How about a good backup?

richardj · Post by **richardj** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:06 pm

Anyone know of a free, sceduleable, accurate & bootable backup program?

I've tried a MYRIAD of them-they all suck.

Inckuding the one here thats linked SyncBack v3.2.

I ran it in safemode & got almost 100 errors.

Would the file & settings wizard in XP work?

Could I somehow scedule it?

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2700, old post ID:22018

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:27 pm

I use Syncback and it's a great program. By default it will use windows task scheduller, so that means there's no need to have an extra program to run in the background.

It also detects if files have not been updated, so it won't transfer stuff unless it's new/modified. So even backing up Gigs of files only takes minutes over my LAN because it might only have like 50 megs or less worth of updating.

Also if a file is in use it won't bail out, it will keep going with the rest, so that way you can even backup folders such as application data.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2700, old post ID:22019

jryan · Post by **jryan** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:02 pm

Red, I don't know if you noticed or not...

Inckuding the one here thats linked SyncBack v3.2.

I ran it in safemode & got almost 100 errors.

It is possible that there are some issues with SyncBack and Windows XP. I don't know if the files and settings wizard would do the trick, but let's all see if we can't help the lad a bit...

Personally, I just do my own personal backups here and there... no software, so I'm not sure what to recommend.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2700, old post ID:22026

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:25 pm

lol for some reason I thought it said 2.3... yeah so that did not help.

But perhaps we cam figure out what causes the problem since this is a really good program and should work in windows xp.

It should not be run in safe mode but normal mode. I can't see why safemode would cause problems but this program is made for normal mode. It does the backup "in the background" so it won't hog resources or bandwidth.

Oh and what kind of errors were you getting? It could be that it was files in use. My application data folder for example gets tons of errors because of files in use, but it backups everything else.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2700, old post ID:22027

richardj · Post by **richardj** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:54 am

Sorry I'm late getting back-I forgot to subscribe to the thread.

Maybe you could change this so when you post, you're auto subscribed?

ANYWAY

That's just the problem, in regular Windows, it generates EVEN MORE errors then safe mode. HUNDREDS.

Yes, they are files in use, but I guesse I'm looking for a ghosted copy.

Last time my pc crashed, I reinstalled the OS then ran the restore & I immediately got a blue screen of death on the next bootup. So whats the point?

I then had to reformat & reinstall again.

I've been using 'Karens Replicator' (last few days & it is more simple to use & generates even less errors.

I've also looked into xxcopy, but those backups are from the command line.

Heres the result from safe mode:

Copied 16117
Critical Errors 25
Non-critical Errors 77

NO ERRORS ARE ACCEPTABLE!

Here are the results from Kays Replicator in desktop mode:

Files Copied: 16,421

Failed Copies: 48
Warnings: 0

Besides-NONE of these are bootable.

I want to be able to put in a floppy-click restore-go have coffe & when I return my PC's been restored.

FREE OF COURSE!-LOL

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2700, old post ID:22062

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 9:11 am

What folders are you actually backing up? Since if you're trying to backup the entire C drive it simply won't work, no matter what program you use. Only way is to go in a dos based imaging program, since the boot information has to be at the start of the partition, and chances are a conventional copy and paste won't do that.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2700, old post ID:22065

richardj · Post by **richardj** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:18 pm

I want to copy ALL files-the entire drive.

As I said in my last post when I ran a restore after puting in a new copy of XP it failed.

As far as Syncback goes, I can't even close it without geting an access error & it freezes.

I then have to use the task manager to close it.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2700, old post ID:22071

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:24 pm

Yeah you can't restore an entire C drive, the reason is because the main boot files (io.sys and a few others... this may have changed in nt based system though) need to be at a specific physical location on the hard drive. Just copying them won't do this. The only way to make a full backup is to use a drive image program.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2700, old post ID:22072