Backup Utility Recommendations Please

[Tecknomage]

I am looking for recommendations for a reliable backup utility to use
at home on a WinXP Pro SP2 system.



Here are my requirements for what I'm looking for:

1) Must be able to make a bootable CD and run the utility from there
and be able to see all my drives including external

2) Verification must process the entire backup and report at the end
of the process (not stop at first error)

3) Must be able to backup to hard drives (internal/external), CD, DVD

4) Must be able to do file backups & hard drive images (image of
entire hard drives including partitions)



Here are backup utilities I have used:

A) Veritas (aka Symantec Backup Exec) - used at work on our
Fileserver; incremental, all files accessed in the last 7 days, to DLT
tape

B) Win Backup (aka NTBackup.exe) - at work for weekly full backup to
external hard drive, and occasionally on my work desktop to my folder
on Fileserver

C) GHOST - used at work & home, file backups and images

D) NERO's BackItUp - used at work on a product we ship for a recovery
CD

E) Acronis True Image 10 Home - presently using at home



My evaluations:

Veritas - This is a server utility and not good for home use (also
very $$). Fails my requirement #1 but excellent in every other respect

Win Backup - fails requirement #1

GHOST - Boot CD, the GHOST install CD which is used for recovery,
would not recognize my external drives.

NERO's BackItUp - Same problem as GHOST plus found NERO uninstall
useless. NERO knows this because when I contacted them about
uninstalling, they gave me a link to download a special NEROUinstall
application. Note that NERO updates fail for the same reason, update
attempts to do an uninstall first and it fails. Also, this was a
downloaded version of NERO, my be different for a out-of-box CD
install.

Acronis True Image 10 Home - excellent, except it totally fails
requirement #2! Their verification process stops at the first error
then reports with a very cryptic "Tag" which gives you no idea of what
went wrong, not even a filename.


So, can anyone recommend a another backup utility that you have used
and *fulfills my requirements*?

 

[DL]

True Image

 

[peter]

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/index.html
peter

 

[bjoey]

So, can anyone recommend a another backup utility that you have used

and *fulfills my requirements*?

May not meet your needs, but I'm trying out the free DriveImage XML -
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

Or you can get Windows Vista Business/Ultimate and use the built-in
Complete PC Backup and Recovery/Restore, which does an image backup
Go Microsoft!

 

[Merlin]

My evaluations:
GHOST - Boot CD, the GHOST install CD which is used for recovery,
would not recognize my external drives.

I have no trouble with Ghost 2003 recognizing my external drives.

 

[Guest]

DL, did you read my evaluation section.

I am using Acronis True Image now, and it's verification sucks. This is why
I posted my msg in the first place.

In all other respects Acronis True Image is very good.

True Image

 

[Guest]

Merlin, note my specification is the Boot CD used in recovery.

I used Ghost 2003 and the boot CD did not recognize my external Firewire
hard drive.

Ghost run from the desktop did see the external of course. For disaster
recovery, your C: goes by-by, you need to boot to a recovery CD that will
restore your C: image to a new drive, if the image is on an external hard
drive and the boot CD cannot see it.....

 

[DL]

The only time I've had problems with TI, it was caused by a memory module

DL, did you read my evaluation section.

I am using Acronis True Image now, and it's verification sucks. This is
why
I posted my msg in the first place.

In all other respects Acronis True Image is very good.

 

[Merlin]

Merlin, note my specification is the Boot CD used in recovery.

I used Ghost 2003 and the boot CD did not recognize my external Firewire
hard drive.

Ghost run from the desktop did see the external of course. For disaster
recovery, your C: goes by-by, you need to boot to a recovery CD that will
restore your C: image to a new drive, if the image is on an external hard
drive and the boot CD cannot see it.....

Yes, I've restored my HDD from my external usb drive using my recovery cd,
no problem at all. I don't run Ghost from my desktop.

 

[Guest]

Thanks. I'll have to see if I still have my Ghost CD and check again, but my
external devices are Firewire which *may* be the problem.

If I could get Ghost to work I may go back to using it.

 

[Merlin]

Thanks. I'll have to see if I still have my Ghost CD and check again, but
my
external devices are Firewire which *may* be the problem.

If I could get Ghost to work I may go back to using it.

You need to make a boot disk and when you docheck the options for usb
support and firewire support. From that boot disk you simply make a bootable
cd for use on systems with no floppy drive.

 

[Plato]

I am looking for recommendations for a reliable backup utility to use
at home on a WinXP Pro SP2 system.

One can try:

http://www.xxclone.com/

 

[bjoey]

One can try:

http://www.xxclone.com/

Do you know if this tool make use of Microsoft's Volume Shadow
Services to enable copying of open files?

 

[bjoey]

You need to make a boot disk and when you docheck the options for usb
support and firewire support. From that boot disk you simply make a bootable
cd for use on systems with no floppy drive.

With Norton Ghost 2003, if you add USB and Firewire drivers to the
generated boot floppy, you will need 2 disks.
I know how to make 1 bootable CD out of 1 bootable floppy, but how do
you make 1 bootable CD out of 2
3.5" disks?

The newer versions from Symantec include a startup CD with (all?)
necessary drivers.
Unlike Ghost 2003, the newer versions can clone while Windows is in
operation.

 

[Guest]

It is now 3 years that I use AISBackup ( www.aiscl.co.uk ) and I think it is
the best backup software in the market. In addition you get excellent support
by email. Give it try.

 

[Paul Randall]

If you look at the structure of the two floppies, you will find that the
first one has all the bootup stuff and an empty ghost folder. The second
one has command.com program so that disc one isnt needed after each program
ends. Disc 2 has the same ghost folder which contains the 1 Mb ghost.exe
program.

The bootable CD has a special boot area that contains the image of a
bootable disc, typically a bootable floppy, but I think it could be a much
larger image than a 1.44 Mb floppy. In any case, the Ghost.exe program does
not have to be in that bootable image - it can reside in the 600 plus
megabyte body of the CD. If the boot floppy could access the CD, the
bootable CD made from that floppy image can access the CD. When the boot CD
boots up, you can access the floppy image through the a: drive. At the same
time you can access the rest of the cd from the drive letter assigned to the
CD during bootup.

With all that space on the CD, you could put whatever utilities you like on
it and have it all accessible at once. Way more versatile than just booting
from a floppy.

If you use a W98SE or later boot floppy, it can access FAT32 drives. There
are DOS drivers that allow access to NTFS drives. Ghost.exe knows how to
make and restore images of NTFS and Fat32 and older DOS type formatting as
well as the partition structure, whether or not the DOS it is running knows
about that stuff.

Play with it -- you will find customizing your boot CD quite easy. CD-RWs
make it cheap to play with.

-Paul Randall

 

[Merlin]

With Norton Ghost 2003, if you add USB and Firewire drivers to the
generated boot floppy, you will need 2 disks.
I know how to make 1 bootable CD out of 1 bootable floppy, but how do
you make 1 bootable CD out of 2
3.5" disks?

The newer versions from Symantec include a startup CD with (all?)
necessary drivers.
Unlike Ghost 2003, the newer versions can clone while Windows is in
operation.

If you select USB in the Peer to Peer Options than yes it will require 2
disks. But If you are only selecting USB & Firewire support under External
Storage Options than only 1 disk will be required.

Paul Randall has given an detailed description on how to handle making a
bootable cd from a 2 disk set.

 

[Tecknomage]

My problem with TI if for whatever reason it does not like backing up
any Recycle folder, or System Volume Information folder.

If I do a file backup with any of these folder checked, verification
fails. If I do not backup these folders, file backups verify OK.

This means a drive image backup always fails.

What really makes TI (IMHO) bad is its verification fail report. The
only info you get is a very cryptic "Tag" that tells you nothing of
what failed.

More importantly, the verification stops at the first error, does not
continue verifying the remainder of the backup. This is the ONLY
backup utility I have used that does this. All others verify the
entire backup and give a report at the end with details; filename,
etc.

I have yet to get an answer from Acronis Support on what a "Tag"
means.

 

[Tecknomage]

With Norton Ghost 2003, if you add USB and Firewire drivers to the
generated boot floppy, you will need 2 disks.
I know how to make 1 bootable CD out of 1 bootable floppy, but how do
you make 1 bootable CD out of 2
3.5" disks?

We tried the DOS Boot floppy at work. Problem, the DOS version has no
driver to recognize DVDs, only CDs. Had to drop Ghost for product
backups.

Found NERO BackItUp module worked, and the first DVD of a set is a
boot with BackItUp on it. Since our product had NERO installed
anyway, using BackItUp to make a recovery DVD set is a very good
solution.

 

[Daave]

What really makes TI (IMHO) bad is its verification fail report. The
only info you get is a very cryptic "Tag" that tells you nothing of
what failed.

What is the exact text? Is it something like:

"The file is corrupted. (0x4000D) Tag = 0xC847B314771C5F00"