XP Backup - what are best backup options?

Tokyoelbow · May 11th, 2002, 12:16 PM

XP Pro
Hi,
Ive just installed XP Pro (a week ago) and also Office XP ,email backup programme and updates from microsoft.

Now as my PC is prone to madness of an extrtemely kickable nature Id like to run a back up.

The problem being the size of the back up .
I did run backup but the size is 1.37 Gigs.
Obviously I cant burn this to a disc so thats where my problem is.

How can I back it up to a disc ?

I want to back up stuff like drivers Office etc but cant see a way of doing it other than keeping the huge backup file on my slave drive.
this isnt any good if my slave drive goes AWOL.

TokyoElbow

Mind rubbers get em while you remember

**GroundZero3** · May 11th, 2002, 02:26 PM

you could get ghost which can make an image of a hard drive and if its to big for one cd it can span the image across several cds.

JaYsin

Atomic Rooster · May 11th, 2002, 02:37 PM

Nero 5.5.8.0 does entire HDD backups spanning many CDR's. (Mine would take 59!!!) The only drawback other then the amount of CDR's used, is that it doesn't support XP's NTSF 3.1 file system.

RayH · May 11th, 2002, 04:46 PM

For backups, I'd recommend getting an imaging/ghosting program. I use Drive Image by PowerQuest because I find it extremely intuitive and easy to use. Norton Ghost by Symantec is also an excellent program. This place has a less expensive imaging program that is Linnux based: http://www.no-panic.com/recovery/ir_whatsnew.html

I have a 5 GB partition for my OS and programs. My files are on the rest of the drive. I use Drive Image to back my C:\. Since my data doesn't rapidly change or change in an unmanageable manner, I just back it to CD regularly. But if I had constant data change, I'd have that data on a separate partition and use Drive Image to back that. It would be faster because of the compression.

I can vouch that Drive Image and Ghost work quite well. The third is just something I ran across and is inexpensive.

KenKun · May 12th, 2002, 02:13 AM

Yep .. as mentioned before, Ghost2002 is the best method i found to backup winXP ..
Ghost can part the image to a small size that you can burn to CDs .. it is done automatically after you give the right command ...

Restoring from an image is also very easy and fast ... Ghost have saved me many times ....

Regards

Tokyoelbow · May 12th, 2002, 02:17 AM

Is ghost ok with NTFS?

KenKun · May 12th, 2002, 02:25 AM

Yes .. Ghost works fine with NTFS .. But only the newer version of Ghost which is 2002 (7.x) will recognize the NTFS v5.1 that winXP uses ..

Ghost2001 only sees NTFS used with win2k .. i tried it with winXP and it couldn't see the partition at all ...

Regards

Brainchild · May 12th, 2002, 02:31 AM

I recently corrupted my computer with an update from microsoft, and did a system restore to the day before, good as new. When entering in safe mode it gave the option to start at last known good configuration, or something like that, started up, and restored to the last restore point works well. XP is wonderful

KenKun · May 12th, 2002, 02:35 AM

Yes brainchild .. system restore is great

... i like it too ...

It helped me few times... But! it failed me once also ... so i had to make another backup plan incase winXP restore feature refused to work ...

sparkyguy · May 13th, 2002, 12:07 PM

With hard drive costs dropping like a bag of rocks, I just purchased a 2nd hard drive and put it in one of the removable hard-drive trays. Set it for "slave", and just do a full disk Ghost image to it. Remove it when done & keep in a safe place, such as a fire-proof document box. If your primary drive crashes, unplug it, pull out the backup drive, change the jumper back to "master" and plug it in. This arrangement will now boot back up with no "restore" effort required!

Slicker than snot on a doorknob.