backing up programs?

[Lenny]

Hi,
What program do you recommend I use for backing up 'my documents' onto an
external drive?
Thanks
Lenny

 

[Gary G. Little]

Have you looked at Backup and Restore in your Control Panel?

Gary G. Little

 

[Spirit]

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp
Excellent FREE program - no ads or spyware

 

[AJR]

As Gary alluded to - the file backup utility included in Backup and Restore
will do tthe job. BTW - it backs up filesand data not programs.

 

[Adam Albright]

Hi,
What program do you recommend I use for backing up 'my documents' onto an
external drive?
Thanks
Lenny

I've used BounceBack from CMS for several years. It is very simple to
setup and use yet it is powerful and fast. The link below is for their
"professional" version, however I got mine as a freebie which is a
somewhat watered down version that was included when I got my external
drives. Seagate use to include it with their popular external drives,
I think they offer their own backup software now.

http://www.cmsproducts.com/product_bounceback_professional.htm

This is a one for one backup method, not just image files which can be
clumsy and fail from several causes. There is nothing to learn really,
it simply copies your files. All you need to tell is what folders to
"copy" and tell it where to copy and it does the rest. One feature I
like is it's COMPARE function. Just one click and it scans all the
files in the folders you scheduled for backup. It then generates a
detailed list showing what you backed up already but have since
deleted and no long need asking if you wish to purge the backed up
copies, and of course it shows what file haven't been backed up yet.
Select all or any and it does the rest either deleting from backup
files you no longer want or making backups of what you don't have yet.
Restoring is just as simple.

Instead of lumping everything into one giant over stuffed folder you
can breakdown your backups into as many folders named whatever you
like, like photo, images, documents, etc.. So you can always choose to
backup everything or just pick if you're rushed.

You can run it in the background without a serious hit on system
performance. My version works fine in Vista and it just sticks it's
tongue out at UAC blowing right past any permission nonsense. It also
is very fast. No "calculating time" BS either.

Just to give you a rough estimate I do a full backup once a week where
I typically have between one and two thousand files I'm deleting I had
backed up in the past and no longer need and usually between 30-70 GB
worth of stuff being backed up for the first time. The operation takes
about 20-30 minutes or so.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi,
What program do you recommend I use for backing up 'my documents' onto an
external drive?

If all you want to do is backup a single folder like that, you don't
need any special program. A technique like simply dragging and
dropping will work fine.

 

[Steve Thackery]

If all you want to do is backup a single folder like that, you don't

need any special program. A technique like simply dragging and
dropping will work fine.

Not really, because the second time you do it, you get prompted for every
single file that already exists at the destination. That's why backup
programs are used - they behave more intelligently in that situation.

Steve

 

[Lenny]

Thanks for the replies. Very useful and most appreciated.
Cheers
Lenny

 

[Lenny]

Thanks Adam. Your time and effort is most appreciated and I will use your
advice.

 

[Annie R J Brion]

Not really, because the second time you do it, you get prompted for every
single file that already exists at the destination. That's why backup
programs are used - they behave more intelligently in that situation.

SyncToy can overcome this problem. I use it to backup/mirror from my
desktop to my notebook but for proper backups I use Acronis TrueImage.