Back up to external disc drive

[Guest]

HI all!
I have a very slow computer which I would like to FIX. It is approx. 3years
old. Running Windows XP home SP2.
The story goes: original C:\ drive started going too slow. could not back
up. Repair shop installed 2nd drive D:\ = problem not resolved. Been seeking
advice and reading a lot to learn what to do. Created a MONSTER with my back
ups which is making the problem even worse. The C drive = disc 1, basic
partition - System,
the D:\ = disc 0, basic partition - boot and (the MONSTER) is I got an
external disc drive purposely to try to get everything out of c: and d: to
format them and make c: my normal drive and d: a storage disc.
In my ignorance I plugged in the external drive and copied/pasted c:+d:. Got
error messages saying somethings could not be copied. So went searching for
back up info and ended up installing the Backup Utility from the Windows XP
cd and did a full back up straight into the disc 3 - H: drive which is the
external drive.
on checking, it looks like I am missing some of my most important files and
folders so I froze again, terrified of formatting the hard drives and losing
those files for good. Every step I take I run into more questions and
problems,

so I think I now have MULTIPLE copies of some files and settings and lots
that can not be opened, other that can not be copied and so on and on AND ON.
I have done copies from the c; drive and I have done copies from the d; drive
as I can log on to both, BUT I have created a HUGE MONSTER riight? and am no
closer to solving my problems.
I do not seem to have any viruses as I have current security and have also
used other online scans on full computer, in safe mode and with system
restore disabled.
I also have disc 2 - removable G: ?????,
cd rom 0 - dvd E; and cd rom 1 - dvd F:

So I think I have SOME boot.ini too many and do not have the knowledge to go
any further. I am too scared to format c and d just yet with out getting
those important files backed up.
I ran msconfig and check the boot ini path. It highlights one to get rid of
but when I did then computer then boots from the external drive. so I
restored it to boot as normal where I choose wich WINDOWS XP I want to log on
from. ???????

I also tried to use the File Tansfer Wizard but it failed miserably as well.
I do not understand what happened to my files when the d; drive was put in.
Maybe I have to reinstall the program that created the VIP files to get them
backed up?????? I can not go into the program like I used to, Bookkeeping, I
do not see it nor can I find it but there are some related files and things
present including some backups done by the program itself.

I don't know what to do anymore. If any of you experts have some time to
advise me I really would appreciate your time. Thank you for your kindness
and knowledge as of now and forever.
IH
PS. I found a multitude of ntuser. DAT.file files in my system when I did a
search.
Please help if possible, and if not, justt let me know if I am behond help
anyway please point me in the right direction either on what to do or where
to find info to fix my Monster. Thank you.

 

[Allan]

HI all!
I have a very slow computer which I would like to FIX. It is approx.
3years
old. Running Windows XP home SP2.
The story goes: original C:\ drive started going too slow. could not back
up. Repair shop installed 2nd drive D:\ = problem not resolved. Been
seeking
advice and reading a lot to learn what to do. Created a MONSTER with my
back
ups which is making the problem even worse. The C drive = disc 1, basic
partition - System,
the D:\ = disc 0, basic partition - boot and (the MONSTER) is I got an
external disc drive purposely to try to get everything out of c: and d: to
format them and make c: my normal drive and d: a storage disc.
In my ignorance I plugged in the external drive and copied/pasted c:+d:.
Got
error messages saying somethings could not be copied. So went searching
for
back up info and ended up installing the Backup Utility from the Windows
XP
cd and did a full back up straight into the disc 3 - H: drive which is the
external drive.
on checking, it looks like I am missing some of my most important files
and
folders so I froze again, terrified of formatting the hard drives and
losing
those files for good. Every step I take I run into more questions and
problems,

so I think I now have MULTIPLE copies of some files and settings and lots
that can not be opened, other that can not be copied and so on and on AND
ON.
I have done copies from the c; drive and I have done copies from the d;
drive
as I can log on to both, BUT I have created a HUGE MONSTER riight? and am
no
closer to solving my problems.
I do not seem to have any viruses as I have current security and have also
used other online scans on full computer, in safe mode and with system
restore disabled.
I also have disc 2 - removable G: ?????,
cd rom 0 - dvd E; and cd rom 1 - dvd F:

So I think I have SOME boot.ini too many and do not have the knowledge to
go
any further. I am too scared to format c and d just yet with out getting
those important files backed up.
I ran msconfig and check the boot ini path. It highlights one to get rid
of
but when I did then computer then boots from the external drive. so I
restored it to boot as normal where I choose wich WINDOWS XP I want to log
on
from. ???????

I also tried to use the File Tansfer Wizard but it failed miserably as
well.
I do not understand what happened to my files when the d; drive was put
in.
Maybe I have to reinstall the program that created the VIP files to get
them
backed up?????? I can not go into the program like I used to, Bookkeeping,
I
do not see it nor can I find it but there are some related files and
things
present including some backups done by the program itself.

I don't know what to do anymore. If any of you experts have some time to
advise me I really would appreciate your time. Thank you for your
kindness
and knowledge as of now and forever.
IH
PS. I found a multitude of ntuser. DAT.file files in my system when I did
a
search.
Please help if possible, and if not, justt let me know if I am behond help
anyway please point me in the right direction either on what to do or
where
to find info to fix my Monster. Thank you.

Your truly critical user files can be copied to CD-rom so that you can
always restore your personal data. It sounds like your external drive has
garbage on it so you can just scratch/format it and start all over. I am not
sure from your description what is currently on the d:\ drive. You
definitely had the right idea in using NTbackup to run a full backup to the
external drive. That is what you should have done first. You may have to
clean up your d:\ drive manually or even format it again.
The FAST wizard is also an acceptable way of backup up user profiles and
data which again you can save on your external drive. Your intentions were
fine but it sounds like you were too impatient with the tools. You may want
to shell out for drive imaging software which starts at about forty dollars
for a single license. Even CD-burning software can be very helpful in making
backups.
The key thing about backup up is keep it manageable, make a plan and think
in advance about how to recover from different scenarios. Simple hard drive
failure is not the only bad thing that can happen, although it is common.
Finally, one way of possibly speeding up a slow computer is to allocate a
page file on the second (non-system) drive. It is recommended that the page
file be located in a dedicated partition (fat32) at the beginning of the
non-system drive; the size of the partition could be 4GB depending on your
installed memory (RAM).

 

[Poprivet]

Hi,
I read Allan's advice, and it looks fine. What he said is good, and an
imaging program will indeed do VERY well for you w/r to future problems.
However, as I see it right now, you have some cleanup work to do.

Your boot drive is C:, correct? Then:

I -think- you said you backed up to your D drive and then later to your
external drive, right? So, assuming there is no urgency (a pending disk
failure, etc.), you should first do a lot of cleanup.
Search drive D for *.bkf. Those are the backup files that ntbackup
creates. Delete them. Or, if you know what they are, perhaps you want to
copy some of them to a DVD for safekeeping, whatever - that's up to you.
You do NOT need to back up any XP files at this point. For now, only copy
the stuff you created yourself; works of art, the great american novel you
wrote, etc. etc..
Then: What else is on D:? If the files on D: are also on C:, then
delete them. You won't be needing them.
Actually, if there is nothing on D that you need, it would be faster to
simple format drive D:. My Computer, right click, Format, choose drive D.
It's a lot faster than deleting the stuff.
The External Drive: Format it, too. Now the external drive is
completely empty and ready to receive backups. And D is there for whatever
purpose you want it to be there for. Personally I'd put ALL of my data over
to drive D. By right clicking on My Documents in Explorer, or on the
desktop if it's showing there, you can choose to MOVE My Documents. Move it
to drive D. Now all your data can be saved to drive D and drive C will
mainly be for your system files and email/IE Favorites, etc.

Once all that's done, do a Disk Cleanup. Start, Programs, Accessories,
System Tools, Disk Cleanup. Let it run to completion.
Then Defrag drive C: Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Defrag.
This might take awhile, so have a cup/glass/bottle of your favorite beverage
while it works.

Now go out and get Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image preferably IMO, and
install them. Read the user manuals, learn to use them and how to create
disk images.
Put them to work. Backup ALL of your data to the external drive. Then,
set their scheduler to do backups periodically, the frequency based on how
much new data you create daily. Mine does an incremental backup every night
and a new, full backup once a month. I use Norton Ghost version 10 but
Acronis is very good also. BootitNG is another such program, but it's a lot
more techie than the other two.

Once your images are created and the incrementals scheduled, etc., go back
to enjoying your computer. Periodically check status to be sure protection
remains set for all drives, but in general you can not mess with them
unless/until you need them. The first time you need to restore back to last
week's disk image, you will be VERY grateful for having put in the work
NOW<g>. And it will happen, I can almost promise you, that you WILL need to
recover an image.
Those apps are also handy to get back that file you created yesterday and
accidentally deleted this morning.

ntbackup.exe IS a good, reliable and functional archival system, but not
near as good as the recommended imaging software, plus it's more complicated
to use, and will not compress your backups to save drive space as the
imaging software will do. It can take a lot of drive space even compressed,
to hold a full backup plus a month's worth of incremental additions to it.
The first time you recov er using a disk image, you'll easily feel your
money was well spent. Heck, they're all less than about $50 last I knew.

How big is the external drive? It should be AT LEAST twice the size of the
added capacities of drives C and D. I have 80 Gig and 160 Gig internal
drives, which says I want about 150 Gig for backup, and I actually have a
500 Gig external drive.
The external drive usually runs about one third filled, based on monthly
full backups plus daily incrementals, plus a copy of all my original CDs for
XP, tools, applications, etc.. I also use it for a sandbox; anything I want
to play with that doesn't need to be backed up to anywhere else.

Feel free to come back with more questions about this or any other related
processes; lots of good people here to assist you.

HTH

Pop`

 

[Guest]

Hi Allan,
Thank you for your info and time. Just to clear up my info a bit - When my
c: drive got to a point where just about every click resulted in a warning of
some kind from my internet security program and other warnings I did not a
decent back up at all, did not know how to back up and could not burn to disc
for several reasons. so the repair shop just added the d: drive and made it
the one that boots automatically unless I press the down arrow at start up to
choose my first drive. So I left the c: drive as it was and started to work
with d: only. I have some newly acquired burning software on d: and some
other programs downloded from the internet that I have to keep but am still
waiting for the disc to arrive in the post. I think that the repairer
installed windows xp in the d: - I had to install my printer, camera and so
on again. At this point I was not using the CRITICAL Business folder much so
I did not notice anything wrong with it.
But I noticed that the d: drive was just as slow as the c: was before it got
almost impossible to work with. So I want to edit my family movies and
downloaded some programs to help me do that and it got even slower so I got
some advice and decided to back up everything now because now I have a new
dvd burner that works and also have burning software. In the process of
backing up and not knowing how to do it properly that is when I created this
Monster. Copied a lot of things to dvd with the burning software but the my
documents file was so big and I did not know how to make it fit into several
dvds in order. then ran the back up utility in different ways and still had
the same problem because I had no big enough storage to put it in. That is
when I got the external drive and in it I have put in the full system back up
from the B/Up Utility, them copy/pasted the folders that I put together with
what I wanted to copy to external but in doing that I also copied the windows
folder. and I did this bu logging into d: and accessing the c: through my
computer and then did it again but logging on directly to the c: drive and
then accessing the d: drive form the my computer again. then I got into the
external drive and started checking what was in it and opened Pandora's box.
OUCH. founnd lots of empty folder, folder that appear lighter in colour as if
hidden. Then I thought I would have the same folders open in the external and
the c: or d: drives - side by side to check folder/file one by one only to
find that if I did copy/paste or drag/drop into the external drive directly
some of them were copied and some could not be copied. Accidentaly CUT/PASTE
some files and maybe they were the critical ones. Then tried to do the File
Transfer Wizard and it did not work at all. So, yes, you are 100% spot on -
there is a lot of garbage in my external drive but also in both the c: and d:
drive - need to do a big clean up on all af them. My only hope of getting my
critical files now lies in the external drive in spite of everything.
My c: drive is 120Gb, my d: is 80Gb and the external is 400Gb - they all
have about 60% free space.
I would like to try to allocate the page file as you suggested but do not
have the know how without a step by step instruction i feel I would make
things even worse. I have 512 physical memory and available is now very
little due to all the duplications in all the drives now due to the back up
stuff up that I created.
thanks for your ideas. I am going to try to find the critical files and burn
them to cd and THEN we will see what happens I do not really want to go an
get yet another external drive to get disc image on if I can help it but I
will keep that idea as a last resort for now.
Thank you again.

 

[Guest]

I Pop, thank you for your help. please read also my reply to Allan. It might
help clear up some things . I shall insert my answers into your message so I
do not miss any. I was half way with the reply earlier but there was a black
out, ALMOST GAVE ME HEART FAILURE, I thought I killed the computer for good,
problems solved, and could not get back to it until now. Please reply. Thanks
again.

Hi,
I read Allan's advice, and it looks fine. What he said is good, and an
imaging program will indeed do VERY well for you w/r to future problems.
However, as I see it right now, you have some cleanup work to do.

Your boot drive is C:, correct? Then:

NO. COMPUTER MANAGENT SAYS: DISK 1 C: PARTITION - BASIC - SYSTEM
DISK 2 D: PARTITION -
BASIC - BOOT AND THAT IS WHEN I AM LOGGED ON TO THE C: DRIVE. ALSO HERE IN
C: I CAN NOT SEE MY EXTERNAL DRIVE. IF I LOG ON TO THE D: DRIVE I CAN SEE IT
IN DISK MANAGEMENT AS DISK 3 H: PARTION BASIC. YESTERDAY IT SAID - MBR BUT
NOW IT DOES NOT.

I -think- you said you backed up to your D drive and then later to your
external drive, right? So, assuming there is no urgency (a pending disk
failure, etc.), you should first do a lot of cleanup.
Search drive D for *.bkf. Those are the backup files that ntbackup
creates. Delete them. Or, if you know what they are, perhaps you want to
copy some of them to a DVD for safekeeping, whatever - that's up to you.
You do NOT need to back up any XP files at this point. For now, only copy
the stuff you created yourself; works of art, the great american novel you
wrote, etc. etc..

I SHALL DO THAT AS SOON AS I FINISH WITH THIS MESSAGE, IE FIND THE .BKF
FILES AND TRY TO BURN THE ONTO DISC TO BE ON THE SAFE SIDE.
I DO HAVE THE WINDOWS XP DISK THAT CAME WITH MY COMPUTER, DRIVES DISK,
MOTHERBOARD AND SOME OTHER THINGS EXCEPT I AM NOT SURE ABOUT WHAT I NEED FOR
THE CD-ROM. i HAVE THE DISK FOR ONE BUT NOT FOR THE OTHER AND THEY ARE
DIFFERENT.

Then: What else is on D:? If the files on D: are also on C:, then
delete them. You won't be needing them.

I WILL DOUBLE CHECK THE D: DRIVE. BUT I THINK THAT I ONLY HAVE SOME
DOWNLOADED BURNING SOFTWARE THAT I JUST BOUGHT TO ENABLE ME TO BURN MY INFO
TO DISK. I MADE CD COPIES OF IT BECAUSE I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE SOFTWARE
DICS FROM THE COMPANY TO COME IN THE MAIL. I HAVE SOME FOTOS AND FAMILY
MOVIES. THE MOVIES ARE REPLACEABLE I HAVE THE ORIGINALS FROM THE CAMERA. SOME
OF THE PHOTOS WERE SENT TO ME VIA EMAIL FROM FAMILY AND FRIENDS SO I NEED TO
MAKE SURE I CAN GET THEM OUT OF THE MONSTER AS I CALL IT. APART FORM THAT I
THINK I WOULD BE PRETTY SAFE TO FORMAT THE D:

My c: ORIGINAL drive is 120Gb, my d: is 80Gb and the external is 400Gb -
they all
have about 60% free space.

Actually, if there is nothing on D that you need, it would be faster to
simple format drive D:. My Computer, right click, Format, choose drive D.
It's a lot faster than deleting the stuff.
The External Drive: Format it, too. Now the external drive is
completely empty and ready to receive backups.

I WILL DEFINETELY FORMAT ALL OF THE DISCS EVENTUALY. FIRST I WANT TO FIND MY
CRITICAL FILES WHICH I THINK ARE NOW PROBABLY IN THE EXTERNAL DRIVE BECAUSE
OF ACCIDENTAL CUT/PASTE. I CAN NOT OPEN THEM. I WILL TRY REINSTALLING THE
PROGRAM THAT I USED TO DO THE BOOKKEEPING BECAUSE IT IS NO LONGER THERE AS
FAR AS I CAN TELL., AND SEE IF IT WORKS - IS THIS THE WAY TO GO? OR SHOULD I
FIND A RESTORE POINT BEFORE THE EXTERNAL DRIVE CAME INTO PLAY AND RESTORE PC
TO IT AND JUST FORMAT THE EXTERNAL DRIVE AND REDO THE BACKUPS FRESH IN TO
IT???

I THINK I CAN ACTUALLY LOG INTO THE EXTERNAL DRIVE WHEN I REMOVE ONE OF THE
ENTRIES IN THE BOOT.INI SECTION OF MSCONFIG.

ALL MY FEARS COME FROM THE FACT THAT A LOT OF THE BACKUPS AND COPIES I DID,
DID NOT SEEM TO HAVE WORKED PROPERLY. I CAN REPLACE PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING
EXCEPT FOR SOME OF THE PHOTOS AND THOSE VIP BUSINESS FILES.
ALSO I AM NOT SURE IF BEFORE I FORMAT I HAVE TO DISCONNECT ALL WIRES FROM
THE BOX APART FROM SCREEN, KEYBOARD AND MOUSE??
AND WHAT ABOUT MY BROADBAND MODEM? i DO HAVE THE INSTALLATION CD.
And D is there for whatever

purpose you want it to be there for. Personally I'd put ALL of my data over
to drive D. By right clicking on My Documents in Explorer, or on the
desktop if it's showing there, you can choose to MOVE My Documents. Move it
to drive D. Now all your data can be saved to drive D and drive C will
mainly be for your system files and email/IE Favorites, etc.

AS FOR THE ABOVE, I BETTER MAKE IT CLEAR THAT WHEN THE REPAIRER INSTALLED
THE D DRIVE, I THINK HE PUT IT ON TOP OF THE C DRIVE. THE C HAS LARGER
CAPACITY THEN THE D, I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ONE FOR STORAGE ONLY AND ONCE MY
EXTERNAL IS CLEAN, I WOULD PROBABLY WANT TO KEEP THAT FOR BACKING UP
DOWNLOADED PROGRAMS AND BACK UPS IF THAT IS ADVISABLE. PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

Once all that's done, do a Disk Cleanup. Start, Programs, Accessories,
System Tools, Disk Cleanup. Let it run to completion.
Then Defrag drive C: Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Defrag.
This might take awhile, so have a cup/glass/bottle of your favorite beverage
while it works.

ONE OF THE FEW THINGS I AM CAPABLE OF DOING WITHOUT MESSING UP IS
DEFRAGGING. SO I WILL BE OK DOING THAT. DID IT SUCCESSFULLY BEFORE.

Now go out and get Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image preferably IMO, and
install them. Read the user manuals, learn to use them and how to create
disk images.
Put them to work. Backup ALL of your data to the external drive. Then,
set their scheduler to do backups periodically, the frequency based on how
much new data you create daily. Mine does an incremental backup every night
and a new, full backup once a month. I use Norton Ghost version 10 but
Acronis is very good also. BootitNG is another such program, but it's a lot
more techie than the other two.

DEFINETELY I WILL GET THE DISC IMAGING SOFTWARE ASAP AND BELIEVE ME I WISH I
HAD KNOWN ABOUT IT A LONG TIME AGO. SEE, I ONLY JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THESE
FORUMS A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO BECAUSE OF THESE PROBLEMS I AM HAVING AND I KICK
MYSELF FOR NOT FINDING THEM EARLIER. (duh!!!)

Once your images are created and the incrementals scheduled, etc., go back
to enjoying your computer. Periodically check status to be sure protection
remains set for all drives, but in general you can not mess with them
unless/until you need them. The first time you need to restore back to last
week's disk image, you will be VERY grateful for having put in the work
NOW<g>. And it will happen, I can almost promise you, that you WILL need to
recover an image.
Those apps are also handy to get back that file you created yesterday and
accidentally deleted this morning.

I CAN ABSOLUTELY NOT WAIT TO GET THE PC BACK TO WHAT IT SHOULD BE. MY DREAM
IS TO UNDERSTAND MY PC MUCH BETTER SO I CAN MAINTAIN IT PROPERLY. IT IS
TEACHING ME GREAT LESSONS.

ntbackup.exe IS a good, reliable and functional archival system, but not
near as good as the recommended imaging software, plus it's more complicated
to use, and will not compress your backups to save drive space as the
imaging software will do. It can take a lot of drive space even compressed,
to hold a full backup plus a month's worth of incremental additions to it.
The first time you recov er using a disk image, you'll easily feel your
money was well spent. Heck, they're all less than about $50 last I knew.

How big is the external drive? It should be AT LEAST twice the size of the
added capacities of drives C and D. I have 80 Gig and 160 Gig internal
drives, which says I want about 150 Gig for backup, and I actually have a
500 Gig external drive.
The external drive usually runs about one third filled, based on monthly
full backups plus daily incrementals, plus a copy of all my original CDs for
XP, tools, applications, etc.. I also use it for a sandbox; anything I want
to play with that doesn't need to be backed up to anywhere else.

My c: drive is 120Gb, my d: is 80Gb and the external is 400Gb - they all
have about 60% free space GIVE AND TAKE A COUPLE OF Gb.

Feel free to come back with more questions about this or any other related
processes; lots of good people here to assist you.

HTH

Pop`

YOU ARE SO RIGHT POP, THERE ARE A LOT OF GOOD PEOPLE WILLING TO HELP THOSE
WHO, LIKE ME, ONLY DREAM OF BEING ABLE TO AT LEAST PERFORM THE TASKS THEY
NEED TO PERFORM WITHOUT MUCH ASSLE.
I REALLY APPRECIATE YOU ALL OUT THERE AND IN PARTICULAR YOU AND ALLAN WHO
KINDLY GAVE ME SUCH GOOD GUIDANCE. EVEN THOUGH I STILL HAVE SO MANY ?????,
YOUR INPUT HAS BEEN OF GREAT QUALITY AND I KNOW THAT NOW ARMED WITH IT I CAN
TAKE THE STEPS NOT ONLY TO FIX MY CURRENT MESS BUT ALSO TO KEEP ME CLEAN IN
THE FUTURE. (GIVE A MAN A FISH AND HE WILL HAVE FOOD FOR A DAY, SHOW A MAN
HOW TO FISH AND HE WILL FEED HIMSELF FOR THE REST OF HIS DAYS)(CLOSE ENOUGH).
SO MUCH SO THAT I AM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING TAKING A COURSE TO LEARN AT LEAST
SOME OF THE DOES AND DON'TS .

ANYWAY I HAVE RAVED ON ENOUGH AND TOOK ENOUGH OF YOUR PRECIOUS TIME. I HAVE
ALL THE RESPECT FOR YOU AND YOUR TIME AND I AM SINCERELY GREATFULL FOR YOUR
ADVICE.
THANKS A MILLION. I ANXIOUSLY AWAIT YOUR REPLY.
IH.