Large hard drive needs good backup protocol and media suggestions.

[brit54]

Good day everyone,

Previous problems discussed here have resulted in the need for me to re-instal my OS (W98SE) from scratch. (I have already re-installed the OS over itself with no curative effects for my problems). That means backing up my data as well as any programs for which I do not possess discs (downloaded from the internet in most cases).

I have what is today considered a small hard drive - 30 GB - and its only 3 years old ! I have about 16 GB of the drive populated with programs and data, of which I need to back up about 6 GB.

I have an internal (250MB) zip drive, an external (1GB) jazz drive (of which I am suspicious may have the click of death problem) as well as an internal CDRW drive.

The zip drive would require about 24 discs and the CDRW would require about 10 discs (with a storage capacity of 650 MB).

I am also on my own personal internal LAN with 3 PC's thereon. I am however not comfortable attempting a backup over the LAN to one of the other PC's. (limited knowledge on my part as well as my belief that that can be inherently proglematic).

Given the above, I believe my best option to be the use of the CDRW method. Would you agree ? If not, do you have any alternate suggestions (that won't break my pocket book ?

Secondly besides the media question, your suggestions on a good backup program would be appreciated. I'm not too happy with the ones I've looked at: Backup Plus, MSFT's free backup program included with the OS or with Iomega's program.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Peter E.

 

[VMPhilosophy]

from what your describing cdrw wmay be your best bet. OR if you feel inclined to you can temporarly grab a large capacity hard drive attatch it to the machine and just copy and paste everything over the large temp drive in windows.

"Did you ever wish a circle was a square, so when land sharks start circling the boarders you can just cut them off at the corners?" - Aesop Rock

 

[brit54]

Thanks VM - hadn't thought about the external hard drive - good idea.

I forgot to mention that since re-installing the OS my browser is acting up badly and it's probably some settings that I used to have that I've forgotten.

It won't remember user names and passwords, it loads pages veeerrryyy slowely and it will not do a Windows update !

I checked my security settings under tools/internet options and they are set at medium; my active x are all either enabled or prompt; I cleared my cache; no help. Any ideas to refresh this dummy's memory ?

 

[drdebit]

After 5 months of a diet of posts similar to thread751-437464, i'm thinking that a second hard drive might not be too expensive.

I'm thinking that a second hard drive and ghost would be a good solution to the backup situation that you're talking about.

The next question is whether to do it as a second hard drive in the machine in question-or to do it over a network. With minimal network skills, I'm with you that it seems a little daunting, however on the other side, i've experienced a situation in which the harddrive, video card, power supply, and monitor were all destroyed on a system. Our computer repairer was able to replace a chip on the drive circuit board and get it up to recover my data. I can only speculate as to what might have happened to a second hard drive in that system and it makes me think that a second box would be pretty cheap insurance.

 

[VMPhilosophy]

ghosting to another hard drive wouldnt help here because it would just copy the problems as well. its better at this point to back it all up and just blow it all away with a format and re-install do the nuber of problems he is having.

"Did you ever wish a circle was a square, so when land sharks start circling the boarders you can just cut them off at the corners?" - Aesop Rock

 

[drdebit]

Secondly besides the media question, your suggestions on a good backup program would be appreciated. I'm not too happy with the ones I've looked at: Backup Plus, MSFT's free backup program included with the OS or with Iomega's program.


My ruminations were meant as a response to this statement/question. They are what I'm considering doing with my home computer and/or home network this summer and they seemed to be a reasonable consideration for brit54 too.

A ghost or drive image on cd of the basic win98 reinstall would also save a bunch of time for the next reinstall.

 

[tviman]

I have 6 PC's on a local network - all are win98 except one whicj is Win2000. On that machine I use Onstreams high speed tape back up. I have an older one but even still, the tape holds 30gig of data! I back up the entire network to one tape (daily) and it takes less than 30 minutes!

It was expensive when I bought it but has paid for itself 100 times over just in saving my own butt, not to mention recovering from things like hard drives gone south and people who are "DELETE KEY HAPPY".

Check it out:

http://www.onstreamdata.com

There's always a better way...