Full Backup

[NICHOLAS MEALE]

Hello,

I as hoping someone out there might know how I could do a full backup to a
CD-R...I have XP HOME edition and the Wizard
does not provide me the steps...It deals only with flloppy discs to back up
to..Thanks,Nick Meale

 

[Rock]

Hello,

I as hoping someone out there might know how I could do a full backup to a
CD-R...I have XP HOME edition and the Wizard
does not provide me the steps...It deals only with flloppy discs to back up
to..Thanks,Nick Meale

Ntbackup is not designed to work with CD's. It will write to a single
CD only if third party CD burning software is installed, and even if
that is the case, it will not "span" CDs -- i.e. write to more than one
CD. It is designed to work best with tape drives or to another hard drive.

There are several approaches to backing up your data. 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.

Next is ntbackup which is installed in XP Pro but not Home. For Home if
you have the XP CD it can be found in the \MSFT\ValueADD\Ntbackup folder
as ntbackup.msi or download it from here:
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/windowsxp_tips.htm#backup_home

Ntbackup cannot backup to DVD and will only backup to CD if other 3rd
party CD burning software is available and even with that it will not
span CDs, i.e. one CD is the limit, which is not very practical. It is
geared toward tape drives or other hard drives. It will work ok in
backing up to an external hard drive (or network drive) and restoring
individual files / folders is ok, but if you need to restore the
complete drive it's cumbersome. XP must be installed first. If you
have XP Pro, Ntbackup has an ASR feature (Automated System Recovery)
which makes this restore of a boot/system drive easier but still it
takes much longer than an imaging program, and I never got it to restore
my system to full functionality as it was when the backup was made. It
also mandates that a floppy drive be available. One floppy disk is
created in the ASR process and there is no way around that. ASR is not
available on XP Home addition.

Another is simply copying data files to a CD. Zip them up to make them
smaller if you want.

I settled on an imaging program using an external USB 2.0 hard drive.
Restores are easy and reliable. I use Drive Image 7, but any of those
listed above work fine.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Image for Windows, www.terabyteunlimited.com

You will find that a full backup with the native utility is difficult for
some, nor does it write to CDR media.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Alex Nichol]

I as hoping someone out there might know how I could do a full backup to a
CD-R...I have XP HOME edition and the Wizard
does not provide me the steps...It deals only with flloppy discs to back up
to.

The NTBackup does not recognise CD as output media. It is really a tape
program, included in Pro just for those bringing forward tapes from NT.
You can make a (modest sized) backup onto hard disk, and burn the file;
or can get one of the 'packet writing' CD support for CD-RW or DVD (like
Nero InCD). but at that the Backup will not 'span' to a second disk, so
it is better to get a third party solution

 

[JerryMouse]

[In
general there is little value in created a backup on another internal
drive.]

Well, I guess that just about nullifies the whole concept of RAID mirroring.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

RAID mirroring is not to be considered a "backup" solution. It provides a
method of continuing to use the system, when the first drive fails.

[In
general there is little value in created a backup on another internal
drive.]

Well, I guess that just about nullifies the whole concept of RAID
mirroring.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

[In
general there is little value in created a backup on another
internal
drive.]

Well, I guess that just about nullifies the whole concept of
RAID
mirroring.

No, not at all. RAID mirroring has nothing to do with backup.
Mirroring is used for applications where down time can't be
tolerated. If you have a company that's providing certain kinds
of service to your customers, you can stand to lose a lot of
money if that service isn't available even for a few minutes.
Think of things like an airline reservation system; if the plane
flies with empty seats because the reservation system wasn't up,
the company loses huge sums of money.

So mirroring lets the second drive seamlessly take over if the
first drive fails, without the system going down. This is *not*
backup and companies that use mirroring normally also have a
backup procedure in place, with backups stored externally and
off-site.

 

[NobodyMan]

There are several approaches to backing up your data. 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.]

What? Why is it of little value to have an image stored on a second
internal hard drive? Imaging programs will recognize it and restore
from it just as easy - and faster, as the bus speed is faster AND you
won't have to swap CDs.

 

[Curmudgeon]

What? Why is it of little value to have an image stored
on a second internal hard drive? Imaging programs will
recognize it and restore from it just as easy - and faster,
as the bus speed is faster AND you won't have to swap CDs.

Agreed on all counts.

I backup TWO ways, using Acronis True Image:

1) every night a scheduled full backup (image) is made to an external
hard drive

2) once weekly I clone the drive to another internal hard drive.

 

[Rock]

There are several approaches to backing up your data. 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.]

What? Why is it of little value to have an image stored on a second
internal hard drive? Imaging programs will recognize it and restore
from it just as easy - and faster, as the bus speed is faster AND you
won't have to swap CDs.

It's a safety issue, not a speed one - to avoid losing the backup by
something that damages the entire system - power surge, fire, theft,
etc. External and off site backups help address this concern.