Hopefully we can stay in touch as to experience in this area. Is there a
group dedicated to such?
I had a look at their site, and wish I had noted it before I bought
partitionMagic. I could have gotten all three for less money. But here
again, I just don't know reliability in real world experience.
There have been a lot of changes in this area of backing up and some CD/DVD
software. Seems a company named Sonic bought up a lot of it. I heard they
acquired Roxio, Stomp, and much of the cheaper packages that Veritas had.
Part of what seems to be my obstacle is backing up entire partitions. CD's
are pretty much on the small side with these larger HDD's and what appears
to be bloating systems. And I have an unanswered question concerning DVD's.
I heard they use packet writing, something advised against using but
available for CD's. So there exists a question unanswered as yet for
reliability.
So a HDD may be the best bet size wise, other than expensive tapes and tape
equipment.
Are you not concerned with leaving the backup drive connected at all times?
I would have to wonder about security and the off chance that if a power
surge or other catastrophe hit.
I guess that is why they recommend off-site storage of a backup if you
really must depend upon it. (;-
With my luck, I might choose to use one of the old machines as a data server
to store everything and someone would steal it leaving the other machines.
Thanks again for the input.
Norman
"PCR" wrote in message
...
I haven't analyzed all of those, & at least one of the URLs doesn't even
work. I do believe BootIT NG will do what you want-- boot from a CD &
restore an Image, but, although I do own that one, I haven't gotten that
fancy yet with it. I merely make a copy (not an Image) of C: to D: on
another HDD every so often. But that HDD is permanently attached. Both
are fully available to Windows when I boot. It is possible to go to a
removable, but, sorry, that is also beyond my experience. The site has
plenty of info, though...
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.html
--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
should things get worse after this,
PCR
"E_Net_Rider" wrote in message
...
| Thanks for the list.
| I have to ask if any are known to be able to make a solid back up to
medium
| that only requires putting in the medium and letting it run to get
back
| where one was? Supposedly GHOST will do that, but I haven't yet tried.
I had
| read in these ms groups where the tendency was to favor bootItNG
maybe, but
| there was a sale, but now I've missed the rebate date with all the
hassle.
| So unlikely near as good a bargain.
| Definitely humor in "should things get worse".
| Can't imagine how at this point, unless the drive up and totally dies
losing
| what data is available. Which is another subject. Which medium is
best?
| Norman
|
| "PCR" wrote in message
| ...
| | Definitely need to Get Around to It, and make that bullet proof
back
| up that
| | will act as a recovery.
|
| Once you have a functioning system, especially one close to a clean
| install, do a full system backup. If you have multiple partitions, I
| guess a backup is a bit more complex. It depends upon the ties
between
| the Registry & the other partitions, as to whether they must be
backed
| up concurrently. Also, if you've changed the hardware since the
backup,
| you may need to change it back before a restore.
|
| http://home.satx.rr.com/badour/index.html Backup & partitioning
strategy
| http://home.wanadoo.nl/geurt/home.html Extended Operating System
Loader
| http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/ TrueImage
| http://www.arjsoftware.com ARJ Archiver
| http://www.betterbackup.com/ Retrospect CD Backup
| http://www.bootitng.com/ 's BootIt NG, has a variety of backup
| capabilities: Copy to HDD, or Image to HDD or to CD. (TBIView,
freely
| downloadable, can retrieve individual files from an Image.)
| Shrink/expand your partitions without data loss. Multi-boot, if you
| dare. Free, run from floppy, but pay up as I did if satisfied. To
| install & use beyond 30 days, $34.95.
| http://www.cdrfaq.org/ CD R/W Backup
| http://www.cyberiapc.com/backup.htm MyOwnBackup (MOB) (Free)
| http://www.han-soft.com/habt.php Auto Backup (30-day free trial)
|
|
http://www.hp.com/cgi-bin/cposupport...&p=hpcdwriter2
| Simple Backup
| http://www.karenware.com/ PtReplicator (Free)
| http://www.lifesaverbackup.com/
| http://www.mvps.org/links.html Should have good info
| http://www.pcmag.com/ Lots & lots of sturdy downloads. There is a
$20
| yearly charge now.
| http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic Partition Magic
| http://www.ranish.com/part/ Ranish Partition Manager
| http://www.rescue-me.net/gold.html
| http://www.simtel.net/pub/dl/58307.shtml Backups
| http://www.stompinc.com/bump/bump_details.phtml?stp Backup MyPC
| http://www.thirdstar.net/thirdstar_datarecovery.htm Data recovery
| http://www.tomsterdam.com/ BU process, performance, etc.
| http://www.v-com.com/product/pc_ind.html Partition Commander
| http://www.veritas.com Backup apps
| http://www.xxcopy.com/ Detailed Procedure Copy (Free)
| http://www.zeleps.com/ Partition re-sizer (Free)
|
| All gathered at this site. Whichever you choose, approach it
carefully
| and verify all is well. After making a copy, run Scandisk/Defrag on
it.
| If it's an Image, use it's verify option; perhaps, restore it and do
a
| Scandisk/Defrag.
|
| http://www.pchelpandconsulting.com/links/windows.html WinDrvExpert
| http://www.jermar.com/wdrvbck.htm WinDrvBckup free version
|
| Those two supposedly back up all currently installed drivers, such
| that they can be reinstalled. I never tried it but have seen a
favorable
| report/three-- & one (by Glee) that was so-so (or worse). SO, BETTER
| make a full system backup, before wiping Windows.
|
|
| --
| Thanks or Good Luck,
| There may be humor in this post, and,
| Naturally, you will not sue,
| should things get worse after this,
| PCR
|
| "E_Net_Rider" wrote in message
| ...
| | I would like to have some idea of what hit me.
| | A few mornings back, I find the computer with the vmm32.vxd
missing
| message.
| | Now that I think about it, something must have forced it to reboot
as
| well.
| | To complicate matters, this was an upgraded machine, and the
upgrade
| disk
| | going to SE is the one that only works on 98. That is the machine
has
| to be
| | up and running to install it. And the machine has no floppy and I
| never got
| | around to making a bootable CD. I manage to get into DOS and get
into
| the
| | windows directory. There are only three folders and most of the
files
| are
| | missing.
| |
| | Are the other partitions of the 80 GB HDD accessible in DOS? Maybe
it
| was
| | me?
| | And now the question of the updated files for the larger HDD come
to
| mind as
| | well. Because I decided to proceed with installing Gold and as
soon as
| | completed run the SE upgrade CD. But the scandisk reported
numerous
| errors
| | on C. Other partitions OK. It reported a folder named BAER which
| aroused my
| | curiosity as I have never had any program, etc. associated with
that
| name on
| | my machine, to the best of my knowledge of course.
| |
| | Any help is greatly appreciated because I really want to avoid
this
| mess
| | again. Current result is that everything will have to be
reinstalled.
| | Machine is currently running and everything remains on the other
| partitions,
| | so most of my data is obviously OK. But on the C drive I have a
ton of
| DIR
| | folders and almost 300 filexxxx.chk files. Registry was obviously
| lost,
| | hence the total reinstall. And after much sifting, I will likely
find
| most
| | of the other data in those DIR's.
| |
| | After too many failed tape recovery systems, I had decided to
dabble
| with
| | external USB HDD. Thoughts on this are welcome as well and BTW
this
| isn't
| | going to well either. Can't break 15MB/s on USB2. And it came with
| GHOST,
| | which I have yet installed. I had picked up a copy of Partition
Magic
| 8 at
| | the same time. At least one of these I tried to install and it
failed,
| | crashed. I thought I uninstalled, but later found folders/files,
| associated
| | with some security company that Norton may use as part of
antipiracy.
| I got
| | rid of what I was aware in that area, but now wonder if there was
some
| | remnant left that timed out at the 30 day not registered and could
| have went
| | haywire. What search I've done indicates dibeng.dll or was it
| dib32.dll need
| | replacing, causation for the vmm32.vxd error, but the files exist
in
| the
| | created DIR's, possibly indicating as well that everything just
got
| | scrambled.
| |
| | Definitely need to Get Around to It, and make that bullet proof
back
| up that
| | will act as a recovery.
| |
| | Norman
| |
| |
|
|
|
|