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Topic: Backup Windows XP |
Gary Shepherd
From:
Fox, Oklahoma, USA
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Posted 21 Dec 2004 6:07 pm |
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I've been using Drive Image 7 to backup my Windows XP. But I know that XP Pro has its own backup built in.
In Drive Image, I make an image and can reinstall EVERYTHING on my hard drive in about 10 minutes. This includes all of my personal settings, installed programs and whatever else is on the disk.
How does the backup utility in XP compare to Drive Image? Does it do the same thing or just make copies of the files? Does it compress the backups? Drive Image will backup a fresh installation of Windows into a file that's around 700k.
Does anyone use the Windows Backup program? Any comments?
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Gary Shepherd
Sierra Session D-10
www.16tracks.com
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Chip Fossa
From:
Monson, MA, USA (deceased)
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Posted 30 Dec 2004 3:16 am
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Gary,
Windows XP has a restore point option. Wouldn't this do the same thing, in a way, as backing up?
I just bought a new eMachines w/HomeXP, and immediately found I had to go back to a restore date and use it.
There's been a couple other posts on this and I'm not sure what everyone means by 'backup'.
I've got another problem with saving stuff. I went and bought a Maxtor 40GB USB storage drive, and backed up stuff from my old Gateway [Win98]. When I tried to access the Maxtor from XP, it wouldn't recognize it.
Great, huh? So I either take the Maxtor somewhere and have all the data put onto CDs and then reformatt the Maxtor to work with XP, or simply reformatt the Maxtor for XP and lose all the saved stuff.
The whole idea of getting an outside storage unit was to avoid these very hassles. I give up.
Chip
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Dan Dowd
From:
Paducah, KY, R.I.P.
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Posted 30 Dec 2004 7:21 am
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| I have had several problems requiring a reinstall of Win XP. Is there a way if I had a small C drive just for windows and install all the pgms to D drive to get the new windows installation to find the D drive programs without re-installing them. Or is there a better way to handle this. The go back function only works if you can access windows which I could'nt.I have Norton Ghost and a backup of C drive on an 120 gig removable as an alternative measure, but not sure if the USB ports are available if Win XP does not load. |
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Dave Potter
From:
Texas
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Posted 30 Dec 2004 8:26 am
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Dan -
<< I have had several problems requiring a reinstall of Win XP. Is there a way if I had a small C drive just for windows and install all the pgms to D drive to get the new windows installation to find the D drive programs without re-installing them.
Short answer: Not if you want things to be the same way they were before the crash.
Longer answer: The problem is that when you install an application, normally, there are other files like .dll files and such, that get loaded various other places on your HD besides those in the application's folder. Windows keeps track of where all these files are, so they are available when you run the app. In addition, the install adds entries to your start menu, the Add/Remove list, etc, etc, etc. All this information is stored in the registry. If you just reinstall Windows, the new install will not know anything about the programs on D: or wherever, and some of them may not even run. It's not worth it.
The best route I've found to deal with the problem is to make periodic mirror images of my boot drive with Drive Image 7.
The backup files are about 26GB compressed, so I have to have room to store them on another hard drive, which I do. I do backups about every week, and keep the 3 most recent backups all the time, on my 250GB D: drive.
I figure it's pretty unlikely my D: drive and my C: drive will both fail at the same time, and the nice thing about the arrangement is that if C: crashes, all that's lost is the email and whatever I've done over about a week's time, normally not a major disaster.
<< but not sure if the USB ports are available if Win XP does not load.
DriveImage boots from it's own CD, loading drivers first for the CD drive, and into a DOS-like environment. I've had to use the method a couple of times, and it works. A side-benefit is that if an essential file on the boot drive becomes corrupted and Windows won't load without it, booting DriveImage allows selectively restoring only one or more files, not the entire drive.[This message was edited by Dave Potter on 30 December 2004 at 08:29 AM.] |
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Will Holtz
From:
San Francisco, California, USA
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Posted 30 Dec 2004 5:03 pm
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| Quote: |
| Drive Image will backup a fresh installation of Windows into a file that's around 700k. |
700KB for a compressed installation of WindowsXP? Is that a typo? I find that very hard to believe. |
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Gary Shepherd
From:
Fox, Oklahoma, USA
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Posted 30 Dec 2004 5:10 pm
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Nope. It's right. It gets slightly bigger every time you install a new program and make a new image. The cool thing is that no matter what you have installed, when you make the image, if you have to use it to reinstall, everything is exactly as it was when you made the image. Of course, anythingyou've done after the image will be lost unless you back that up too.
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Gary Shepherd
Sierra Session D-10
www.16tracks.com
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Dan Dowd
From:
Paducah, KY, R.I.P.
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Posted 31 Dec 2004 3:07 pm
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| Dave, thanks for the reply. I have Norton Ghost and it states(after reading the 131 page manual)that the usb ports will work as they load drivers for it in their Ghost DOS, which is on the floppy disk I need to create. I still cant get it to make a Image file yet. That's probably on page 57. I hate to read these things. |
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John Gretzinger
From:
Canoga Park, CA
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Posted 2 Jan 2005 11:34 pm
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Windows backup and products like Drive Image/Ghost do two different things. Backup copies files so that they can be restored (data and a few special things like the system state) to a working system. Drive Image and Ghost allow you to have an image of your working hard drive that you can copy back to a new hard drive and recover your system back to exactly where it was when you made the image.
Another tip on reinstalling XP - this one takes a bit of courage the first time (actually everytime). Boot with the Microsoft CD as if you were going to do a fresh install of XP. You will be asked if you want to Install or Repair - go for the Install. XP then looks to see if there is already a Windows installation and if there is, it will ask you again if you want to repair or do a clean/fresh install. At this point you can do a repair and Windows copies the original system files back to the drive, leaving all your program settings in place. It's a bit more complicated than that (sometimes you have to reload video drivers, etc, sometimes you don't)but often you can save a bunch of time and frustration with this method.
jdg
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MSA D-10 w/Nashville 400
'63 Gibson Hummingbird
16/15c Hammered Dulcimer
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Dave Potter
From:
Texas
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Posted 3 Jan 2005 6:36 am
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<< Boot with the Microsoft CD as if you were going to do a fresh install of XP. You will be asked if you want to Install or Repair - go for the Install. XP then looks to see if there is already a Windows installation and if there is, it will ask you again if you want to repair or do a clean/fresh install.
Yeah. That always frustrated me, that to get to the invitation to "repair", I had to remember to pick the option to do a new install. Why couldn't Microsoft have provided the option to "repair" in the first place, or at least offered the tip that an option to "repair" would come later?  |
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Ron Page
From:
Penn Yan, NY USA
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Posted 4 Jan 2005 9:47 am
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I use the XP Pro Backup and don't have any problems. I use the option to create the backup and a separate recovery disk. Fortunately, I've never had to restore from these backup sets, so I can't say for certain that the restore would be flawless. From earlier experiences restoring my WIN 95 systems, I'd expect it to work well.
I'm puzzled as to why XP Home does not include the backup utility. I guess data and software of home users isn't important to MS, or perhaps there was a deal worked with the makers 3rd party backup software.
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HagFan
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John Gretzinger
From:
Canoga Park, CA
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Posted 4 Jan 2005 12:15 pm
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Dave -
The first time MS asks if you want to repair or install it will dump you to a Repair Console - basically a command line that turns you loose to do what ever damage you want. Under some conditions, this option is useful, but it is a bit dangerous. When using the repair console you have to know exactly what you are after (backed up security files, etc.) and exactly what to do with them or you can really damage the system. The second option to repair is to have the original system files reinstalled over the existing set and reset some (many) of the registry settings back to factory condition.
Ron - Most home users do not back up their data so including the backup utility as a default wastes space so MS does not include it as part of the normal install, but it is on the CD, you just have to either know it's there or do a search (google or Microsoft.com) for XP backup and you'll get the instructions on where it is.
jdg
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MSA D-10 w/Nashville 400
'63 Gibson Hummingbird
16/15c Hammered Dulcimer
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Dave Potter
From:
Texas
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Posted 5 Jan 2005 5:05 am
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<< The first time MS asks if you want to repair or install it will dump you to a Repair Console - basically a command line that turns you loose to do what ever damage you want. Under some conditions, this option is useful, but it is a bit dangerous. When using the repair console you have to know exactly what you are after (backed up security files, etc.) and exactly what to do with them or you can really damage the system. The second option to repair is to have the original system files reinstalled over the existing set and reset some (many) of the registry settings back to factory condition.
Ah, yes, it's all coming back to me now.
Mostly with systems I had previous to my current WinXP box, I went round and round with all that when I had crashes, and there were a number of them. That console is a real piece of work, a geek's paradise - but it never was any use to me.
The surprise invitation to repair my existing system after I picked the "Install WinXP" option failed to produce results several times as well.
Finally threw in the towel and went to DriveImage 7, which has stood me in good stead now for quite a while. I've had to use it twice, and it worked flawlessly both times.
Nowadays, I can focus on stuff like when's the right time to build my next new box, with the latest and greatest fire-breathing processor and a new mobo with a PCI-Express slot, and not worry about the next system crash  |
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Ron Page
From:
Penn Yan, NY USA
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Posted 5 Jan 2005 9:23 am
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Thanks a bunch, John. I always wondered why is showed up in the help files but not in the control panels, etc. I'll have to find that and back up my daughter's system. If a hard drive fails I don't what to have to re-do every patch and update on the installed software. So I backup the entire system and data.
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HagFan
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