whats a Good Backup software

[asanthadenz]

whats a Good Backup software for Win 98SE, i need a backup utility tht'll backup the entire HDD, backs up windows, and all important files, games etc. So if windows ever gets corrupted i can back it up again and restore it back to its old self.

dont make me d/load a large file as im on a 56k modem

[Humantuckshop]

I don't know if you can download it, but someone may be kind enough to lend you Norton GHOST to copy.......

Or you could decide not to be a cheapass for a change and buy it. :rolleyes:

I used GHOST everyday when I had a job, it r0><0rs. :cool:

[Agent666]

what are you going to backup to??

if its another HD just use a batch file and xcopy ....... its in your windows folder somewhere..... it can be set up with the correct switchs to do incremental backups

eg this is what I use to backup my documents folder

xcopy c:\Docume~1\Craig\mydocu~1\*.* d:\Backup\C_Drive_WinXP_Backup\My_Documents\*.* /E /V /G /R /H /C /D
pause

will backup most files (hidden/system) except those windows files that cause a sharing violation like the swap file ....etc

run xcopy /? to see what all the switches do

[TheChosen_1]

Use Nortons Ghost, will make an exact image of your drive, so if something happens you go back to that image. Great piece of software:D

[Geek4Life]

Norton GHOST is really good.

Another one that is meant to be good is Drive Image.

[Ragnor]

Hmm I've heard about Norton Ghost but how small is the image file it creates.. say if I'm going to back up a near full 40gb drive, what sort of size can I expect the backup to be..

[Agent666]

grab 10 Gbs of your data and compress it with winrar or winzip..... and that is about the ratio of compression you will get......... maybe 30Gbs if you are lucky....... thats a **** load of CDs....... cheaper to just get another damn HDrive in my opinion and just backup the essentials to that.......

[Agent666]

what I have heard ghost is good for is just after a fresh install... make an image of the drive then next time you need to reinstall it only takes a few minutes to restore the image....... no more trying to find your windows install cd manual with key etc......

[haytona]

Thanks for the xcopy trick. I'm after this sort of thing. Will xcopy span acros multiple media?? I am going to use a 600Mb optical disk.


About norton ghost. Incredibly useful tool. I'm using ghost personal edition. AWESOME FOR WINDOWS. I transferred an entire hard drive to another one. 6Gb to 30Gb and was able to resize the partitions as well. Windows just carried on like nothing happened!

The flip side is that it (or me) has troubles with linux (ext and lilo). It wouldn't boot off the hard drive it would come up with LI then pause forever. A bit of tweaking then I could run linux (mandrake 8.2) and not windows (pretty ironic really). A bit of brute force later (read: win bootdisk and fdisk /mbr) and i have windows back but no linux (for now, until i learn to reinstall lilo).
Makes me realise how little I know about hard disk duplication.


Conclusion: Ghost rocks for windows (fat32).

[haytona]

more thoughts:
I would be lost without partition magic and ghost. Get them and use them. Essential tools when playing with harddrives and multi-booting.

[Agent666]

no xcopy basically copys stuff .... so if you were to setup several batch files to backup certians things ie in no more than your 600Mb lots then it would work fine..... slap in a disk click the appropriate batch file and it will do a incremental backup for you...... its quite flexible but it does have its limitations