Backup! Continued

What Backup Tool to Use:

The most readily available tool is Windows Backup (sometimes referred to as NT Backup in Windows 2000/XP). This application can be found on the Start>Accessories>System Tools in XP Pro.

XP Home users may need to install it from the XP CD:

HOW TO: Install Backup from the CD-ROM in Windows XP Home Edition.

Rather than go through all the steps here needed to use Windows Backup, I'll refer you to this excellent article by Microsoft Press Author Ed Bott:
Windows XP Backup Made Easy.

One drawback to Windows Backup is that if you plan to copy the backup file to a CD, each backup job has to be smaller than 700MB for a CDR or 650MB for a CDRW. You may have to manually create several small backups if you have a lot of data.

***Note that Windows Backup Does Not Back Up to CD-R, CD-RW, or DVD-R Devices.

However, Windows Backup can backup directly to a CDRW or DVDRW formatted with packet-writing software such as Nero's InCD or Roxios' Direct to Disc. This software allows the disc to be used by Windows as a large floppy, so Windows Backup has no trouble using it as a destination for the backup file.

If you are running Windows XP on your computer, you have yet another option that's very easy to use especially for copying individual files: XP's built-in CD-recording software.

To use this, you need a blank CDR (a 'recordable' CD) or a CDRW (a 're-writable' CD; it can be erased). Put it in your CD burner drive. For a nice little video of what to do next, please click here and look down at the bottom of the page that will appear.

Backup your Internet Explorer favourites: you don't want to lose all those precious websites you have added to your "Favourites" over the years do you? This is quite easy to do and you can save the output file to any location, even a floppy since the file is usually small enough.

1. Open Internet Explorer.

2. Go to "File" and click on "Import and Export" and the Import/Export Wizard will start

3. Click "Next"

4. Select "Export Favorites" in the left hand pane and click Next

5. Click "Next" again

6. Choose where you want to save the output "bookmarks.htm" file (My Documents is the default choice)

7. Click "Finish" and wait until the Wizard gives you a "Successfully Exported Favorites" window

8. Click OK

Backup your Outlook Express address book: just as important (if not more so) are all the email addresses in your Outlook Express (OE) address book! This is an easy backup as well and you can save the output file where you wish.

1. with Outlook Express open, click on the Address Book icon:

2. Go to "File"

3. Export>

4. "Address Book (WAB)"

5. Choose the location and give the address book a name you will remember

6. Click "Save"

7. You should see a "success" window in which you can click OK.

Other tools worth considering:

• Replicator by Karen Kenworthy. This is one of my favourite free backup tools! Great for backing up files and folders to another partition or drive. Or, using packet-writing software such as Roxio's Direct to Disk or Nero's InCD, you can copy it directly to a CD or DVD. Can do scheduled backups too!

• OEBackup for backing up Outlook Express emails and address book.

• Personal Folders Backup: an add-in for Outlook users

• AM-Deadlink: a neat little tool that will search your browser's favourites/bookmarks for dead links and it has the ability to make a zipped backup of your favourites!

"Advanced" Options:

Imaging programs:

An 'image' is just that: an exact copy of a drive or partition compressed (usually) into one large or several smaller files. The advantage to this is that the entire operating system (Windows) along with all other program and data are backed up (imaged) at the same time, depending on how your hard drive is partitioned and which partition you are imaging.

Scenario:

My PC has two hard drives, the first one is 30GB and the second is an 80GB drive. The 30GB drive is partitioned into a 15GB (C:), and a 15GB (D:). The second hard drive is partitioned in 2 equal halves as well. Using an imaging program I can, in a few minutes, make an exact image of my C: drive (about half full) which contains my Operating System and my program files to a partition on my second hard drive. Using 50% compression, this results in an image file of approximately 2GB.

Now, I could choose the option to burn the image directly to a CDR (or RW) or a writeable DVD. In this case, I tell the program to make my CD burner the destination for the image and it will automatically divide the image up into the proper size to fit on the disc. So a 2GB image file would need about 3 to 4 CDs to backup my C: partition or 1 DVD.

Now if something goes terribly wrong with my Windows installation (say a nasty virus attack), I can restore this image and be up and running in just a few minutes. Compare that to reinstalling Windows, updating it, then installing all the programs I use. That would take hours! Individual files can be 'extracted' from the image file as well.

That's why many call imaging the "ultimate" backup.

One tool I have used for many years is PowerQuest's DriveImage. However, PQ was acquired by Symantec and DriveImage no longer exists (DriveImage 7 was the last PQ version). If you can find a copy of it anywhere (try eBay) I recommend you buy it. DriveImage 2002 is also good.

Symantec's Imaging program is Norton Ghost, which with version 9 is backwards compatible with images created by DriveImage. Norton Save & Restore is the current iteration of Ghost.

Another imaging tool that many of my peers like is "Image for Windows" It is reasonably priced and well worth considering.

Currently, I am using Acronis True Image 9, and it is an excellent application.

DriveXML is a freeware imaging program, but I have not used it. I mention it here only as a free alternative to the aforementioned programs.

Windows NT Backup - Restore Utility
Utility for restoring backups made on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 to computers running Windows Vista and Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008.

Conclusion:

I hope this page has been of some help to you and hasn't resulted in more questions than answers!

The important thing is to first of all remember to backup, then create a regular schedule and stick to it (I like to do all this on Sundays, for example). If you so desire, go out and buy an imaging program. No matter which route you take, you will be glad that you "took precautions" and backed up your data!

© 2008 James M. Fisher, author, All Rights Reserved (Thanks to fellow MVPs M. Carvalho and M. Solomon for suggestions!)