DVD as backup on XP.

[Mike Klick]

I understand XP has its own built-in burner. What drives a recomended for a
backup?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[purplehaz]

DVD-r/rw drive is good for backup. Can get like 4gig on as dvd disk.
But, xp backup utility will not burn directly to a cd and the built in
burning software doesn't do backing up, it just does music cds and simple
data cds.
The drive will do you nice, just get some real backup software and some real
cd burning software as well. The xp stuff just doesn't cut it. Now-a-days
most burning drives come with either roxio or nero burning software.

 

[Alex Nichol]

DVD-r/rw drive is good for backup. Can get like 4gig on as dvd disk.
But, xp backup utility will not burn directly to a cd and the built in
burning software doesn't do backing up, it just does music cds and simple
data cds.

I use BootIT NG, from http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware - 30 day
full functional trial)
(which is also a complete partition manager, or there is the compatible
Image for DOS from the same source to do just backups.

With the compression involved you can expect about 7GB plus or
'original' data in a partition to fit on one DVD-R disk (at around $1 in
quantity), which is a reasonable size for the system partition in XP.
In doing such things it is worth doing a Disk Cleanup, including
reducing to the most recent restore point, and disable hibernation
first, so as to avoid using DVD space on superfluous files