Oolite Bulletins

Can anybody recommend a good backup software for Win XP? (Preferably free and/or downloadable; I don't necessarily trust the arbitrary software which usually comes bundled with an external HD.)

Turns out my parents never have bothered with doing any backup for their six-year-old computer (and they have been lucky so far). And as I'm visiting them right now I thought I could do something to increase the likeliness of survival for the family pictures etc.

I know this is probably overkill, but disc cloning is a good backup method if you have the space for it. Things like Norton Ghost are good, but Ghost itself is expensive. Try PING for size since it's free! The created disk images can be stored on the HD (in a separate partition obviously) or on USB stick or DVD.

http://ping.windowsdream.com/

If you just want to backup certain files or folders, then the following free software might be just up your street...

http://directorysync.sourceforge.net/
http://www.areca-backup.org/
http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

Thanks! In fact the internal HD has a seperate backup partition, it's only totally unused. But in case of a serious crash I also want to buy an external HD, so I'll have a look into all of your recommendations.

Much appreciated!

I set my brother's XP machine up with a Buffalo 500 GB external HD. The Memeo back-up software that was included (short free trial... then pay) seems to do exactly what is needed (so far, anyway. In use for over a year now).
As for the HD itself... very good. Easy USB connection, turns on and off with the PC. I use a Buffalo external HD myself, attached as network storage via the router, and it is excellent kit.

And if you are interested in offsite storage, and have broadband, take a look at Carbonite. $55 (US) per year for unlimited online storage, data is encrypted both when stored and in transit, it's fully automated, the client is truly set-and-forget, and it can store up to a dozen different versions of frequently edited files. You can also access your data from any internet connected computer via a browser.

Clients available for Mac and PC.. I just wish they'd hurry up and produce a Linux Client.

I use it on my Windows machine, and absolutely love it.

Thanks, but I'm looking for a simple in-door solution. Just an external HD, plus using the backup partition of the internal HD.

I'm not too concerned with the house being hit by a meteorite, just that after more than six years the computer one day may stop working.

Backup software: for USD30, you can download Syncback SE. I have used this for a couple of years - it is easy to use, and can do a simple 'mirror', or more advanced backup operation, and lots in between. It can be scheduled and run unattended if you don't think your folks will remember.

http://www.2brightsparks.com/welcome/aw ... 3godfC1xqw



If you want to clone, I use Clonezilla and it has never failed a restore yet. Freeware, runs from a live CD, so the OS you are cloning is totally inactive. Is not very very intuitive, but not hard. Restores my 6Gb C: drive in about 20 seconds with about 10 key presses (ymmv of course).

http://clonezilla.org/


6 years trouble free without a backup is good going.


Edit: at the risk of teaching you to suck eggs, backing up and cloning are two different things. An incremental backup may be much more appropriate for a particular task than a cloned image, and vice versa.

Edit 2 a backup partition on a 6 year old hard drive may be part of the problem not part of the solution.

I can suggest burning the files you want to keep to a blank CD or DVD.
CD burners have been OEM installed equipment for a long while; you likely have everything you need for the job already available.
XP's crap CD burner software would work (I don't trust it myself), but there's a broad range of freeware and shareware choices around which would do a better job.

I used to use dd wikipedia : dd
edit : oh dang. phpbb url-tag can't cope with () in URLs. edit2 : fixed, thank you.

In combination with bzip2 (or gzip ? can't remember) I created a compressed image of the system partition and store it somewhere.

I typically would have booted a live-linux (preferred : Knoppix), mount the partition where I want the image to go to and then dd if=/dev/sda1 | gzip > /mnt/hda1/windows_backup.img.gz. That's it, and it is fast, too.
reboot, remove the Knoppix CD, done.

To restore, boot Knoppix from CD again, mount the partition with the imagefile, and gzip -dc /mnt/hdb1/system_drive_backup.img.gz | dd of=/dev/sda
That is for first scsi partition being windows partition and first ide partition for storing the image.

I found winXP to be much more reliable than I thought and thus got lazy with the backup-imaging.

doing a quick google for using dd and bzip2 for imaging partitions gives good links, here a list of Free Hard Disk and Partition Imaging and Backup Software : http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities ... mage.shtml
It has also dd-ports for windows. Maybe even with GU-interface,don't know.
But I think it is safer to not have the windows system partition in use when cloning it anyways, so booting a live-linux - why not.
-----------------------
The other way could be : look up your harddisk manufacturer.
E.g. mine is Western Digital, and not only do I like their clean and fast online support documentation, but also I can get a free WD Version of Acronis True Image, to work with WD harddrives. (no idea if it actually checks the HD being a WD one or not)
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp

-------------------------
PS - I really love this utils-pack, giving me the most used / necessary Un*x command line tools in windows, does not need to get installed, just executed and the world is nicer.
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/

PS2 - wikipedia to me is a nice place to find "List of this-and-that software", free and commercial alike.

snork wrote:

edit : oh dang. phpbb url-tag can't cope with () in URLs.

Replace them with %28 and %29 respectively, and you're fine.

And thanks, everybody, for the comprehensive information!