A couple of questions about back up.

[gingernut]

After learning a few precious lessons with my daughters laptop, I was wondering if anyone can answer these questions?

1) Is it possible to make a back-up disc for my operating system (Windows XP Home version) and how?

2) I've got about 4000 photo's in the "My Pictures" folder in "My Documents" (9.7GB)

Nero 7 says it can burn data dvd's, so I reckon that's 2-3 discs. Are there any disadvantages of doing this rather than what I've been doing up to now (burning onto cd's)


ta in advance:) ginge

[green granite]

I backed up all my photos that way recently, tis easy enough to do.

Or as an alternative buy a cheap hard drive and do an image to it, that way if you have a bad crash you can just format the drive and re-install the image to it which saves the trouble of re-installing windows again.

[Saab Dastard]

1) Is it possible to make a back-up disc for my operating system (Windows XP Home version) and how?

Not unless you have a bootable Windows XP CD, in which case you can simply make a CD copy (i.e. a block by block duplicate CD, not copying the contents of the CD to another CD!).

You can use disk imaging software to create a backup of your entire system drive, which could be re-installed in extremis.

2) I've got about 4000 photo's in the "My Pictures" folder in "My Documents" (9.7GB)
Nero 7 says it can burn data dvd's, so I reckon that's 2-3 discs. Are there any disadvantages of doing this rather than what I've been doing up to now (burning onto cd's)

CDs have a much, much, much longer lifespan than DVDs. CDR is longer than CDRW, longer than DVDR longer than DVDRW. CDR likely to last 100 years in optimum storage conditions, DVDR possibly as little as 10. Manufacturer's figures.

Belt and braces is advisable here - store backups onto at least 2 media, e.g. CD and hard disk.

SD

[obgraham]

I seem to read different things about this: one source will claim DVDs are much longer lasting, and the next will say the same about CDR's.
So I'm led to ask -- how do they really know?? The damn things haven't been around all that long.
I'm with Saab D about one thing, though -- multiple backups on different media. In my case, CDR's plus external HD. And any CDR over 5 years old gets a new copy made.

[bnt]

1) If you mean a copy of the original disc, that should be fine if you do a full disc copy. M$ don't put any copy protection on their Windows discs to get in the way.

2) That sounds reasonable - just divide them up into batches of about 4.5GB, and burn them. Be sure to use the Verify option, and make several copies.

[hellsbrink]

I' be more tempted to use one of these http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0071679319.1201408721@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdhadedeehgjehcflgceggdhhmdgmi.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=742894&category_oid=

for backup nowadays. Apart from the fact that you can't scrub your backup because of a scratch on the disk, you just drag and drop the stuff you NEED and all your folder strutures are kept the same so you can find what you want easily. Obviously, you can store more on it too. Backing up to optical disk is soooo 3 years ago.

As far as "windows" goes, I guessing you mean backing up what is on your hard drive. Well, if that is the case, "windows" ain't worth backing up as you would have to do that every time you updated windows in any way and that is a LOT of disks. Also, if you get some malware of some kind on your PC, then that will get backed up too. Not good.

Naah, you know what is "important" (i.e. anything you created yourself, game saves, address book, favourites, the latest drivers. That sort of thing, not anything that has a disk or you can download the program to reinstall it.).

Of course, you can buy an extra (320+Gb) hard disk for your PC, install that and then you can use the "backup" function in XP (start, programs, accessories, system tools, backup) to select what you want backed up, select the new drive and Windows will then create a big file with everything you want kept which can then be restored using the same program should you need to reinstall windows. There are other programs which will do that, and they be free, which can run from the system booting up so you have more options in the case of a failure, that will do the same thing, but you will not be able to view the files and select certain ones. Personally, I use the external drive method above (have 3, one for each desktop and one for laptop) as you also have an easy means of transferring these files to ANY PC easily without the worry of a CD/DVD being scratched (anything less than 2Gb of data goes onto pen drive, hardly use disks nowadays). With the prices of external drives now, it is a bit of a no-brainer in my book as it is far simpler, faster, less susceptible to damage and far more convenient if you take your files anywhere as a 2.5" external drive fits into a jacket pocket.

[poss]

Don't buy from pc world. Id say get a Seagate external harddrive from ebuyer. They are very cheap for what they are. A 500GB external harddrive is about £70 and will probably last you a life time.

[gingernut]

Thanks very much for you replies, I guess it answers my questions, the photo's are the precious things, all my documents etc are backed up on other computers, so I guess an external drive is the way forward, with cd/dvd backup also.

As regards to the "backing up the operating system," the reason I asked was because my daughters laptop just doesn't work-and it looks like I need to re-install Windows XP http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=308361
but unfortunately the software was pre-loaded. (So I don't have a disc).

Guess I want something to put into my laptop should the same thing happen.

[green granite]

On my new Pc I installed windows, set all the internet/e-mail options up, installed the main programs such as firefox, skype, photoshop and anti-virus stuff and then did an image at that point, that way if I have to do a re-install I don't have to set everything up again. Documents and other stuff is backed up separately.

[hellsbrink]

Gingernut

Doesn't the laptop have a "restore" partition on the hard disk with all the original stuff? That is normal, so if you haven't formatted the entire disk then that will be there. Normally accessed at the initial boot screen. What kind of laptop is it, I'll see what I can find out if you want.

I would suggest using a windows disk and installing from there, however, as a "restore" function will wipe usually wipe out everything that is on the windows partition. Backing up your own PC windows and trying to install that won't work, afaik, you need to do the "proper" install.

[IO540]

Backups are an "old science" :)

The answer depends on what sort of disaster you can reasonable axpect, how much the stuff is worth, and how quickly you want to be back up and running afterwards.

Probably the best is still mag tape, after all the years it's been around. You can backup a couple of hundred gigs to a DLT tape cartridge costing £20, using a drive for £500 or so. It backups the whole O/S and applications. If the whole PC is lost, you build a new identical (or similar-hardware) one, install a bare O/S of the same kind, and restore the tape. (Actually some tape drives can fake a bootable CD so you can restore a tape image backup direct to a bare drive).

For lesser disasters e.g. a lost hard drive, I use Trueimage. A super program, does exactly what it says. It takes a snapshop of the whole HD and writes it somewhere else; typically one would write it to a networked hard drive or something like that. You also make a bootable CD with it. If the hard drive goes, you stick a new one in (doesn't have to be the same type or size), boot off the bootable CD which starts a bare copy of Trueimage, and restore the remotely stored image. Works really well too and far simpler than restoring any tape backup because there is no need to install the O/S first.

For stuff which is valuable but a rapid restore is not required e.g. photos, just store them somewhere else. On a CD or DVD (off site) and also on a networked hard drive in you house.

The last option is good enough for most private users.

One trick is knowing what to backup; with some apps like Outlook it isn't obvious where the data is stored, and the numerous export/import options are poorly documented.

It would be a right cow if you lost a hard drive and then discovered that all your past backups are 90% complete and totally useless - this has been done very very very very often in the most expensive corporate situations ;)

[gingernut]

Thanks for the replies.

Hellsbrink, I switch on my daughters laptop and it says,

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

Pressing F8 on startup gives me 12 options, including

Safe Mode
Last known good configuration
Directory Services Restore Mode
Debugging Mode
Reboot


But there is nothing bout a partition.

The compter is an E-System 3087

There are no precious files on the computer.

Thanks.

[under_exposed]

After backing up to an external disk put the external disk somewhere else. The person who steals your PC with probably take the external drive as well!

[seacue]

I'll be at work today and will try to get in touch with the fellow who has a project on the archival characteristics of CD / DVD.

[hellsbrink]

I would take a guess at "restore mode", gingernut

Am looking for more info, will get back when/if I find anything

[Bushfiva]

The Optical Storage Technology Association are the guys to listen to when talking about CD-R life. They reckon UNRECORDED shelf life of 5 to 10 years, while acknowledging some of their members claim anything up to 200 years.

Disc life depends on a pile of things: the quality of the polycarbonate substrate, the quality of the reflective material, the quality of the dye, and for CDs, the quality of the lacquer (CDs are one substrate, reflective layer at the back, lacquer protecting the layer. DVDs are two substrates glued together, with the reflective layer in the middle).

Historically, DVDs have appeared to have shorter lives than CDs. For both types, the "best" reflecting layer were regarded as the Kodak and MAM-A "gold" archival CDs. Kodak dropped out of the market. MAM-A's latest lifetime test results for their Gold Archive product suggest 329 years for CD-R and 116 years for DVD-R.

There are good reasons to select branded disks when making archival recordings: discs can have various types of reflective layer and use around 3 different dyes (depending on how one counts). For best results, each combo needs a different write strategy. These write strategies are programmed into the drive firmware. The drive reads the ID of a blank disc, and selects the appropriate strategy. If it doesn't recognise an ID, it will choose a conservative default, usually causing a slow burn. Some cheap disks use IDs of better-known brands, to ensure the drive uses the appropriate write strategy. Sometimes, the ID is used to deceive the consumer, and the strategy may not actually match the disc construction.

Disc failure modes include porosity of the lacquer/glue and polycarbonate, aging of the glue and lacquer, reaction to the ink used to write on the pen, migration of acid in any paper in the case, outgassing from the case, accelerated aging by light, and being used on any day with a "y" in it.

So, for archival purposes use a brand that your drive will recognise, and use a drive that has consistent write performance on the chosen medium.

Having backed up over the years to almost every technology known to Man, I currently use a RAID server locally and remote hard drives. It's a bit over the top, but drives are cheap. For burning CDs/DVDs, I have cheapo media and a fast cheapo drive, plus archival media and an archival drive.

[rickity]

One thing about backups is working out how to do a restore when the disk has crashed and the operating system is lost. Many of the third party software requires a program to be running to carry out a restore, and for the program to run you need an operating system that works. There are also many of us (me included until I found out the hard way) that the only time you find the restore function doesn’t work as advertised or requires operating systems, programs and drivers, or the media is damaged is when the original is lost. i.e. too late.

So the challenge is do a restore today before its too late, find out how to do it and what’s required, specially, if like many, you have no operating system cd, think what would be required if it was a brand new disk with nothing on it at all.

The MSbackup includes an option to back up the complete system and creates a floppy disk to start the restore process in the event of a major failure, this is included within XP. works ok for me.

Rickity