backup to external hard drive

[Guest]

Good morning everyone!

I just bought a 160 GB external HDD for backups on my WXP Home machine ( the
HDD is connected using USB 2.0). I have read in previous posts that I must
change the file system on the new drive from FAT32 to NFTS to overcome the 4
GB barrier imposed by FAT32. I have a couple of questions regarding this....

1 - Is there an alternative to doing this? I have an old W98SE machine that
I would like to back up on this HDD as well. Win98 will not recognize an NFTS
drive, will it?
2 -Is it better to just copy essential files onto the backup HDD using
Windows explorer, or perform a complete C drive backup using the backup
utility?
3 - Is it better to have one HUGE 40 GB backup file(on an NFTS drive), or a
backup that is split into 10 - 4 GB files( on a FAT 32 drive?) Would I need
to purchase software to split the backup into 4GB files? Which software is
best?
4 - If I decide to change to NFTS, then can I just reformat the new external
HDD to make it an NFTS drive? What allocation unit size should I use (there
are several choices ranging from "default" to 4096 bytes) I know that if I
reformat the drive, I will lose all data on it... not a problem.
5 -Are there any programs out there that backup faster than the backup
utility that is packaged with WinXP Home? I tried backing up my C drive last
night and the data transfer rate was about 120 MB/min (which would translate
into about 6 hours to back up 40 GB)

Thanks,
Ian

 

[tjoy]

Good morning everyone!

I just bought a 160 GB external HDD for backups on my WXP Home machine ( the
HDD is connected using USB 2.0). I have read in previous posts that I must
change the file system on the new drive from FAT32 to NFTS to overcome the 4
GB barrier imposed by FAT32. I have a couple of questions regarding this....

1 - Is there an alternative to doing this? I have an old W98SE machine that
I would like to back up on this HDD as well. Win98 will not recognize an NFTS
drive, will it?
2 -Is it better to just copy essential files onto the backup HDD using
Windows explorer, or perform a complete C drive backup using the backup
utility?
3 - Is it better to have one HUGE 40 GB backup file(on an NFTS drive), or a
backup that is split into 10 - 4 GB files( on a FAT 32 drive?) Would I need
to purchase software to split the backup into 4GB files? Which software is
best?
4 - If I decide to change to NFTS, then can I just reformat the new external
HDD to make it an NFTS drive? What allocation unit size should I use (there
are several choices ranging from "default" to 4096 bytes) I know that if I
reformat the drive, I will lose all data on it... not a problem.
5 -Are there any programs out there that backup faster than the backup
utility that is packaged with WinXP Home? I tried backing up my C drive last
night and the data transfer rate was about 120 MB/min (which would translate
into about 6 hours to back up 40 GB)

Thanks,
Ian

Get Norton Ghost 9.0
Create 2 partitions on your external HD one little bigger than size of your
win98 Hd (just to back up this drive) and rest for NTFS for your current
computer. When you format HD go with default cluster size.
Norton Ghost is also a boot disk in case you want to recover HD from image
(when windows won't boot up), and it will read NTFS partition from your
external HD.
Test this solution, as it's not 100% proof.

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

Good morning everyone!

I just bought a 160 GB external HDD for backups on my WXP Home machine (
the
HDD is connected using USB 2.0). I have read in previous posts that I
must
change the file system on the new drive from FAT32 to NFTS to overcome the
4
GB barrier imposed by FAT32. I have a couple of questions regarding
this....

1 - Is there an alternative to doing this? I have an old W98SE machine
that
I would like to back up on this HDD as well. Win98 will not recognize an
NFTS
drive, will it?
2 -Is it better to just copy essential files onto the backup HDD using
Windows explorer, or perform a complete C drive backup using the backup
utility?
3 - Is it better to have one HUGE 40 GB backup file(on an NFTS drive), or
a
backup that is split into 10 - 4 GB files( on a FAT 32 drive?) Would I
need
to purchase software to split the backup into 4GB files? Which software is
best?
4 - If I decide to change to NFTS, then can I just reformat the new
external
HDD to make it an NFTS drive? What allocation unit size should I use
(there
are several choices ranging from "default" to 4096 bytes) I know that if
I
reformat the drive, I will lose all data on it... not a problem.
5 -Are there any programs out there that backup faster than the backup
utility that is packaged with WinXP Home? I tried backing up my C drive
last
night and the data transfer rate was about 120 MB/min (which would
translate
into about 6 hours to back up 40 GB)

Thanks,
Ian

Go to http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/FAT32.htm for an
explanation of the size limits for a FAT32 partition.

If you intend to dedicate the external drive to an NFTS machine then format
NFTS but if you are uncertain which machine will require to read the drive
format FAT32. If you intend to 'backup' the whole drive then use 'imaging'
software such as Norton Ghost/Acronis True Image/etc. You can use the WinXP
backup software to backup data files as you do not need to image the whole
drive at such regular intervals.

 

[tjoy]

Go to http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/FAT32.htm for an
explanation of the size limits for a FAT32 partition.

If you intend to dedicate the external drive to an NFTS machine then format
NFTS but if you are uncertain which machine will require to read the drive
format FAT32. If you intend to 'backup' the whole drive then use 'imaging'
software such as Norton Ghost/Acronis True Image/etc. You can use the WinXP
backup software to backup data files as you do not need to image the whole
drive at such regular intervals.

His 40Gb+ image won't write to FAT32 partition. (file size limit)

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

His 40Gb+ image won't write to FAT32 partition. (file size limit)

It won't be written as a single file but can be written, True Image will do
this automatically as Norton Ghost no doubt will. It's a little difficult
for me to understand why one wouild want to image a file that large.

 

[tjoy]

It won't be written as a single file but can be written, True Image will do
this automatically as Norton Ghost no doubt will. It's a little difficult
for me to understand why one wouild want to image a file that large.

It works for me. I use Norton ghost 9 to backup 300Gb HD (boot drive, one
partition)
to removable SATA drive (230Gb) both are NTFS.
If something goes wrong I just boot PC from Norton Ghost CD, and reload
image (base backup and differentials)
Anyway, there are more than one way to skin the cat.

 

[scGram]

This isn't anything scientific, but I've kept my backup drive as FAT32 so it
can still be read from a Win98 machine. I use 'Second Copy' backup software
and don't know how I ever lived without it. You can access the files on the
back up drive just like you can on your hard drive and it's so simple to do
full backups, partial backups incremental backups or to synchronize the two
drives to exactly match.

You can download a 30 day evaluation copy at:

http://www.centered.com/


--
Dori ...
_______________________

"A smile is the light in your window that tells others
that there is a caring, sharing person inside." ~ Denis Waitley ~

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all the feedback folks! It looks like I will be buying Norton
Ghost sometime in the near future.