backup

[Guest]

I bought an external hdd to backup computer.Used the backup or restore wizard
and tried to back up all information on the computer. I have no floppy drive
and the ASR diskette was not created. I have an 18Gb windows backup file on
the external hard disc drive and wonder is this enough or how do I make an
ASR on a CDRW.

 

[Rock]

I bought an external hdd to backup computer.Used the backup or restore wizard
and tried to back up all information on the computer. I have no floppy drive
and the ASR diskette was not created. I have an 18Gb windows backup file on
the external hard disc drive and wonder is this enough or how do I make an
ASR on a CDRW.

Unfortunately the ASR process must have a floppy drive and disk. It
cannot be created on any other media. I don't know what you mean when
you say you have an 18GB backup file and is that enough. Enough for
what? The backup file is only as big as the amount of data you have to
backup.

I would suggest you get a better backup program. Ntbackup is really a
legacy application designed to work best with tape drives. And even if
you had a floppy drive, the ASR restore process takes a long time.

There are several approaches. One is to use an imaging program. This
makes an exact image of the partition which can be saved on CD/DVD or to
another drive - internal or external. [In general there is little value
in created a backup on another internal drive.] Restores can be done of
the entire partition or individual files / folders. These work well and
make it easy to recover from a drive crash. Examples of this are:

Norton Ghost 9.0
Drive Image 7 (still available in some places; the maker - Powerquest -
was bought out by Symantec and is now Norton Ghost 9 with some changes)
Acronis True Image
BootItNg

The second option is a traditional backup program such as Stompsoft's
Backup My PC. This is an excellent tool. It is the evolution of
ntbackup. There are other good backup programs out there as well. This
can do a complete backup or backup individual files and folders to
DVD/CD and other drives.

 

[abram]

You may want to consider http://www.firestreamer.com/fsdvd/. It
supports ASR, but you need an external floppy drive and DVD writer.

 

[Guest]

Thanks a lot. When I said enough i meant is this enough backup. Can I get the
contents of the pc back from this file? It seems I cannot and that I need to
buy a program like ghost. I have a copy of genie backup manager 4 will this
do.

I bought an external hdd to backup computer.Used the backup or restore wizard
and tried to back up all information on the computer. I have no floppy drive
and the ASR diskette was not created. I have an 18Gb windows backup file on
the external hard disc drive and wonder is this enough or how do I make an
ASR on a CDRW.

Unfortunately the ASR process must have a floppy drive and disk. It
cannot be created on any other media. I don't know what you mean when
you say you have an 18GB backup file and is that enough. Enough for
what? The backup file is only as big as the amount of data you have to
backup.

I would suggest you get a better backup program. Ntbackup is really a
legacy application designed to work best with tape drives. And even if
you had a floppy drive, the ASR restore process takes a long time.

There are several approaches. One is to use an imaging program. This
makes an exact image of the partition which can be saved on CD/DVD or to
another drive - internal or external. [In general there is little value
in created a backup on another internal drive.] Restores can be done of
the entire partition or individual files / folders. These work well and
make it easy to recover from a drive crash. Examples of this are:

Norton Ghost 9.0
Drive Image 7 (still available in some places; the maker - Powerquest -
was bought out by Symantec and is now Norton Ghost 9 with some changes)
Acronis True Image
BootItNg

The second option is a traditional backup program such as Stompsoft's
Backup My PC. This is an excellent tool. It is the evolution of
ntbackup. There are other good backup programs out there as well. This
can do a complete backup or backup individual files and folders to
DVD/CD and other drives.

 

[NobodyMan]

There are several approaches. One is to use an imaging program. This
makes an exact image of the partition which can be saved on CD/DVD or to
another drive - internal or external. [In general there is little value
in created a backup on another internal drive.]

Why is there little value on placing your ghost file on another
internal drive? I'd love to hear this!

I run four - yes, FOUR - hard drives in my case. If the system drive
fails, or if XP experiences a cataclysmic crash, I can plop in the the
Ghost CD, boot to it, point it at the drive that contains the backups,
and I'm off to the races. I have a full restore, with data not more
than 7 days old (I ghost weekly), in less than 15 minutes. All using
internal drives.

 

[Rock]

Thanks a lot. When I said enough i meant is this enough backup. Can I get the
contents of the pc back from this file? It seems I cannot and that I need to
buy a program like ghost. I have a copy of genie backup manager 4 will this
do.

Sorry John, I don't know anything about genie backup manager.