rach said:
Hi,
I have a Windows2000 Pro desktop, and I created a backup job to daily backup
my important files (but not the entire system). But just for grins, I
checked to see if I could access the file that MS backup creates with my
mom's computer (also Win2kPro), and I could not access the files inside!
So if my computer was toast I couldn't access my important files! Is there a
tool to let me explore the contents of an MS backup file?
I've tried numerous other zip-type backup utilities that didn't seem to work
for one reason or another.
Thanks!
Rach
Comrades,
One of the more commonly recurring topics here on this newsgroups is
directly or indirectly related to backups.
An angry recent poster claimed to have lost $20K because of the problems of
applying SP4 and wants to sue. If he had a backup, the time loss would have
been minutes. Over and over, the common theme is, "I made a change and now
my system won't work, what can I do..." or "after making a change, I spent
[hours/days/weeks] undoing the damage".
Probably because of the difficulties of making backups, most people don't.
I make backups just about every weekend or before any significant change.
Am I hero? Am I genius. Certainly not. It's easy and fast. Flashback: I
knew a very bright guy who worked in IT awhile ago who gave me some tips on
how to make it easier to make backups. Naturally like most people, I
ignored him. Two computer disasters later, I decided that maybe I should
have taken this guy's advice so when I built my computer I followed his
advice to the letter. Almost all of the advice given here came from Art B.
(wherever you may be).
Buy 2 identical hard disks.
Partition one of the drives into 4 partitions.
Make the first partition relatively small. 5GB should suffice. This is
strictly for the OS. Don't put the paging file here.
Make the second partition also fairly small, 5-10GB for your software.
Nothing else.
The third partition size depends strictly upon your needs. This third
partition is used only for data. Nothing else.
The forth partition is for junk. Temporary Internet Files. temp directory. I
put my paging file here but from what I've read this is probably a poor
choice.
Since the OS is actually quite small (about 1GB even with all the service
packs) backing it up to another drive is a piece of cake. I changed my
environmental parameters so that temp and tmp directories point to the 'F'
(junk) drive. I've also changed as many programs as I could find that save
log files to point to the 'F' drive. I want as little on the OS drive as
possible.
I back up the OS drive *before* I make *any* changes to the OS (add/delete
drivers, etc) or add/delete programs from the program partition. I only
make backups of the program partition whenever I add/delete programs.
The reason why it's necessary to separate your data from your OS is because
if you have to do a restore of your OS you don't want to wipe out any of
your recently saved data.
After building the partitions, I use DriveImage to clone the drive to the
second drive. I use DriveImage only because I've had it for years and I'm
familiar with it. As I'm installing the OS, I stop at every major juncture
and make an image of the OS onto the mirror drive (I use the 'F' drive) so
that I can roll back a step or two if I discovered that I made a mistake.
Each image is named differently and commented.
After I've installed the OS and the software, I make two types of backups.
I clone the 'C','D' partitions and make an image of the partitions. I clone
the partitions so that if the primary HD should fail, I can plug in the
alternate HD and be on my way in a minute or two. The images are so that I
can roll back to any point in time although in practice I've never rolled
back more than to the last version. Since cloning takes much longer than
making an image, I only clone about once/month.
Here's how I make my back ups:
I defrag my disks using Diskeeper and do a boot-time defrag otherwise the
clone will take much longer.
I turn the computer off and plug in my mirror drive.
I boot up in w98. I use a CD for this that I learned about this technique in
this forum. Much faster than floppies.
I start DriveImage.
I clone the partitions.
I also make an image of each partition to the mirror's 'F' drive. Always the
'C' drive, maybe the 'D' and 'E' drive.
I turn the computer off.
I unplug the mirror drive. It's now totally safe from viruses and
electrical problems.
As I said previously, I don't clone each weekend. It's a good idea to plug
in your mirror hard disk as your only hard disk to make sure that it boots
up properly. You don't want to find out that it doesn't boot up when your
primary disk has died.
I've found this method to be a lot faster and less expensive than CD's. No
swapping CD's back and forth. And if you clone enough, you have every single
file available to you in the exact location that you would expect, but on
another drive.
Notes: Some programs you might not want to back up. If you have several
600MB programs, there's no need to back them up. Worse comes to worse, I
just reinstall the programs. In those cases, I install the big programs on
my 'F' drive.
C drive == OS partition
D drive == Programs
E drive == Data
F drive == temp files, alternate program location, paging file
My computer case allows me to easily open and access hard disks. Yours
might not. If that's your situation you might want to consider a high-speed
external drive. I use an internal drive because they're so inexpensive and
I wanted an exact replica.
This whole process is geared more for those who are setting up a computer,
not for those who already have their computer up and running. I have
converted a computer to the partition concept using PartitionMagic but it
was a lot of work. Fortunately, they had nearly all of their original
installation disks. But, consider this: If your computer went down, how
many hours/days/weeks do you think you'll spend trying to get back up,
especially with your valuable data in limbo?
I've had several to on several occasions restore my OS after I destroyed
something somewhere in the OS. Restore time took less than 2 minutes
(excluding boot times and plugging in the hard disk).
Since your data is now all on one partition and if you're not feeling
inclined to doing the hard disk routine, you can probably save your entire
data partition to a CD (this assumes that you're not working with graphics,
movies, etc.) or if you've got the money, external hard disks.
The first few times will be time consuming because it's different. But
after some practice, while you drink your coffee and push a few buttons the
process will be finished and you'll sleep better at night.
Uncle Joe
