HOW DO I BACKUP TO A CD DISK

[Guest]

I need to back up excel to my d drive and i can not remember how to do it.
Can you tell me?

 

[Myrna Larson]

SAve your files to the hard drive, then copy them to the CD from Windows'
Explorer or your CD writing software.

 

[David McRitchie]

Hopefully you have the files you want to back up in the same directory,
as that makes backing up files easier.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/backup.htm

 

[bobclark]

or just try a batch file (how quaint)

backup.bat
copy *.xls d:\whatever directory /y

now place that batch file in the directory your excel files reside. Then create
a shortcut to your desktop, then right click properties on the shortcut, and
then click close on exit. If you will provide the directories from and to, I
would easily write a more complicated batch file for you. personally I keep the
last 10 saves of each file within the backup directory using rename and changing
the extensions, because there is nothing worse than having a corrupt backup
also. By the way, the /y at the end of the batch file line stops the prompting
for overwriting.

to rename the files to keep consecutive saves is this

d: <---or whatever drive they are kept on
cd\ <------takes it to the root directory
cd wherever the files reside <---i.e. backups or backups\excel
del *.010 <---deletes the oldest backup
ren *.009 *.010 <---sequential renumbering of the extension
ren *.xls *.001 <---
c: <---back to your boot drive
cd\ <---see above
cd my documents <----or wherever your files reside
copy *.xls d:\wherever <---obvious
exit

if you dont want to watch what it is doing add @echo=off as the first line.

This is sooooooooooo much quicker than vba or manually backing them up.

OK, short test for us oldies

what does prompt=$p$g at the command line (huh?) do
On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 01:46:07 -0400, in microsoft.public.excel.misc falling into
the bathtub with your monitor, the short circuit caused the following to
mysteriously appear from your keyboard:

~>Hopefully you have the files you want to back up in the same directory,
~>as that makes backing up files easier.
~> http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/backup.htm
~>
~>
~>> I need to back up excel to my d drive and i can not remember how to do it.
~>> Can you tell me?
~>

 

[Dave Peterson]

what does prompt=$p$g at the command line (huh?) do

$p represents the Path.
$g represents the greater than sign (>).

So you see things like:
c:\windows\system>
at the DOS prompt.

 

[David McRitchie]

In answer to Bob Clark
I would suggest you use XCOPY instead of COPY when
backing up to a CD-R for reasons given in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/backup.htm
unless you like playing with your restored files or directories
to turn off the read only bit.

just in case there is any question about rewriting files to a CD-R:
When overwriting files to a CD-R you actually scratch the old
file and write a new file you do not recover the space on a
CD-R for the deleted files.

In answer to Dave Peterson
what you see before the > is your default directory
you can change that by typing c:\
another way is to copy cmd.exe to your c:\
or better to change your properties where you invoke
it from.

So that the properties of your shortcut shows:
target: %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe
start-in: c:\

for help with XCOPY
xcopy /?
for help with COPY
copy /?

If you specify your input and destination directories you
don't have the problem
xcopy c:\myfiles\*.xls d:\backup\*.xls /S /D /H

the /S includes subdirectories
the /D checks the timestamps of both directories to see if
it should be copied
the /H copyies hidden fileste


or just try a batch file (how quaint)

backup.bat
copy *.xls d:\whatever directory /y

now place that batch file in the directory your excel files reside. Then create
a shortcut to your desktop, then right click properties on the shortcut, and
then click close on exit. If you will provide the directories from and to, I
would easily write a more complicated batch file for you. personally I keep the
last 10 saves of each file within the backup directory using rename and changing
the extensions, because there is nothing worse than having a corrupt backup
also. By the way, the /y at the end of the batch file line stops the prompting
for overwriting.

to rename the files to keep consecutive saves is this

d: <---or whatever drive they are kept on
cd\ <------takes it to the root directory
cd wherever the files reside <---i.e. backups or backups\excel
del *.010 <---deletes the oldest backup
ren *.009 *.010 <---sequential renumbering of the extension
ren *.xls *.001 <---
c: <---back to your boot drive
cd\ <---see above
cd my documents <----or wherever your files reside
copy *.xls d:\wherever <---obvious
exit

if you dont want to watch what it is doing add @echo=off as the first line.

This is sooooooooooo much quicker than vba or manually backing them up.

OK, short test for us oldies

what does prompt=$p$g at the command line (huh?) do
On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 01:46:07 -0400, in microsoft.public.excel.misc falling into
the bathtub with your monitor, the short circuit caused the following to
mysteriously appear from your keyboard:

~>Hopefully you have the files you want to back up in the same directory,
~>as that makes backing up files easier.
~> http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/backup.htm
~>
~>> I need to back up excel to my d drive and i can not remember how to do it.
~>> Can you tell me?
~>

 

[Dave Peterson]

Actually, I was just answering a question from Bob:

what does prompt=$p$g at the command line (huh?) do

 

[David McRitchie]

Oh, I thought that looked like a question and an answer and
didn't really think you had a question, but it looked like all one
post, so I figured there must still be a question there somewhere, like
how to make it look normal like it used to look. Confused by
missing caret, and part of the question involved another caret.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Didn't mean to confuse you.

(I just copied part of the previous post--I should have included the >.)