BACKUP PROGRAM FOR XP THAT REALLY REALLY RESTORES

[3008n1]

I have used Drive Image since version 2, about 1995. (Power Quest (v7, or 2002?) now Symantec I think).

I paid $$$, felt very comfortable with it, and now I am loosing faith in it. I have three machines & two laptops to back up. Home use.

When XP came up, everything changed. I used to backup, restore with impunity. Boot with a floppy, the program was loaded on a second floppy. The OS was booted from the floppy, it was clean. Not anymore. Now boot with a CD, and if using a DVD swapping of media….

Data drives, documents, pictures, excel do not seem to be a problem with restore, but an XP disk, I call it an EXE disk (separate physical drive), can have unexpected consequences. Not until the restore is completed and the machine is re-booted do you see an error—maybe “x” file is corrupt, can't be found, or boot record changed (failed HDD causes a restore). Ironic, there is a backup verify, but that just means the "image" is "valid" and valid is not the same for companies. GIGO.

What program do you use, and how many restores have you done?

I think this is a critical question, and hope others will agree. Some of you, if you try a restore, will have problems—sorry, but it's true. I hope this helps one person then this forum works--AGAIN

Thanks,
(Sorry for the lenght of this)


Tom

 

[franklin97355]

You might also post in forum531

 

[adrianc85]

I think you should use NTBACKUP

START> PROGRAMS > ACCESSORIES > SYSTEM TOOLS> BACKUP

I havent had a problem with it. I use it at home and at work. I back up Exchange at work using NTbackup and have tested restore as well as system state backups and others. They work fine. I dont know why you would spend money on that unless you have a lot to backup. Where do you do all these backups? ? External? Just make a place where you put all these backups to. And have all machines do it to that place.

NTBACKUP has scheduling features so you can have automatic backup etc etc. If you have questions about how or what tell me

 

[3008n1]

(IN ORDER)
Thanks for the link. I did do a search on this site, but all of the posts did not have replies--not sure why.
There is some good info here.



Thanks for your reply. I responded earlier, but I think I might have posted it somewhere else....
Anyway, I will install NTBACKUP, since it does not appear to be on my machine. It must be a option.

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My machine is a p4 1Gb ram (400Mhz), HDD 20, 20, 40GB. I do use an external USB 2x for a backup drive. This keeps it safe from usage problems. It is only on when I do a backup, or a restore. The size of my backups vary, but 10Gb would be average. With compression it still fits on two DVD's. The speed of Drive Image is impressive, but I do have a fast machine, and all HDD's are 7500 @ UDMA133. I have other friends who backup about the same size, and types of files, but it takes much longer.

Tom