Backup

[jenny]

How often should one backup if having problems with electricity?

What software is recommended for that?

[hotchiproll]

1) how much data do you have to backup?

2) is it a server/business or a home computer?

3) what kind of backup devices do you have? What do you want to backup to? Tape? Network shared drive? other section of same hard disk?

4) How fast is your computer?

5) How much do you want to spend?

[jenny]

i need to back up the whole hdd - around 13 GB

to Cd or DVD if possible

it's a home comp

I have athlon 900 - is it important?

I want to spend as little as possible, no more than 40 Euro anyway

Thanks for a quick reply

[hotchiproll]

not sure how far 90 Euro will get you.. but i'd probably recommend buying a removable Hard Disk Drive, and running a batch file to copy it all across.

that'd probably be the quickest and easiest to keep safe. you can buy removable drive bays for about the same price as a Floppy Disk Drive, maybe a little more.

All you do is run the batch file to start your backup - say each night or every 12 hours or whatever. You can also set your computer to SCHEDULE to run the batch file at a specific time at night.

any burning alternative is risky because if you have a problem at any stage it could stuff up your entire backup - and can be expensive buying all the discs.

HDD's are relatively cheap these days so I'd say that's your best option.

[jenny]

Ok, I got it
But what about the software?

I will need to restore not the whole disk, but some files from it.

I heard that backup programs make images. Will I be able to restore just a part of it?

[hotchiproll]

you can use Microsoft Backup START | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Backup.

save it to file. it WILL create a single file but once the backup is complete, you an go back into the backup program and select RESTORE and you can just do 1 file if you like.

even better - if you want to keep say every backup for a week you can do that too and then just select which version of the file you want too.

[jenny]

Never have I heard anytyhing good about Microsoft Backup. Have you ever used it?
Does it work with any OS?

The best thing for me is to store to NTFS partition, but I doubt windows in'built program can do that

[beeboy]

Always backup data to a hard copy (cd, dvd). Then you have it forever. Norton Ghost is nice for backups.

[hotchiproll]

13Gb to CD? that wont even fit on a DVD - unless you manage to find yourself a dvd burner that burns multiple layers. each layer of a dvd holds around 4Gb. It also takes forever! Not somethign you want to do if you have a dodgy power connection.

The reson i asked if its a work computer is because usually you want backups for archival purposes - thus you want a hard copy on cd or dvd, however I assumed that your home computer was more for loss due to hardware failure etc.. so I dont think the hard copy is necessary.

Microsoft backup works fine through Windows 2000 and i'm assuming XP.

It will backup to any drive/partition (NTFS or not) that you have installed and functioning at the time of setting the schedule.

I'd seriously consider buying a removable hard disk if I was you - I think thats your quickest, and most reliable and you can do it nightly - rather than say each week if you do it with cd or DVD.