Big
Sat Mar 22 09:31:12 PDT 2008
James Silverton wrote:
> ANONYMOUS wrote on Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:07:48 +0000:
>
> A> You asked for a simple solution and this only produced
> A> infighting between PD43, Bill & Co and others. This says
> A> something about how insecure people are or indeed the nature
> A> of these newsgroups! What people forget is that there are
> A> many ways to skin a cat! Some are more efficient than
> A> others but all ways can do the job at hand!
>
> A> If you want to back up your data (files and folders) then
> A> clearly Nero is the simplest solution. Look here:
>
> A>
http://www.nero.com/eng/backup.html
>
> A> Hope this helps.
>
> A> PT wrote:
>
> ??>> For Windows XP Home
> ??>>
> ??>> I'm looking for backup software that would do several things:
>
> ??>> ??>> 1. Create an "image" backup suitable for completely
>
> As you observe, there is more than one way to make backups. Which is
> best depends on what you need and I have tried two programs. Symantec
> used to be faster and have a more understandable structure for
> retrieving an accidentally altered or deleted file than Acronis but
> doing a total restore did not work in the one instance that I needed it
> and I had to pay a tech to clone the noisy and probably dying hard disc.
>
> My own requirements are:
>
> 1. Do a total backup once a week.
> 2. Do incremental backups daily.
> 3. Do both of these things without asking questions.
> 4. Shut down the computer after the backup.
> 5. Work with a fast USB disc as the backup media.
> 6. If I lose a file, have a structure or method that makes it easy and
> rapid to find the backup of the missing file.
> 7. Have an easily understandable method for doing a total restore.
>
> Except for 6 and 7, Acronis does all of these things and incremental
> backups usually take 10-15 minutes tho' a total backup seems
> considerably slower than Symantec. I have always been able to find
> backups of missing files but it took longer than I would wish. My
> computer is a working tool so I have not timed any attempts to do a
> total restore.
>
> James Silverton
> Potomac, Maryland
>
> E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
I like James' suggestions. I'd almost suggest you test the whole
process one day if you have a spare drive that is. Leave your main
drive in tact. I also burn a CD with some of the cute little utilities
that you always use. The free stuff you download and install. If you
had a good thumb drive 4 gigs or so, you can drop some daily files
there. I copy my phone book and inbox (all others I can ignore) and an
odd other file or two to the thumb drive. I reload sometimes every 6
months due to just screwing around too much. My desktop I leave alone,
but my laptop I play with just way to much. I can have a working
system, reloaded in a few hours. You just need your files. Knowing
where the files are is your best knowledge. Where are you settings for
IM? Where is your mail? Where is anything? If you know that then an
image of the drive maybe overkill but you won't be crying when you have
it and it saves your life. I do an image so I guarantee all the files,
then I do a backup with just selected. Paranoid, but I want the image
to make sure I get all files just in case. And remember!, make sure y
you have two backups. Like keep last weeks. If this weeks is no
good, at least you are only a week off. At work we rotate 10 copies.
Just ideas.