Backup

[Tim66]

Win XP home. I purchased an exterior drive to backup my computer. I
plugged it in to start my backup. I thought this would be relatively easy.
Guess not. I viewed the drive. There was a folder called "system
information". Of course I could not access it. I don't know how it got
there, Would it automatically copy my "system Information" folder when I
plugged it in? Is this a generic folder on the external drive?

I began reading the brief instructions that came with the exterior drive,
and the factory setting is NTFS, however the directions tell me to format
the drive using FAT. I am confused. I really don't know what to do from
here. If at all possible, I would just like to backup my computer in the
event of a crash.

Can anybody point me the right direction? TIA

 

[Anna]

Win XP home. I purchased an exterior drive to backup my computer. I
plugged it in to start my backup. I thought this would be relatively
easy. Guess not. I viewed the drive. There was a folder called "system
information". Of course I could not access it. I don't know how it got
there, Would it automatically copy my "system Information" folder when I
plugged it in? Is this a generic folder on the external drive?

I began reading the brief instructions that came with the exterior drive,
and the factory setting is NTFS, however the directions tell me to format
the drive using FAT. I am confused. I really don't know what to do from
here. If at all possible, I would just like to backup my computer in the
event of a crash.

Can anybody point me the right direction? TIA

Tim66:
When you refer to a "exterior drive" I assume you mean a USB external hard
drive unit correct?

The "system information" folder you refer to is probably the System Volume
Information folder. That's as it should be so don't be concerned about it.

Ordinarily, most manufacturers format their USB EHD units FAT32, but more &
more of them are formatting the HDD NTFS. That's also OK as long as you're
going to be working in an XP environment and won't be using the external HDD
with a Win9x/Me system. So leave it be. The only time you may want to format
an external USB HDD FAT32 if you were going to be using the device with
systems running the Win9x/Me operating systems.

As to backing up your system, there are various kinds of backup programs to
consider. Frequently one comes included with the USB external HDD that you
purchase. If you're interested in backing up only your created data, than
there are any number of backup programs to do this including the backup
program included with the XP OS.

If, on the other hand, you're interested in a more comprehensive backup
system, one that will back up the entire contents of your day-to-day working
HDD, including the operating system, all your programs & applications, your
created data - in short, everything that's on your internal HDD, then you
might consider one of the disk imaging programs such as Acronis True Image.
Anna

 

[Jon]

The reason I decided to write that, was mainly because "Tim66"

Win XP home. I purchased an exterior drive to backup my computer. I
plugged it in to start my backup. I thought this would be relatively
easy. Guess not. I viewed the drive. There was a folder called "system
information". Of course I could not access it. I don't know how it got
there, Would it automatically copy my "system Information" folder when I
plugged it in? Is this a generic folder on the external drive?

I began reading the brief instructions that came with the exterior drive,
and the factory setting is NTFS, however the directions tell me to format
the drive using FAT. I am confused. I really don't know what to do from
here. If at all possible, I would just like to backup my computer in the
event of a crash.

Can anybody point me the right direction? TIA

The "System Volume Information" folder is part of 'System Restore' being
turned on for the drive. You don't ordinarily have access to it, unless you
specifically change its permissions.

 

[Tim66]

Anna, thank you so much. I won't worry about reformatting to FAT.

"When you refer to a "exterior drive" I assume you mean a USB external hard
drive unit correct?" Yes this is correct.

"The "system information" folder you refer to is probably the System Volume
Information folder. That's as it should be so don't be concerned about it."
OK Thanks, I left out the word "Volume". Thanks understood

This exerior drive I purchased has 120GB. I would like to backup as much as
possible. However, the main purpose I purchased this backup exterior drive
is in the event of a total "crash". You know how they always preach backup,
backup, backup.

This is just a home system. My very important documents, pics, etc. I do
have backed up on multiple CD's, so I suppose if I lost everything it
wouldn't be the end of the world, nevertheless, my goal was to have an
exterior backup in the event of a crash.

Can you make a suggestion? I will go check out Acronis True Image. The one
thing I don't like is these online backups. I just don't trust those.
Thanks again.

 

[Anna]

Anna, thank you so much. I won't worry about reformatting to FAT.

"When you refer to a "exterior drive" I assume you mean a USB external
hard
drive unit correct?" Yes this is correct.

"The "system information" folder you refer to is probably the System
Volume
Information folder. That's as it should be so don't be concerned about
it." OK Thanks, I left out the word "Volume". Thanks understood

This exerior drive I purchased has 120GB. I would like to backup as much
as possible. However, the main purpose I purchased this backup exterior
drive is in the event of a total "crash". You know how they always preach
backup, backup, backup.

This is just a home system. My very important documents, pics, etc. I do
have backed up on multiple CD's, so I suppose if I lost everything it
wouldn't be the end of the world, nevertheless, my goal was to have an
exterior backup in the event of a crash.

Can you make a suggestion? I will go check out Acronis True Image. The
one thing I don't like is these online backups. I just don't trust those.
Thanks again.

Tim:
The Acronis program has a 15-day trial version available. They recently came
out with a new version 10.0. See http://www.acronis.com

In the last day or so I posted to this newsgroup a detailed step-by-step
guide to using the Acronis True Image program. Take a look at it. The
Subject of the thread was
Re: XP home backup utility
Anna

 

[Byllon]

Uplus sync is a good choice for daily usb backup. It can help you to
backup files/folders when the usb drive inserted. You can find it at
http://www.uplussync.com
"Tim66 дµÀ£º
"