Win XP Backup

[joe]

win xp pro sp3

I have been in the habit of backing up my most important data to an external
hard disk folder by folder. Only about 10gb and takes about 5 minutes.

I have just looked at the built in backup program with xp pro and have never
seen any reference to it in this group and wondered how many people use it.
I am curious how well it works and have a couple of questions about it which
are not quite clear.

One of the options is to backup all information. Incidentally this shows it
will take one hour thirty minutes. Under what conditions could one restore
from this type of backup and does it work? If there is some crash which
makes XP unable to start can the backup be used?

It then goes on to choose between Incremental and differential backup. I'm
afraid this bit confuses me.
What I want to do is backup only any changed or new files to each of the
folders. Which one would I use?

None of the results on Google were detailed enough, even the description on
Microsoft's website does not explain in detail.

Any clarification from the monitors of this group would be appreciated.

 

[Jim]

Backup and resture using ntbackup has a couple of problems:
1. You must use an installation CD to perform the restore.
2. You must have a floppy drive to perform the restore.

I converted to Acronis True Image several years ago and never looked back.

Acronis creates a full backup of the system disk in about 17 minutes.
Restore takes about 45 minutes. Acronis can create a CD which does the
restore

Jim

 

[M. Murphy]

While Acronis is a good choice, NTBACKUP is a great utility, and always
works flawlessly on every computer I have ever used it on.
You only need the installation cd if you are restoring your entire system.
It is not needed to perform the backup.
You do not need a floppy drive IF your system will boot from the
installation CD, as most newer computers do.

Best part of ntbackup, it is FREE and already installed on your XP pro
computer.

 

[Twayne]

In

Backup and resture using ntbackup has a couple of problems:
1. You must use an installation CD to perform the restore.
2. You must have a floppy drive to perform the restore.

Not sure what you refer to re the "CD". All you need is the program
installed to backup and restore. No CD is specifically needed. You can back
up to CD, DVD, external drives if you have packet writing software
installed, etc..

A catastrophic recovery (as in a new replacement drive that's only been
formatted) does indeed require a floppy drive. The disk is called ASR
(Advanced System Recovery or something like that) and a new ASR floppy has
to be made with each Full backup in order to have complete catastrophic
recovery available. It's only for the boot drive though, not other drives
or partitions; they can be recovered without it.
An advantage of ntbackup.exe (XP's backup program) and any legitimate
backup or imaging application is that it can back up all the system files so
you can actually backup the complete operating system. No copy or xcopy or
even xxcopy program that simply copies files can successfully backup the C
boot drive because they don't call VSS services (Volume Shadow Copy) which
allow you to back up files that are "in use". If VSS wasn't used in the
backup, an operating system Restore will fail, as would an ASR recovery.
Another advantage is it's free, and can backup/restore a file, folder,
or all of them.
Imaging software is more convenient and carries more bells & whistles.
The two best are Norton Ghost (symantec.com) and Acronis.com True Image.
There are also a couple of freebies around that work OK, too.

HTH,

Twayne

 

[Twayne]

In

While Acronis is a good choice, NTBACKUP is a great utility, and
always works flawlessly on every computer I have ever used it on.
You only need the installation cd if you are restoring your entire
system. It is not needed to perform the backup.
You do not need a floppy drive IF your system will boot from the
installation CD, as most newer computers do.

Best part of ntbackup, it is FREE and already installed on your XP pro
computer.

Ahh, THAT is what the reference to the CD was in another post. I assume
you're talking about booting the XP disk and using ntbackup from there? I
was't aware you could do that because it's compressed, as in ntbackup.ex_ on
my XP disk, meaning you couldn't run it from there. It has to be run thru
the expand.exe to make it usable.
It's a simple matter to boot from the ASR floppy if you have a floppy
drive; you just boot, tell it where the restore files reside, and go.
How would you do it using the CD? I'm curious because that would solve a
lot of problems for people who don't want to spend the $10 to add a floppy
drive if they don't have one.

I do agree with you that ntbackup.exe is a fully functional, capable and
reliable backup program. I used it for a long time before I purchases
imaging software. In fact, I still use it to back up the System State now
and then. SS is close to a registry backup but also includes all the boot
files, etc., needed to be able to boot the computer up. I back up the SS
whenever I make major changes to HW or SW.

Regards,

Twayne`

 

[Paul Randall]

In news:[email protected],

I do agree with you that ntbackup.exe is a fully functional, capable and
reliable backup program. I used it for a long time before I purchases
imaging software. In fact, I still use it to back up the System State now
and then. SS is close to a registry backup but also includes all the boot
files, etc., needed to be able to boot the computer up. I back up the SS
whenever I make major changes to HW or SW.

Can this "fully functional, capable and reliable backup program" be used to
restore selected files onto a WXP home system a Win7 system, or from a
UBCD4WIN or similar PEBuilder type boot disk with a thumbdrive holding the
actual program to do the restore? What programs would have to be put on the
thumb drive to do this?

-Paul Randall

 

[Twayne]

In

Can this "fully functional, capable and reliable backup program" be
used to restore selected files onto a WXP home system a Win7 system,
or from a UBCD4WIN or similar PEBuilder type boot disk with a
thumbdrive holding the actual program to do the restore? What
programs would have to be put on the thumb drive to do this?

-Paul Randall

Umm, no, pretty unlikely. That's why most systems come with their own backup
utility: There isn't much backward compatability between different systems
backup programs. No matter what you used to backup XP or win 7, there would
be issues with trying to Restore to a different OS. For instance, XP's boot
disk isn't going to work for win 7 and vice-versa so full recovery is
impossible right away.
You're probably better off using win7's transfer cable to get things from
XP/win7, and the Transfer wizard, but I've never tried it. Win 7 does claim
to be able to get data from an active XP machine.
But that's not restoring from a backup, either, which is what you wanted.

HTH,

Twayne

 

[TimeLady]

Backup and resture using ntbackup has a couple of problems:
1. You must use an installation CD to perform the restore.
2. You must have a floppy drive to perform the restore.

I converted to Acronis True Image several years ago and never looked back.

Acronis creates a full backup of the system disk in about 17 minutes.
Restore takes about 45 minutes. Acronis can create a CD which does the
restore

Jim

Sorry but I must disagree, I've used NTBackup & have never required any
installation CD nor a floppy drive to restore the files required. So far
I've been quite happy with the feature/software.
I have Win XP sp3.

Edna.

 

[Twayne]

In

Sorry but I must disagree, I've used NTBackup & have never required
any installation CD nor a floppy drive to restore the files required.
So far I've been quite happy with the feature/software.
I have Win XP sp3.

Edna.

You are correct. The only time anything like that is required would be for a
restoration from a full catastrophic loss of the drive. Then you need the
bootable floppy ASR since the drive isn't bootable (as in a new blank
drive). Ntbackup also reminds you to create new ASR floppies when needed.

HTH,

Twayne

 

[Unknown]

What you say is simply not true. I have a backup external drive and can get
my computer running
again without the need of a floppy regardless of what happened to the
internal drive.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

What you say is simply not true. I have a backup external drive and can
get my computer running
again without the need of a floppy regardless of what happened to the
internal drive.

...

Could you enlarge on how you do this?

 

[Unknown]

I use 'Bounceback', developed by CMS products. If interested, go to
www.cmsproducts.com and read all about their backup systems.
They also will answer any question you might have.
I have no connections with them whatsoever but they have sold me a backup
system
I think is foolproof. (My opinion)

 

[Twayne]

In

What you say is simply not true. I have a backup external drive and
can get my computer running
again without the need of a floppy regardless of what happened to the
internal drive.

Then you're using more than just ntbackup.exe. Most people who get around
the floppy problem can figure a way to use a bootable CD which makes it
pretty easy, or even a third party program. But you conveniently give no
details of any kind.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

Thanks. I looked briefly at the user manual, and I see that the
backup includes everything needed to recover. Sort of the
usual backup _plus_ the recovery CD that is usually on a
separate medium. I assume that a system with no disk
contents can always read via a USB 2.0 port; something
I've never tried.

 

[Unknown]

Don't know exactly what you mean by a "system with no disk contents".

 

[Anthony Buckland]

Don't know exactly what you mean by a "system with no disk contents".
...

A system in which all the hard drives have been removed
and replaced with new drives, as they come out of the
box from the store. In particular, with no operating system
and no drivers on any hard disk.

 

[Unknown]

If you do have your backup disk there is no problem restoring your C HD..