Comments for How do I backup my computer?

Comment from patrick on 2009-11-13

2009-11-14T02:08:05Z

Leo,
im on vista and i went into control pannel and then into backup and restore center and then into backup computer and i selected my external hard-drive but it says underneath the drop down box (the one where you choose what drive to backup to)next a yellow triangle with an explanation mark "this disk cannot be used to store a windows complete pc backup image because because it is not formatted with NTFS"

I don't see a question in there but it sounds like the drive is probably formatted with FAT32. See this article How do I convert to NTFS?

14-Nov-2009

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Comment from Moshe Natan Lando on 2009-10-15

2009-10-15T15:11:12Z

When I try to back up to my external hard drive to a disk or disks I get a message {"You have too much information for one disk"}.
Fine, I'll use as much disks as it takes, but HOW?

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Comment from Tom Smith on 2009-10-10

2009-10-11T04:32:16Z

I like carbonite online backup service - carboniteremote.info

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Comment from DEBBIE on 2009-06-12

2009-06-12T16:37:08Z

i THINK HE WANTED THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION. ONCE I PLUG IN MY EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE ETC THEN HOW DO I GET THE FILES TO SAVE TO IT. EASY QUESTION BUT WAS NOT ANSWERED

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Comment from Dennis Conard on 2009-06-09

2009-06-10T03:24:05Z

I have Acronis True Image 11 Home.
I've been LQQKing at your postings on the subject of backing up.
Could you please post by the numbers, the steps to back up a C: drive with Acronis True Image.

Your doing what I want to do in Backing-up, I just want to go forward now.

Thanks,
Dennis in Sacramento

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Comment from Steve Burgess on 2008-11-13

2008-11-13T17:57:00Z

Leo, I TOTALLY agree with what you say about keeping the backup as far away as possible from the original.
A local school library burned down - all of the contents were lost. The laptop on the librarian's desk looked like a cinder coughed up by a volcano. The laptop held an inventory of the library's contents - all of the info needed for the insurance company to pay out. The backup was on a CD in the desk drawer under the laptop. It turned into a little puddle of plastic. Fortunately, we were able to recover the data. If you're curious, there's a picture of the laptop here: http://www.datarecoveryworldwide.com/ (I don't think I can paste a picture in here). Incidentally, one of the things that kept the HD from being too far gone was that the laptop was sitting on a cheap plastic and cardboard three-ring binder - it provided just enough insulation so that the guts of the HD weren't totally fried (just well-done). Now the school district keeps backups in another room - AND keeps cheap three-ring binders under laptops!

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Comment from Bonita on 2008-11-02

2008-11-03T03:16:28Z

Leo,
I invested in a large capacity USB external hard drive for the specific purpose of making an image backup. When I went to choose the image backup program, the salesman advised me to make the backup on DVDs instead, "since the DVDs would be bootable and the hard drive wouldn't." I feel frustrated by my lack of knowledge and would appreciate knowing what extra steps would be involved in making a functional image backup on the external HD instead of DVDs.
Thank you.

There are many different approaches, and while the salesman is incorrect in some regards, he is correct in one: in a worst case scenario you need something to boot from.

My approach (using Acronis) is to create an Acronis Rescue/Boot CD once and then backup my data to the external USB hard disk. Then in the worst case scenario I can boot from that CD, which then has the Acronis tools to recover my data from the external hard drive.

- Leo
03-Nov-2008

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Comment from JOYOUS on 2008-10-31

2008-11-01T02:19:09Z

HOLY COW!
ALL I WANT TO DO IS SAVE MY E-MAIL FOLDERS TO A CD!
HOW COMPLICATED IS THAT...........
I HEARD YOU CAN BACK UP THE FOLDERS AND FREE UP SPACE SO YOUR COMPUTER CAN BE FASTER.
AS YOU CAN SEE...I AM A NOTICE....AND DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DO IT......TOOTLES

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Comment from WordsMyth on 2008-10-28

2008-10-28T23:23:31Z

Is it better to "clone" a (bootable) backup copy of my hard drive to my new external HD, or to just do "backup image," which allows compression but is NOT bootable?

Bit of background/context: I recently got an Apricorn 500 GB external HD (USB and/or eSATA), which comes with Apricorn's "EZ Gig II" backup program. Apricorn has gotten very good reviews across a broad spectrum of sources and EZ Gig II can run from "one-button" simple back-ups to fairly elaborate "customized" clone/backup images for the more experienced.

I had pretty much decided to:
• Do an initial full/total system & data "clone image" bootable backup.
• Do periodic (i.e., monthly) partial/updated data backup images.
• Do replacement full/total system & data "clone image" bootable backups annually thereafter.

However ... in the EZ Gig II program, the "Clone Disk" full system/data backup process warns: 'Typical mode is used for hard disk cloning. This mode pre-selects the most common settings to make the cloning process easier. All your partitions from the old hard disk will be copied to the new one in a few simple steps, making your new hard disk bootable. All of your partitions will be automatically resized to fit the new hard disk.
Note: You will have to remove the old hard disk when the cloning process is complete.
Suitable for most users.'

This sounds like if I clone my HD to my external HD I have to remove the original HD? That just doesn't make any sense.

What do you think? Obvious option is to do the original/annual "clone disk" full system/data (bootable) backup to the external HD and then just ignore the instruction to remove the "remove the old hard disk." And then proceed with the monthly incremental backups.

Does that sound reasonable/rational/doable?

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Comment from Frank Walker on 2008-10-28

2008-10-28T19:25:13Z

Raid for Backup? If your data becomes corrupted and unusable it does so on both drives at the same time. Then what?
Acronis True Image has worked well for me to restore data to the same hard drive in the same computer after the data has become corrupted.
I keep a backup on my secondary hard drive and a backup on an external hard drive off site.
I also back up important files to a USB flash drive (and the off site hard disk) as I have never been able to restore a full image archive made with Acronis True Image 10 or 11 to a new hard drive or a new computer. (This occurred at least three times). Acronis customer
service told me to use the Microsoft system preparation tool before migrating my data to a new system. What they didn't do was explain to me how I was to determine when my hard drive would fail so I could follow their procedure.
Perhaps Leo has more information on the difficulties of restoring data to a new hard drive or a new system using Acronis software.

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Comment from whs on 2008-10-28

2008-10-28T18:31:38Z

There are a few principles to which I adhere for backup:
1. Backup to an external device (typically a disk, but for small amounts of just data a USB stick may do) that can be disconnected. This is important because malware can attack anything that is running (e.g. Raid)
2. Do it on a regular schedule - I do it once every week with Norton Ghost (Acronis would be another alternative). I backup all my data on Wednesdays and my whole system on Sundays.
3. Keep as many backups as you can fit because problems sometimes manifest themselves late in the game and you may have to go back quite a bit.

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Comment from John E on 2008-10-28

2008-10-28T17:15:41Z

Now that hard disk drives are cheap, it's worth considering setting up 2 drives as a RAID mirrored pair. You'll need a motherboard that supports this sort of drive configuration, but then you have a system with built-in redundancy against failure. Of course, this doesn't prevent the need for regular backups, but if you do get a disk failure it shouldn't mean any computer downtime - just pull out the bad drive and replace it with a good one, and the RAID array should rebuild itself.

I plan to get more in depth on RAID at some point, but I do not consider it part of a backup strategy. Raid has some other, incredibly important, things that it can bring to the party, but I do not suggest implementing raid for most consumers "in case one drive dies".

- Leo
29-Oct-2008

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Comment from HandyMan on 2008-10-28

2008-10-28T16:53:39Z

Also don't overlook the use of USB flash drives. If you can't afford one big enough to contain all of your data, at least back up your 'can't live without' files to it and store it in a locked drawer in your workplace, for example.

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Comment from MistyEyes on 2008-10-28

2008-10-28T16:03:52Z

I have a question about backing up the registry. What happens to it? Do you need to do a separate registry backup or is it done automatically?
If using a program like Acronis TrueImage, or Ghost does that image the registry?
If the registry does need to be backed up also,
what is a good program to do that?
I would love to see an answer to this as I
have never seen it being addressed.

Thank you!

Then you apparently missed this article: How do I backup and restore the registry?

- Leo
29-Oct-2008

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Comment from Jim on 2008-10-28

2008-10-28T15:38:25Z

I also send a copy of any important file to myself as an e-mail attachment. The e-mail address is accessible from just about anywhere.

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Comment from Rahul Mehta on 2008-10-25

2008-10-25T11:54:32Z

My point is that don't just focus on the backup. Keep "Restore" in mind too. An old program that doesn't run anymore, an old technology for storage that is not accessible anymore and thousand other reasons can render a backup useless.

In the professional world, restoring periodically is a very valuable exercise. But how many do it? Is it too much to ask for from a home user?

It is like the airbags in my 8 year old car. The manual says they are there, the label on the car says there are there. The mechanics say they are functioning ok. But I have no idea where they are or whether they will work in that one extremely important situation. Never needing it is the best thing but they better work when needed. And I can't even test them myself.

Not so with the backups. I can test them. And I do, occasionally.

the 5.25" floppy was only a metaphor I used to say an outdated technology can render your important backups useless. And if you have important backups, you either migrate them to newer technology or have older active equipment on the standby. That includes CDs and DVDs too. May be not as fragile as the floppies (hey - am I coining a saying or what?), they have life too and that technology is evolving too.

Rahul raises a good point: every so often "test" your backups. It's something that's often done in professional situations, and it applies to home as well.

Media lifespan can be an issue; technologies fade away (floppies), and media deteriorates. I've taken to copying my oldest CD-ROM backups from 15 years ago to new media.

- Leo
25-Oct-2008

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Comment from Arjun on 2008-10-24

2008-10-24T20:07:59Z

The best way to backup I think is CD and DVD backup.

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Comment from novice on 2008-10-24

2008-10-24T16:51:41Z

5.25" floppy? do they still make those? if you have data stored several years ago it could already be lost since floppies never lasted much when i used them

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Comment from Rahul Mehta on 2008-10-23

2008-10-23T19:56:44Z

One concern I have is the availability of the backup program for restoring the data when you need it. Personally I like a backup set that can be read normally by an OS - one that does not require the same program to restore. This takes up more disk space for the backup set but these days space comes cheap.

Another space hog is the accumulation of data. No one takes a risk to really delete a backup set or files within. That means it grows... and grows....

I have a backup set on an 5.25" floppy. Does anyone have an 5.25" drive?

I agree proprietary formats can be a little off-putting. I'm comfortable because I've had good experience with what I use. However there are backup utilities that store in a more standard "zip" format that can be read by any zip-capable tool which would get you compression without a proprietary format.

- Leo
24-Oct-2008

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