
and folders on the hard drive and none of them are locked. And I can copy
only the parts of the hard drive I want to backup. I have also used this
method to copy everything to a new hard drive. And then boot up from the new
drive. I've done backups and copies this way since the Windows 3.1 days.

--
Bill
Gateway Celeron M 370 (1.5GHZ)
MX6124 (laptop) w/2GB
Windows XP Home SP2 (120GB HD)
Intel(r) 910GML (64MB shared)

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I want to create an ASR in case of problems when installing SP3. But it
seems that ASR insists on copying pretty well the whole contents of my C
drive.

Yes, that is its entire purpose.

It certainly does all of "My Documents" and "Shared Documents", so I would
need media capable of holding 50+ GB. This is fine if you have a tape
drive or a spare HD installed, which I don't. But I already have full
backups of my own data on DVD and USB drive. All I need from ASR is the
system files. So, can I stop the ASR wizard backing up "My Documents" and
"Shared Documents"?

Not without moving those folders, or their contents, to another drive.

Or is there another way to be able to get the system working again if all
goes wrong? What do other folks do? Personal document backup and system
backup are not the same thing after all.

Personally, and I know many others who do this, I use Acronis TrueImage in
two ways.

First:
I create an image of the system drive on an external disk.
I create a scheduled task to update that image, once a month. Yes, this
also takes any data on the system drive. But this part is incremental,
something ASR and ntbackup can't do, so the increment image is much smaller
than the original.

Second:
I use the Backup functions of TrueImage to save the data / email / settings.
Then I schedule another incremental backup of those, which runs daily.

In the case of the system cratering, the Acronis boot CD will allow me to
restore the system image, and then restore the latest data and settings.
And it won't require a floppy.

If you don't want ASR (or any imaging software) to backup your data, you
have to keep the data on another drive.

HTH
-pk

 

[BillW50]

In Patrick Keenan typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:58:11 -0400:

Yes, that is its entire purpose.


Not without moving those folders, or their contents, to another
drive.

Personally, and I know many others who do this, I use Acronis
TrueImage in two ways.

First:
I create an image of the system drive on an external disk.
I create a scheduled task to update that image, once a month. Yes, this
also takes any data on the system drive. But this part is
incremental, something ASR and ntbackup can't do, so the increment
image is much smaller than the original.

Second:
I use the Backup functions of TrueImage to save the data / email /
settings. Then I schedule another incremental backup of those, which
runs daily.
In the case of the system cratering, the Acronis boot CD will allow
me to restore the system image, and then restore the latest data and
settings. And it won't require a floppy.

If you don't want ASR (or any imaging software) to backup your data,
you have to keep the data on another drive.

For starters, my ntbackup *does* incremental backups! And before you use
something like Acronis TrueImage, you better be sure it actually works. I
mean replace your hard drive with a fresh hard drive and make sure the thing
actually works! You will be surprised how many make backups and then learn
when their hard drive fails that things like Acronis TrueImage was set wrong
or simply doesn't work at all. And no! If you don't use ASR or other imaging
software, it doesn't have to be on another drive.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

In Patrick Keenan typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:58:11 -0400:

For starters, my ntbackup *does* incremental backups! And before you use
something like Acronis TrueImage, you better be sure it actually works. I
mean replace your hard drive with a fresh hard drive and make sure the
thing actually works! You will be surprised how many make backups and then
learn when their hard drive fails that things like Acronis TrueImage was
set wrong or simply doesn't work at all.

One might note that the very same complaint is often made about ntbackup.
You'll find lots of posts from people it just didn't work for.

I've used TrueImage for years, and installed it on many client systems, and
it's been very reliable, and much easier to use than ntbackup. And it
doesn't require floppies.

Absolutely, whatever method you use, you must verify that the backups work,
and not rely on a single copy.

But with things like TrueImage, you can simply mount the backup and open the
files, you don't have to restore to anywhere.

-pk

 

[BillW50]

In Patrick Keenan typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:16:13 -0400:

One might note that the very same complaint is often made about
ntbackup. You'll find lots of posts from people it just didn't work
for.
I've used TrueImage for years, and installed it on many client
systems, and it's been very reliable, and much easier to use than
ntbackup. And it doesn't require floppies.

Absolutely, whatever method you use, you must verify that the backups
work, and not rely on a single copy.

But with things like TrueImage, you can simply mount the backup and
open the files, you don't have to restore to anywhere.

Same with my method. I simply mount the backup and there are all of the
files. I simply bootup BartPE (which is free for Windows XP users) on a
stick and I can copy whatever one to whatever two. And virtually anything
can be read by whatever two. It could be another Windows XP machine, a
Linux, a Mac, or even a Commodore machine. No TrueImage required.