Microsoft Backup Utilty without Floppy Drive?

[Guest]

When doing a full system back-up from the Microsft Backup utilty, it asks you
to insert a floppy and that the floppy is needed in order to retreive the
backup information you just backed up. (I backed up the full system to an
external hard drive).

What do you do when you do not have a floppy drive? Can you still use the
utilty for a full system backup? I believe that Knowledge base says that the
information that should go on the floppy is stored on the external hard
drive, but how do you get it if needed when you have a system crash?

Am I just wasting my time with the utility?

 

[John John]

There is no way around the diskette requirements for ASR and NTBackup,
you *must* use a floppy drive, nothing else will work. You will have to
fit a diskette drive to the machine or you can try a USB floppy drive.
Only a handful of USB floppy drives are compatible for ASR.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916196

If you cannot or do not want to use a floppy you will have to use
another option for your Bare Metal restore strategy.

John

 

[Mike Cawood, HND BIT]

When doing a full system back-up from the Microsft Backup utilty, it asks
you
to insert a floppy and that the floppy is needed in order to retreive the
backup information you just backed up. (I backed up the full system to an
external hard drive).

What do you do when you do not have a floppy drive? Can you still use the
utilty for a full system backup? I believe that Knowledge base says that
the
information that should go on the floppy is stored on the external hard
drive, but how do you get it if needed when you have a system crash?

Am I just wasting my time with the utility?

Obviously no-one told those Microsoft cretins that PCs generally don't have
floppy drives these days.
Regards Mike.

 

[Bob I]

Obviously no-one told those Microsoft cretins that PCs generally don't have
floppy drives these days.
Regards Mike.

They did 5 years ago!

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

I beg to differ. For instance, every Dell Dimension desktop I can find on
their site has a floppy drive included. I wouldn't have a computer without a
floppy drive. They're occasional needed on Windows XP, period, and
absolutely necessary for anything earlier. It would appear that HP has done
away with them, at least on their sale models, but that just means that I
won't be buying any HP machines. Not unless they have models with floppy
drives.

Regardless, please remember that Windows XP is now more than five years old.
Back then, EVERY desktop that was worth a damn had a floppy drive.

 

[RedForeman]

When doing a full system back-up from the Microsft Backup utilty, it asks you
to insert a floppy and that the floppy is needed in order to retreive the
backup information you just backed up. (I backed up the full system to an
external hard drive).

What do you do when you do not have a floppy drive? Can you still use the
utilty for a full system backup? I believe that Knowledge base says that the
information that should go on the floppy is stored on the external hard
drive, but how do you get it if needed when you have a system crash?

Am I just wasting my time with the utility?

Looking at this article, they're not saying anything about the floppy
drive... maybe this is an updated version?? Mine doesn't ask for a
floppy either....
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx

Maybe I'm the one confused....

I've used Robocopy before with pretty good success... very quick, many
features, and someone wrote a gui for it... somewhere on the net..
hold on... lemme get it..

Robocopy page - http://www.ss64.com/nt/robocopy.html
RobocopyGUI page - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/11/UtilitySpotlight/

Other than that, you're sure to find software that does simple backups
to external drives out there

RedForeman

 

[Rock]

Looking at this article, they're not saying anything about the floppy
drive... maybe this is an updated version?? Mine doesn't ask for a
floppy either....
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx

Maybe I'm the one confused....

I've used Robocopy before with pretty good success... very quick, many
features, and someone wrote a gui for it... somewhere on the net..
hold on... lemme get it..

Robocopy page - http://www.ss64.com/nt/robocopy.html
RobocopyGUI page -
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/11/UtilitySpotlight/

Other than that, you're sure to find software that does simple backups
to external drives out there

A floppy is not needed to use ntbackup for file backup but it is needed for
the ASR wizard (Automated System Recovery) which is part of ntbackup and
only available on XP Pro.

 

[Rock]

When doing a full system back-up from the Microsft Backup utilty, it asks
you
to insert a floppy and that the floppy is needed in order to retreive the
backup information you just backed up. (I backed up the full system to an
external hard drive).

What do you do when you do not have a floppy drive? Can you still use the
utilty for a full system backup? I believe that Knowledge base says that
the
information that should go on the floppy is stored on the external hard
drive, but how do you get it if needed when you have a system crash?

Am I just wasting my time with the utility?

Ntbackup is a legacy app from Windows NT. It can do file backups without a
floppy but for the ASR function it needs a floppy. As others have said
there is no way around it. I used ntbackup some years ago, and also tested
the ASR function. I found it to be cumbersome for a restore, and did not
bring back the system to a full working state. Some programs did not run
after the restore and needed an uninstall/reinstall.

For that and other reasons, such as flexibility, I moved to a drive imaging
program, saving those images on an external hard drive. Currently I'm using
Acronis True Image Home, version 10, which works in both XP and Vista. I
have found it to be fast, easy, reliable and flexible. Images can be made
on a drive or partition basis, and can be full, incremental or differential
saving time and space on subsequent images. Restores can be on a file,
partition or drive basis. It also does file backup and disk cloning.

Other programs that do this are Norton Ghost, Terabyte Unlimited's Image for
Windows, and BootIt NG.

Whatever backup/recovery solution you decide on, make sure you test under
real conditions to know how and that it works.

 

[Fuzzy Logic]

When doing a full system back-up from the Microsft Backup utilty, it
asks you to insert a floppy and that the floppy is needed in order to
retreive the backup information you just backed up. (I backed up the
full system to an external hard drive).

What do you do when you do not have a floppy drive? Can you still use
the utilty for a full system backup? I believe that Knowledge base says
that the information that should go on the floppy is stored on the
external hard drive, but how do you get it if needed when you have a
system crash?

Am I just wasting my time with the utility?

It always assumes a floppy. I regularly backup to my external Jaz drive. You can also do it to a CDR or other
recordable media. Spanning is supported.

Here is a bit of information on doing a restore:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309340

 

[John John]

Looking at this article, they're not saying anything about the floppy
drive... maybe this is an updated version?? Mine doesn't ask for a
floppy either....
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx

Maybe I'm the one confused....

I've used Robocopy before with pretty good success... very quick, many
features, and someone wrote a gui for it... somewhere on the net..
hold on... lemme get it..

Robocopy page - http://www.ss64.com/nt/robocopy.html
RobocopyGUI page - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/11/UtilitySpotlight/

Other than that, you're sure to find software that does simple backups
to external drives out there

How ASR Works
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windo...cc90-4b52-b6ab-064f9db8d2721033.mspx?mfr=true

Understanding Disaster Recovery
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windo...31ec-4ec2-866b-c324eb3abc5e1033.mspx?mfr=true

For simple data backups you don't need a floppy diskette. If you want
to use NTBackup for use in a true Disater Recovery situation you have to
use ASR and you *must* have a floppy diskette.

John

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

"PCs generally don't have floppy drives these days."
Perhaps you should look again.
While not all do, it seems to me most do.
And you also forgot to take into account Windows XP was released over
5 years ago when a higher percentage of computers came with floppy
drives.
Floppies may be dying a slow death, but it is very slow as they are
still very much alive.

 

[Frank\(FL\)]

When doing a full system back-up from the Microsft Backup utilty, it
asks you to insert a floppy and that the floppy is needed in order to
retreive the backup information you just backed up. (I backed up the
full system to an external hard drive).

What do you do when you do not have a floppy drive? Can you still
use the utilty for a full system backup? I believe that Knowledge
base says that the information that should go on the floppy is stored
on the external hard drive, but how do you get it if needed when you
have a system crash?

Am I just wasting my time with the utility?

Even if you had a floppy drive. The ASF utility would not work with
an external drive (USB/FIREWIRE). I would just invest in a quality
backup application.

 

[Bill Sharpe]

"PCs generally don't have floppy drives these days."
Perhaps you should look again.
While not all do, it seems to me most do.
And you also forgot to take into account Windows XP was released over 5
years ago when a higher percentage of computers came with floppy drives.
Floppies may be dying a slow death, but it is very slow as they are
still very much alive.

My 4-year-old Dell laptop doesn't have a floppy drive and I haven't
missed it a bit.

But I ordered my HP Pavilion desktop with a floppy drive over a year ago
for an extra $20. I have probably used it once in that time, but I have
quite a few floppies left over from previous computers that I may want
to look at once in a while. I haven't quite figured out what to do with
my 5 1/4-inch floppies from the 1980's yet...

Bill

 

[Bob I]

My 4-year-old Dell laptop doesn't have a floppy drive and I haven't
missed it a bit.

But I ordered my HP Pavilion desktop with a floppy drive over a year ago
for an extra $20. I have probably used it once in that time, but I have
quite a few floppies left over from previous computers that I may want
to look at once in a while. I haven't quite figured out what to do with
my 5 1/4-inch floppies from the 1980's yet...

Bill

Keep one working one around, I just recovered an irreplacable set of
files for a guy last week off of one.