Making backups by just copying files

[BillW50]

XP is different; very different.

Remember people do the impossible only because they weren't told ahead
of time that it was impossible in the first place.

XP AFAIK will not boot from a USB device. Have you proven that it
can be done yet?

I have partly. But John Hensley has fully.

From: John Hensley
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Subject: Re: Making backups by just copying files
Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 15:04:15 -0400

Sounds fishy and closed minded.

Quite the opposite.

Professionals: Have tested a full server restore in the last 6 months
Amateurs: Carry on backing up but they have no idea if the tapes will
restore!

And 35% of restores didn't work correctly.

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/Litmus/backup.htm

You need an external drive that's large enough.

The external HD is 320GB. The internal one is only 60GB. But the
external one has 120GB of mpeg videos from the TV card alone. Plus
Paragon Partition Manager 2005 isn't allowing the extended part to be
resized. As the option is greyed out. Part the logical partition can be
resized within the extended. Not that does me any good though. And
Partition Magic 8 won't touch it in the external case. Claims the
geometery is wrong. Yet Partition Magic 8 was the one that partitioned
and formatted it in a desktop. Go figure!

You can only INSTALL ONE (1) instance of XP on any system. You will
not be able to get them both activated. Well, unless you do
something illegal.
Good luck; sounds like a wart on the ass of progress to me.

Pop`

Yup, I tell people they have to buy an extra license for their backup
copy too.

But seriously, I have one OEM version that came with this Gateway laptop
and I have two other retail Windows XP boxes still shrinkwrapped along
with my Wal-Mart receipt. So I am still in good shape you think?

 

[BillW50]

Using xcopy.exe with lots of switches under a Bert PE boot.

Oh okay, one clever batch file will handle that. Thanks! And you have
restored with xcopy too and everything including Windows XP was fine?

 

[BillW50]

If you want to try to get your USB drive booting Windows you can find
the names of the drivers in the USB stack using the Device Manager. If
you look at the entries under the USB controllers you will find the
names of the drivers by clicking on the "Driver Details" button on the
Drivers property page.

You can locate the service associated with each driver by searching
for the driver name in registry under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services

For example in XP you find the service key for usbhub.sys is named
usbhub. Sometimes the driver is specified in the service key without
tne .sys extension and sometime the name of the service key is used to
identify the driver file. For example the service TDTCP does not have
an ImagePath value the name of the driver is tdtcp.sys.

After finding the service key for the driver you will need to set the
"Start" value to 0 (zero) which tells Windows the driver is needed for
booting the OS.

Good luck,
John Hensley
www.resqware.com

Much thanks John! I really appreciate it. You don't know how much time
you just saved me.

 

[Pegasus]

Oh okay, one clever batch file will handle that. Thanks! And you have
restored with xcopy too and everything including Windows XP was fine?

I certainly have.

There is little advantage in using a batch file. Batch files
are great when you have several complex commands
or when you wish to automate a task. Neither seems
to apply in your case, hence it's probably faster to type
your command at the Command Prompt.

 

[BillW50]

I certainly have.

There is little advantage in using a batch file. Batch files
are great when you have several complex commands
or when you wish to automate a task. Neither seems
to apply in your case, hence it's probably faster to type
your command at the Command Prompt.

Oh many thanks! This is the info I needed to know.

Xcopy the 3 folders should cover the OS and programs. The data I have
covered under another program which syncs data to other computers on the
network.

Windows
Program Files
Documents and Settings

 

[Terry]

On 5/16/2007 7:31 PM On a whim, BillW50 pounded out on the keyboard

Oh many thanks! This is the info I needed to know.

Xcopy the 3 folders should cover the OS and programs. The data I have
covered under another program which syncs data to other computers on the
network.

Windows
Program Files
Documents and Settings

Bill,

Have you heard about xxcopy? Do a search for it. You may find it able
to do all you want.

--
Terry

***Reply Note***
Anti-spam measures are included in my email address.
Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.

 

[Pegasus]

On 5/16/2007 7:31 PM On a whim, BillW50 pounded out on the keyboard


Bill,

Have you heard about xxcopy? Do a search for it. You may find it able to
do all you want.

While xxcopy.exe is a great program, it offers no advantage in
the OP's situation over native xcopy.exe.

 

[John Hensley]

Much thanks John! I really appreciate it. You don't know how much time
you just saved me.

I just re-read your original message in this thread and thought I
might be able to offer some additional hints in getting the Windows XP
files to the USB drive and then booting from it.

If you download the RescueBoot beta from
www.resqware.com/Beta/beta.aspx it will automatically create a
bootable clean install archive of Windows in a separate directory
structure on your existing system drive and then update your boot.ini
with a new RescueBoot OS menu entry to allow you to select to boot
from the archived copy of Windows. After rebooting and selecting the
RescueBoot option on the boot menu you will be running from the
archived copy of Windows and you'll have access to all of the normal
OS files without having to worry about them being in use.

You can also use the RescueBoot Wizard to transfer the bootable
Windows archive from your hard drive onto CDR/RW media giving you
something like Bart's PE on steroids with most of the functionality of
a clean install of Windows XP when booting and running from the CD.

After booting from RescueBoot or Bart's PE you can use Xcopy to copy
the files but this will cause you problems later because Xcopy doesn't
copy the security descriptors on the files correctly. I would
recommend downloading the Windows 2003 Resource Kit and using RoboCopy
to copy your files to the USB drive so that you retain the correct
security descriptors on the files.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en

If you eventually are able to boot off of the USB hard drive you will
find that the USB drive will still have its original drive letter as
will your original Windows system drive. This means that all of the
paths in the registry will be pointing to the wrong drive. To get
around this you will need to swap the drive letter assignments in the
registry on the USB drive under the key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

If your USB is normally drive E: you do something like this. Rename
the value "\DosDevices\E:" to "Tmp". Next rename "\DosDevices\C:" to
"\DosDevices\E:" and then rename "Tmp" to "\DosDevices\C:".

After copying all of the files to the USB drive you can run RegEdit
and load the SYSTEM registry hive that was copied to the USB drive and
then make these changes before booting from the USB drive.

Now when you boot from the USB drive it will appear as drive C: and
your original Windows drive will appear as E:. This is what RescueBoot
does when creating it's bootable CD so that the emulated disk Windows
is running from on the CD appears as drive C: and your original
Windows drive appears as the last free drive letter that is available
such as Z:

John Hensley
www.resqware.com

 

[Poprivet]

While xxcopy.exe is a great program, it offers no advantage in
the OP's situation over native xcopy.exe.

Caveat: No one has mentioned that xcopy nor any copy command can copy the
system files that are "in use". Just cleaning up details.

Pop`

 

[Pegasus]

Caveat: No one has mentioned that xcopy nor any copy command can copy the
system files that are "in use". Just cleaning up details.

Pop`

Not quite. When booting the machine with a Bart PE boot
CD then no files are in use. This is the whole point of booting
the machine with this CD!

 

[BillW50]

I just re-read your original message in this thread and thought I
might be able to offer some additional hints in getting the Windows XP
files to the USB drive and then booting from it.

If you download the RescueBoot beta from
www.resqware.com/Beta/beta.aspx it will automatically create a
bootable clean install archive of Windows in a separate directory
structure on your existing system drive and then update your boot.ini
with a new RescueBoot OS menu entry to allow you to select to boot
from the archived copy of Windows. After rebooting and selecting the
RescueBoot option on the boot menu you will be running from the
archived copy of Windows and you'll have access to all of the normal
OS files without having to worry about them being in use.

You can also use the RescueBoot Wizard to transfer the bootable
Windows archive from your hard drive onto CDR/RW media giving you
something like Bart's PE on steroids with most of the functionality of
a clean install of Windows XP when booting and running from the CD.

After booting from RescueBoot or Bart's PE you can use Xcopy to copy
the files but this will cause you problems later because Xcopy doesn't
copy the security descriptors on the files correctly. I would
recommend downloading the Windows 2003 Resource Kit and using RoboCopy
to copy your files to the USB drive so that you retain the correct
security descriptors on the files.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en

If you eventually are able to boot off of the USB hard drive you will
find that the USB drive will still have its original drive letter as
will your original Windows system drive. This means that all of the
paths in the registry will be pointing to the wrong drive. To get
around this you will need to swap the drive letter assignments in the
registry on the USB drive under the key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

If your USB is normally drive E: you do something like this. Rename
the value "\DosDevices\E:" to "Tmp". Next rename "\DosDevices\C:" to
"\DosDevices\E:" and then rename "Tmp" to "\DosDevices\C:".

After copying all of the files to the USB drive you can run RegEdit
and load the SYSTEM registry hive that was copied to the USB drive and
then make these changes before booting from the USB drive.

Now when you boot from the USB drive it will appear as drive C: and
your original Windows drive will appear as E:. This is what RescueBoot
does when creating it's bootable CD so that the emulated disk Windows
is running from on the CD appears as drive C: and your original
Windows drive appears as the last free drive letter that is available
such as Z:

John Hensley
www.resqware.com

Many thanks John! You're a life and time saver!