BACKUP and RESTORE question

[Joe S.]

Way back when men were men, when John Wayne rode tall in the saddle -- back
when DOS was king, backing up your hard drive was a simple matter. I had an
8086 machine with 640 MB of RAM and a huge hard drive -- 10 MB, costs
$229.95 and it was a bargain.

To backup and restore, all I did was:
-- Have a big stack of formatted floppies (NOTE: Son, if you don't know
what a floppy is, go ask your grandpa.)
-- Then I'd issue the DOS command c:\ backup c: a: (or something like
that)
-- The computer would proceed to backup my hard drive to the floppies,
asking me to insert a new floppy as each one was filled up.
-- Restore was the reverse.

After Hurricane Katrina wiped out my computer and everything else I own, I
figure a backup would be a good idea. So, I am now running a new HP machine
with some kind processor that runs at about a zillion mHz, several MB of
RAM, many GB on the hard drive, WinXP SP2 (whatever that means). I have an
external 200 GB USB hard drive to which I want to backup my computer.

However, when I go to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Backup, I am
confronted with a bewildering bunch of choices -- normal backup, abnormal
backup, funny backup, incremental backup, system status backup, and god-only
knows how many other types of backup.

Here's what I want to do:
-- Make the external hard drive look exactly like my internal hard drive.
-- Once a week, update the external hard drive by adding to it/overwriting
files that have been created or changed since the last time I backed up the
computer.

I plan to connect the external drive once a week and backup the internal
drive. Between backups, the external drive will sit on a shelf in a
watertight box. This way, when my HD crashes or gets flooded, everything I
need to recover will be on the external HD. My computer's system recovery
disks and my application CDs are in the same box.

So -- how do I do the type of backup that I want to do?

Life was so much simpler with DOS and floppies.

Thanks.

The Old Guy

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Way back when men were men, when John Wayne rode tall in the saddle
-- back when DOS was king, backing up your hard drive was a simple
matter. I had an 8086 machine with 640 MB of RAM and a huge hard
drive -- 10 MB, costs $229.95 and it was a bargain.

To backup and restore, all I did was:
-- Have a big stack of formatted floppies (NOTE: Son, if you don't
know what a floppy is, go ask your grandpa.)
-- Then I'd issue the DOS command c:\ backup c: a: (or something
like that)

I don't think so.Back in the days of 10MB hard drives, DOS had no backup
command. You must have used a third-party program.

-- The computer would proceed to backup my hard drive to the floppies,
asking me to insert a new floppy as each one was filled up.
-- Restore was the reverse.

After Hurricane Katrina wiped out my computer and everything else I
own, I figure a backup would be a good idea. So, I am now running a
new HP machine with some kind processor that runs at about a zillion
mHz, several MB of RAM, many GB on the hard drive, WinXP SP2
(whatever that means). I have an external 200 GB USB hard drive to
which I want to backup my computer.
However, when I go to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Backup,
I am confronted with a bewildering bunch of choices -- normal backup,
abnormal backup, funny backup, incremental backup, system status
backup, and god-only knows how many other types of backup.

Here's what I want to do:
-- Make the external hard drive look exactly like my internal hard
drive.

The Windows backup command is very primitive, and isn't really a
full-feautured backup program. If you want to clone your hard drive, you
need a third-party program. Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, for example,
will do what you want.

-- Once a week, update the external hard drive by adding to
it/overwriting files that have been created or changed since the last
time I backed up the computer.

I don't think they can do exactly that, but you can certainly re-clone your
drive once a week.

 

[gls858]

I don't think so.Back in the days of 10MB hard drives, DOS had no backup
command. You must have used a third-party program.




The Windows backup command is very primitive, and isn't really a
full-feautured backup program. If you want to clone your hard drive, you
need a third-party program. Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, for example,
will do what you want.




I don't think they can do exactly that, but you can certainly re-clone your
drive once a week.

We haven't implemented it yet but the company that we buy our hardware
and software from recommended this program:

http://www.backup-for-one.com/index.html

We will be getting the multi-server version. Our guy is usually very
particular about what he recommends. Seven years of history with this
guy and he hasn't steered me wrong yet.

gls858

 

[Joe S.]

I don't think so.Back in the days of 10MB hard drives, DOS had no backup
command. You must have used a third-party program.

Well, not exactly. DOS did have a backup command. Here are a few
references:

http://www.computerhope.com/backup.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/106423/EN-US/ and scroll down to the backup
instructions

http://www.carlow.edu/informationsystems/dos/DOS-Backup.PDF

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Well, not exactly. DOS did have a backup command. Here are a few
references:

My memory has let me down I knew that DOS had a backup command, but I
thought it had been introduced in a late version of DOS--well after the 10MB
hard drive days. But doing a little research, I see that I'm wrong and it
was introduced in DOS 3.0, which was within the 10MB HD days.

My apologies.

However, it was never a very useful program and was always greatly inferior
to available third-party products, as is still the case in Windows XP.

 

[Joe S.]

My memory has let me down I knew that DOS had a backup command, but I
thought it had been introduced in a late version of DOS--well after the
10MB hard drive days. But doing a little research, I see that I'm wrong
and it was introduced in DOS 3.0, which was within the 10MB HD days.

My apologies.

However, it was never a very useful program and was always greatly
inferior to available third-party products, as is still the case in
Windows XP.

Thanks -- I thought my memory had failed me again!!! As I recall, DOS
BACKUP was a pain -- you never knew how many floppies to have on hand and
you couldn't stop in midstream and format more floppies. As I recall, I
used a third-party backup application that told me how many floppies I
needed.

 

[Harry Ohrn]

Way back when men were men, when John Wayne rode tall in the saddle --
back when DOS was king, backing up your hard drive was a simple matter. I
had an 8086 machine with 640 MB of RAM and a huge hard drive -- 10 MB,
costs $229.95 and it was a bargain.

To backup and restore, all I did was:
-- Have a big stack of formatted floppies (NOTE: Son, if you don't know
what a floppy is, go ask your grandpa.)
-- Then I'd issue the DOS command c:\ backup c: a: (or something like
that)
-- The computer would proceed to backup my hard drive to the floppies,
asking me to insert a new floppy as each one was filled up.
-- Restore was the reverse.

After Hurricane Katrina wiped out my computer and everything else I own, I
figure a backup would be a good idea. So, I am now running a new HP
machine with some kind processor that runs at about a zillion mHz, several
MB of RAM, many GB on the hard drive, WinXP SP2 (whatever that means). I
have an external 200 GB USB hard drive to which I want to backup my
computer.

However, when I go to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Backup, I am
confronted with a bewildering bunch of choices -- normal backup, abnormal
backup, funny backup, incremental backup, system status backup, and
god-only knows how many other types of backup.

Here's what I want to do:
-- Make the external hard drive look exactly like my internal hard drive.
-- Once a week, update the external hard drive by adding to it/overwriting
files that have been created or changed since the last time I backed up
the computer.

I plan to connect the external drive once a week and backup the internal
drive. Between backups, the external drive will sit on a shelf in a
watertight box. This way, when my HD crashes or gets flooded, everything
I need to recover will be on the external HD. My computer's system
recovery disks and my application CDs are in the same box.

So -- how do I do the type of backup that I want to do?

Life was so much simpler with DOS and floppies.

Thanks.

The Old Guy

Forget about the Backup Program that ships with XP. It is intended to be
used with tape drives. Purchase a reliable third party solution. I use
Acronis TrueImage and it works well. You can schedule backups, do
incremental or differential backups etc.

One small problem with your plan. The next disaster could be flood but then
again it could be fire or wind in which case the "water-proof box" might not
be helpful.

 

[Thomas Wendell]

If you want your externalHD look like the internal one, Windows Backup is
NOT for you, you need need an imagining/disk copying program,
like Norton Ghost (some like, some don't, can't backup booting from CD, only
restore) or Acronis TrueImage(some like, some don't,)


They both either copy your disk as-is to the external drive, or make an
image file (compressed) on the external one...

Both can (or have to be) installed on the normal HD for use, both can do
both full and incremental/differential(?) backups etc..


And if you go for once/week, I'd do a full backup/image each time


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Most learned on these newsgroups
Tumppi, Helsinki, FINLAND
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