Solved A little help finding backup software

jesseinsf said:

I use two forms or backup:

• I create the same known folder names in OneDrive and then move those known folders to the same named folders in OneDrive. This gives me file history and Ransomware protection. Plus, I can right click any file and copy a shared link to share with others. All without going into the OneDrive folder.
• I move my OneDrive folder (which has all my known folders) to a separate internal SSD and use an external drive for a second layer of File History. I'm thinking of getting an identical SSD and making a RAID 1 array for this internal separate storage.

Known folders are:

• Desktop
• Documents
• Pictures
• Music
• Videos
• Downloads

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Well data files must not be confused with system files. You cant do a simple file copy of you c drive across to an ext drive. Windows doesnt allow this. Its all very convoluted and mixed in with hardware credentials AND it wont boot up you pc when you install a new HDD

In a nutshell guys, How do you test that your backup drive restores your m/c correctly. I can only think that you must remove your original drive and put to one side, then instal a new drive in its place then try restore - is this right ie windows starts up and all your apps work as before
I wont hold my breath as this has got to be too naive

BrianS said:

In a nutshell guys, How do you test that your backup drive restores your m/c correctly. I can only think that you must remove your original drive and put to one side, then instal a new drive in its place then try restore - is this right ie windows starts up and all your apps work as before
I wont hold my breath as this has got to be too naive

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Create a virtual hard drive, restore to that, create a boot entry. Boot from vhd - job done.

For the past 26 years, I've used one program and one program ONLY for all my C:\ backups and Drive Clones.
That one program was not written in the Soviet Union, or RED China, but in New Zealand, in 1997.
The name of that Backup/Restore program is "GHOST". Originally, in '97, it came on a single 3.5" Floppy Disk. That's where I first met it.
Shortly thereafter, the program was bought by 'Symantec' Corp. They modified the original program so that it could work with NTFS drives and files. That was the last of the DOS Bootable versions. And, that's where I am at today...."Ghost 11.5" is DOS bootable from any media that can boot a PC. I have it still on 3.5" floppy disks, CD's, Flash Drives and even one SD Memory Card.
Here on my Win-11/Pro/64 PC, I'm booting Ghost with a Flash Drive.
Why boot into DOS? Well, that keeps Windows and all it's warts and blemishes out of the process. In fact, Ghost will back up almost any disk that is not damaged. It doesn't care if it's DOS, Windows, Linux, Server, or just a data disk with no OS on it at all.
I've even backed up HD's where the OS was so corrupted that it wouldn't even boot up the PC.

When I want to just back up my data files, I run a batch file, that uses XCOPY to backup all my data files to a 128GB Flash Drive.
XCOPY is programmed to only back up files that are new or that have been changed since the last backup. That keeps the process, quick and clean. That data backup only takes a minute or two. And XCOPY, in a Batch File, runs just fine, even from within Windows 11.
Whereas, A typical Ghost backup using FAST Compression, takes about 20 minutes, from SSD to another SSD.

In years of computing, I've had many HD crashes, but, I've never lost any critical data. My backup scheme has always saved the day for me.
Cheers Mates
TM
PS: To address a concern, voiced by one member,,,, in 26 years I've never had a Ghost Image File fail me.
If I have any concern that my backup image file may not be 100% good, I can always run a "Check" operation, which totally
confirms the integrity of the file.
Back in the days when I ran mechanical HD's. I'd do a Ghost backup of my C partition and then do a Restore of that newly created file, which in effect gave me one heck of a Defrag. (Every file, totally contiguous, end to end on the HD, with no spaces in between= Zero Fragmentation) But now with the SSD's, defragmenting a drive is no longer done.

BrianS said:

Well data files must not be confused with system files. You cant do a simple file copy of you c drive across to an ext drive. Windows doesnt allow this. Its all very convoluted and mixed in with hardware credentials AND it wont boot up you pc when you install a new HDD

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I'm not sure what you are referring to. Windows 11 still has "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" which you can create an image and set up incremental backups. You can also create a recovery drive which needs at least 15GB flash drive. There are so many options within the Microsoft ecosystem.

BrianS said:

AFAIK and Im no nerd here. This type of system backup cant be tested other than by a drastic method of over-writing your existing healthy PC disc (all working perfectly ok) and seeing if it boots up again as before. Thats just too scary for me. You cant try your back up ext drive out on another similar PC - this would open the door to massive piracy cloning. Microsoft has always specifically tied a Win installation to the original hard credentials. So you only get to find if your backup works when the great crash happens. Of course a nerd would just blow this away but home based amateurs - well I guess you come here and whinge. Funny its not - this is such a basic simple need

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You can still test it by physically swapping the storage device if you want. But I know I don't have to, as instead I can just check the Verify image checkbox that appears whilst the image creation is in progress. This verification step combined with the fact that Windows has been taken offline (i.e. by using Ventoy to boot into the bootable Rescue Media ISO file as opposed to booting into Windows) ensures that no data can be lost outside of a hardware/firmware error (or user error of course). Acronis True Image is a Class 2 software so, if using the method that I have described, finding a software error in it that causes data corruption or loss would be a (very) neat trick─even though nothing is impossible. Thing is, the image verification step is the equivalent of doing a restore that, instead of actually writing the data to disk, compares the data to what's already present on the disk. During this whole process of creating an image and verifying the integrity of it, no data is modified on the disk. Not before you boot back into Windows after that. That's how you'll know that the Windows system partition will have been captured reliably, and the image will be restored reliably (if the PC works).

Each time when I use this method to create an image of my Windows system partition, or C: partition I trust it enough to choose a destination folder that is located on the C: partition itself, even. I do this because with a laptop that has only just a single fast internal NVMe SSD it is faster than letting the image be created on an external storage device, and, I still copy the image file to an external storage device (with FastCopy) after I booted back into Windows. So I am able to boot back into Windows within only minutes. I don't create an image that very often anyway in the first place. There's no need to, as FileCopy and external storage already takes care of all the rest. About the bootable Rescue Media ISO file of Acronis, I also like the fact that I can very conveniently specify (with wilcards also if needed) what files/folders I want to exclude from image. It also supports incremental images so, because it has all the features I need, the most important one being strict reliability of course, this is what I'll use until someone comes up with something better. The UI is clean and easy to use. There's also no bloat in any way whatsoever. Because, like I said, I don't actually even install it onto my Windows. There's simply no need.

Jessinf
Hi
Q
I'm not sure what you are referring to. Windows 11 still has "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" which you can create an image and set up incremental backups. You can also create a recovery drive which needs at least 15GB flash drive.
UQ
Yes but this will only create a restored Win OS it wont reproduce all your app and their setting etc You lose your programs . Microsoft is clear on this AFAIK

hi HDMI
Im gonna have to revert 2mrw cos my brian is stewed tot ziens

TechnoMage2021 said:

When I want to just back up my data files, I run a batch file, that uses XCOPY to backup all my data files to a 128GB Flash Drive.
XCOPY is programmed to only back up files that are new or that have been changed since the last backup. That keeps the process, quick and clean. That data backup only takes a minute or two. And XCOPY, in a Batch File, runs just fine, even from within Windows 11.

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I have a batch file I wrote some 10 years ago to back up my data files. I back up to a 2TB usb HDD that's plugged into my router and shared on the network. It used to use XCopy but in 2014 I rewrote it to use RoboCopy instead. With it I can choose to do a Full or Incremental backup. I still use it to this day in Windows 11. I make a system image once a month and supplement that by running my batch file twice a week.

As you say, XCopy can back up only those files that have changed since the last time it copied them, but by default XCopy will copy all files. To copy only those files that have changed you need to use XCopy's /M option. RoboCopy has the same /M option.

Yup, That's the way it works. With all the correct switches set, it can do a very comprehensive data backup. I've used it, virtually since DOS days.

"I pity the fool" (Mr. T.) that swears by a certain program, above all others, yet, they question the integrity of the files that program creates so much that they are afraid to do a restore to their main drive, without any qualms.

The biggest value of a Backup Image file, is not to restore it back where it came from, overwriting the original files, but to Restore it to a new HD/SSD when the main drive has shot craps. I've already done that so many times with Ghost Backups, that I lost track a long time ago.

Yet, every day, I read on one forum or another, someone bemoaning the problems they're having with their favorite Backup/Restore program. Then for goodness sakes, get a better program!! And quiturbellyakin!

Robocopy lacks the ability to calculate and store MD5 hash codes, and it also lacks the ability to log errors on a per file basis. In addition, NTFS supports characters in filenames that the error logging of Robocopy does not support. Basically, after it fails to copy a file for some reason, it has no way of telling you what files it copied successfully versus not, as it doesn't have the ability to create log files that you can use for this purpose so, then you have to just let it look at all the files once more, which makes this both tedious and slow, placing extra work load on the data storage hardware that could have been avoided with relative ease. Finally, me and some others have witnessed Robocopy starting to slow down and hog system resources hopelessly after some period of time if using the /MT switch for more threads whilst copying a very large amount of data with it. (As another cool bonus, even if luck is on your side and Robocopy doesn't flake out, FastCopy is still noticeably faster at copying very large amounts of data, anyway in the first place.)

have a look at FreeFieSync FreeFileSync It is quite complicated to learn but I think you can get it to do everything on your list. I've been using it for years.

Bvckup 2 is a small, fast and powerful file backup application. I've been using it for years to replicate files and folders from one hard drive to another. It's very simple to use.

BrianS said:

Jessinf
Hi
Q
I'm not sure what you are referring to. Windows 11 still has "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" which you can create an image and set up incremental backups. You can also create a recovery drive which needs at least 15GB flash drive.
UQ
Yes but this will only create a restored Win OS it wont reproduce all your app and their setting etc You lose your programs . Microsoft is clear on this AFAIK

Click to expand...

Last time I checked I can choose the whole C drive. Oh, and it's not a Windows restore point. I'm not sure where you are getting this info.

You see guys, like the OP Im a simple home boy and whilst I remember the raw simplicity of DOS days - when that was exciting but it didnt pay the rent. I had to move on to commercial progs with customer demand (like AutoCAD in those days) so I never became a code kiddie - though these little guys can earn serious compensation these days.
Waking up the sleeping bear - well that was me - when I forced myself to migrate from my trusty 8 years old W8.1 Asus kit to a recently acquired Acer W10 m/c which sat around for 3 years used for my IP Cameras (rats nest technology lets not go there) and I was reminded to use a separate HDD for storing vid records cos IP cams give such drives a serious thrashing over time.
Well the msg came thru to upgrade to W11 before too late SOOO I did. Cut to the chase it worked and I went thru the learning curve of Microsoft messing with things that worked OK before etc You know the score.
So this reminded me of a hard crash I had 5 years ago and how painful that was. So like the OP I looked around and was totally fried by the shouty claims of many competing s/w solutions (I hate that word).
Eg HDMI -as above- you favour Acronis, yet I am presented by Trustpilot with a totally conflicting opinion Acronis is rated "Great" with 4 / 5 on Trustpilot
This is not an isolated case as other self styled market leaders also have serious doubt on their integrity
And thats the word really INTEGRITY. can you really trust your backup when the SHTF and you crash. All the assurance verbal doesnt work for me until I see it tested under restore conditions. Its not simply enough to say "I did a verification to show that my backup image was identical to the original".
But I am only a jaundiced amateur and I daresay IT pros would laugh at my concerns, as they only handle professional products in the commercial world ( and wouldnt waste their highly valued time responding to small fry like me).
Just cos Im paranoid does it make me wrong?
If only life were as simple as copying your set of files to another HDD - but of course this couldnt work cos piracy would flourish (as it did in the early days) and Microsoft/Apple wouldnt exist today. So we have to live with increasing convoluted levels of protection where the OS and s/w are tied into the original hardware licensing so it cant be replicated.
Thats the nub of the problem. So until you can actually prove your restoration works its all smoke and mirrors IMHO for a h/w crash scenario - I cant even think of a malicious attack situation.

Well there's bad news already, Win 11 backup system (win7) doesnt work and wont find my ext drive - common problem

BrianS said:

Well there's bad news already, Win 11 backup system (win7) doesnt work and wont find my ext drive - common problem

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The Win 7 backup solution has never been very reliable even on Win 7. That's why MS now recommend you find a third party solution.

The Win 7 backup solution has never been very reliable even on Win 7. That's why MS now recommend you find a third party solution.

Wow such Microsoft arrogance - scandalous

BrianS said:

The Win 7 backup solution has never been very reliable even on Win 7. That's why MS now recommend you find a third party solution.

Wow such Microsoft arrogance - scandalous

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Not really arrogance. MS is sunsetting it, that's why they recommend finding a third party solution.