simple backup utility (very simple)

[bkelly13]

Environment: Windows XP professional running on an isolated computer, one primary application, no internet or LAN/WAN normally connected. Does not need incremental backup. Users do not log on. Do not want internet or cloud backup.

Wanted: The ability to discard a completely failed C drive (the operating system and applications) and restore the system and all the installed software to a new drive.

When I read about various backup programs, none of the literature says how to backp my operating system drive to, say a high capacity USB drive, then to restore it without having to load Windows XP on the new drive first.

I am expecting someone to say that their softwaree can build a bootable CD or USB drive or flash drive or thumb drive, or something, and restore my entire OS and applications to a brand spanking new C drive and I will be up just like I was before the current C drive smoked.

No, it hasn't smoked yet, but someday....

What do you recommend?
Thank you.

 

[Lemon13]

acronis true-image home

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/

M. Knorr

MCSE, MCTS, MCSA, CCNA

 

[melmitts]

Have a look at these...

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm

I currently use Acronis TrueImage 2010 but have used Image For Windows in the past.

Mel

 

[bkelly13]

I have looked around some and Acronis was on my list. I will go with them. I would like to be able to build a bootalb CD or thumb drive for the backup software rather than installing it on my computer, but it seems I don'thave that choice.

Thank you for your time.

 

[Duaneness]

I used Acronis to build an image of a hard drive which I saved to a drive connected to a USB port. Acronis has an option to make a bootable CD. Do that. Then when the time comes, connect the USB drive, insert the bootable CD, and restore to the local drive. I did this for a bunch of new computers for a school, works great.

- duaneness

 

[goombawaho]

Ghost has always worked for me when I want to create an image and migrate it to a new hard drive or make an exact clone of a computer.

I use it before I mess with someone's PC if it's really badly infected. Boot from the bootable Ghost CD, have an external drive or 2nd internal drive connected and create an image of the first drive on the second drive.

Process can be reversed and dump the image from the 2nd hard drive to the first as needed. Good disaster recovery method, but not as good for regular backup, though Ghost has other backup features when not using the bootable method I described.

Couldn't argue with Acronis either, just don't have as much experience with it.

 

[linney]

Have a look at XP's built-in Automated System Recovery backup (ASR).

How to Set up and Use Automated System Recovery in Windows XP

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/itpro/managing/asr.asp

You may need a second partition for ASR to work properly.

298278 - ASR Restore Procedure Does Not Succeed When You Specify Drive C as the Destination for the Backup File

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;298278&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Although the articles says ASR will not backup data files it does backup and restore everything that is contained in all the users Documents and Settings folders and subfolders as long as they are on the same partition as windows. It will not gather anything from other partitions on your drive. That information can be backed up separately.

When it comes to restoring, the ASR kicks in after Formatting your Windows Partition, copying setup files,installing Devices and Networks via the XP setup, booted from the XP CD and pointed to use ASR via pressing F2 (just after the F6 request is the F2 request) early in the setup procedure.

Even if the partition you are restoring is not "C" (your Boot Partition) it is advisable to run a ChkDsk on this boot partition before restoring with ASR as it can avoid multiple formats of the to be recovered partition caused by Setup checking the boot partition for errors after it formats the to be recovered partition. If Setup finds any errors on your boot partition the whole process will abort and need to be restarted from scratch.

For more information about other recovery options or using backup, follow these steps:
Click Start, and then click Help and Support.
Do one of the following:
In the Search box, type repair overview and then click Start Searching.

-or-
In the Search box, type using backup, and then click Start Searching

 

[goombawaho]

I would trust a third party product more than NTBACKUP and ASR. That's just me.

 

[linney]

I never really used NTbackup, but I never had a problem with ASR in XP (and it is free) and used that for many years until I switched to Terabyte software for imaging.

 

[edfair]

I would suggest looking beyond just a catastrophic hard drive failure and arrange for recovery from that or from a M/B or CPU crash. You can be as prepared as possible for the hard drive to fail and be unable to restore because the operating system (as saved) is not compatible with the currently available hardware.

Planning for such a failure would include having installlation media for the operating system and applications.

Or as an alternate, arrange to be running under virtual conditions, but that requires some foresight also.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[goombawaho]

Excellent point. Data is the most important thing to have secured. Then an image of the operating system for quick recovery. But, as stated, if the motherboard is toasted, it's not likely you can buy a 3 or 4 year old motherboard quickly (EBAY) let alone have one sitting around to get you going again. Maybe you do - more power to you to plan that far ahead.

In that case, the image is sort of worthless if the exact same hardware is not involved. It is GREAT for cloning machines or if a hard drive dies, you can be back up and running in a matter of minutes.

This is another good reason to have an O.S. partition and a data partition. It's easy to take a snapshot of the O.S. partition (less often) and it makes you more likely to take one if it doesn't take a long time as it would if you had all the data lumped in with the O.S. partition.

Of course, data should be backed up much more often.

 

[BadBigBen]

Both of the following have NO HARDWARE dependencies, which means that you can backup and restore to completely different hardware:

Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 Universal Restore™

http://www.acronis.com/backup-recovery/advanced-workstation/universal-restore.html

Drive Backup 10 Workstation

http://www.paragon-software.com/business/db-workstation/

here is a way for Ntbackup:

JSI Tip 4839. How do I move Windows XP to different hardware?

http://windowsitpro.com/article/art...-i-move-windows-xp-to-different-hardware.html

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"