System backup

Little House on Unaka | November 4, 2006 | don-o

[don-o]

Soliciting advice and instructions on what is the best way to backup a PC. I have two computers and two hard drives on each.Yes, I have done a Google, but I would like the advice from Freepers who have helped many of us with out computer questions over the years.

Is there a way to make an exact copy of my OS, including programs and all data, and "paste" it onto the other hard drive? I read about backing up data; what about backing up everyting?

Apologizing in advance for asking a stupid question. But, the weekend is when I try to do simples maintaince; I have had too many experiences of HD crashes and need to finally do the right thing.

[LSU Engineer]

I agree with the recommendation above for Acronis True Image. I have the same configuration you do - two hard drives in each PC. One is 'active', one is mainly for backup. True Image backs up the active drive automatically every night, and I periodically make a separate backup to DVD disks. Twice I've had system crashes and had to restore the system from the backups. Both times it worked flawlessly.

p.s. - I tried Norton Ghost and didn't care for it.

[raybbr]

I have thought about reinstalling. It's just a pain. I guess I'll have to do it at some point.

[KoRn]

"I have thought about reinstalling. It's just a pain. I guess I'll have to do it at some point."

On a windows box its generally good to reformat/reinstall at least once per year in my opinion. It clears out any bugs, such as yours, and gets rid of any malware, virii, and keyloggers that are on your system undetected because of the insecurity of windows lol.

[BubbaHeel]

Purchase as many harddrives as possible - if you have two computers, then two harddrives in each computer gives you as many as four local copies of your data [assuming that you go to the bother of copying your data to each of the drives], and you can get very large harddrives for next to nothing [e.g. it looks like there are 40GB harddrives out there for $29.99, 80GB for $35, etc etc etc]:

http://www.pricewatch.com/hard%5Fdrives/

However, local copies of your data do you no good if e.g. a criminal steals both of your computers, or if your house burns to the ground, or if Hurricane Katrina pays a visit to your neighborhood.

For that, you need REMOTE copies of your data, and there I'd recommend purchasing a domain name [about $10 per year] and a webhosting plan [$5 -$10 per month], and uploading copies of your really important files to your website as often as once a day.

For instance, you can use FTP scripts in conjunction with the "-s" option & the Task Scheduler so as to fully automate an FTP upload [although if there are any really sensitive files involved, you should be aware that FTP does NOT encrypt passwords and does NOT encrypt files, so that super-sensitive files should be sent via a fully encrypted protocol, such as SFTP]:

Using FTP Batch Scripts
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/96269

Managing Scheduled Tasks
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/guide/sas_man_lpja.mspx

For instance, suppose you put something like the following commands in a file called "C:\MYFTPSCRIPT.FTP":

open FTP.MYDOMAIN.COM
REMOTEUSERNAME
REMOTEPASSWORD
verbose
binary
lcd "C:\Documents and Settings\LOCALUSERNAME\My Documents"
mput *
quit

and suppose you set the scheduler to run the following program every night at midnight:

ftp.exe -s C:\MYFTPSCRIPT.FTP

Then every night, at midnight, the scheduler would upload all of the files in your "My Documents" to the FTP side of your web server.

There are all sorts of variations you can play on this theme [the UNIX guys like to fiddle around with something called TAR, and "TARBALL" all the directories into one great big flat file], but you should get the idea.

As for domain name registration, I recommend an outfit called "Domains by Proxy", which anonymizes your purchase of the domain name [that way, the bad guys can't go to "WHOIS" and discover who you are, and learn your home address]:

http://www.domainsbyproxy.com

As for web hosting providers, there are literally GAZILLIONS of them out there; the best forum for learning about them is called "Web Hosting Talk":

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16

Right now I'm using something called HostMonster; another with lots of disk space is DreamHost:

http://www.hostmonster.com

http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting.html

[Host Monster is based in Utah, so I'm pretty confident that they're GOP-ers. Dreamhost, on the other hand, is in Los Angeles, so who knows?]

Anyway, for about $10 a year in Domain Name registration fees, and about $5-$10 a month in web hosting fees, you can rest easy at night knowing that you've got a remote copy of your data.

[SiGeek]

On a windows box its generally good to reformat/reinstall at least once per year in my opinion

I agree. So for my backups I only copy a designated "data" directory to my USB drive, rather than ghosting my entire drive. That way, when I have a disk crash, full disk, or some really sticky malware, I take the opportunity to wipe the disk (or get a new disk) and reinstall. Seems like about once a year per PC. That way I don't also restore the crap.

So part of my backup system is procedural: keep all my important data under one directory, and streamline the reinstall procedure by keeping all the CDs and license files where I can quickly get them.

The downside is the reovery time for that PC, even streamlined, is longer than from a ghosted drive. However, the backed up data on the USB drive can be plugged into another PC right away.

I use Second Copy to back up my data directory to the USB drive. I've heard Memeo is good too.

[BubbaHeel]

Oops; the following is WRONG:

ftp.exe -s C:\MYFTPSCRIPT.FTP

This is CORRECT:

ftp.exe -s:C:\MYFTPSCRIPT.FTP

I.e. there needs to be a colon [":"] after the "-s" and before the file name.

[BubbaHeel]

Oops; the following is WRONG:

ftp.exe -s C:\MYFTPSCRIPT.FTP

This is CORRECT:

ftp.exe -s:C:\MYFTPSCRIPT.FTP

I.e. there needs to be a colon [":"] after the "-s" and before the file name.

[KoRn]

One thing I found useful was to build the system to a 'perfect' original state. Format/install Windows install all updates and service packs and maybe essential base apps, then Ghost the system. At least you will have a recovery disk to a 'perfect' updated base install. This could save a few hours anyway, rather than building totally from scratch.

[KoRn]

Very good ideas! I have a server that does a remote backup in s similar way. One thing I would add to your guide would be to compress the directory before transfer.

For multiple directories I would create a scheduled task for ntbackup to run on all specified directories to create a single compressed .bkf file, then have a scheduled task to fire up your script.

[BubbaHeel]

One thing I found useful was to build the system to a 'perfect' original state. Format/install Windows install all updates and service packs and maybe essential base apps, then Ghost the system. At least you will have a recovery disk to a 'perfect' updated base install. This could save a few hours anyway, rather than building totally from scratch.

The big [really HUGE] problem with Ghost these days is that you have to re-Ghost every time Microsoft posts a critical update.

Sometimes that's only once a month, but often it's once a week.

Not saying that you shouldn't Ghost, it's just that Ghosting is a helluva lot more work than it used to be.

And you can't automate Ghosting [vis-a-vis Critical Updates], because you need to play around with the new Critical Update for a while to see whether or not it broke anything important on your system [some of them will kill your video drivers, some will kill your disk drivers, some will kill your USB drivers - which is hell on wheels if you've got a USB keyboard and/or a USB mouse], and to decide whether or not you want to commit to the Critical Update permanently, or whether you want to un-install it and role your system back to a previous state.

Again, not at all fun for the professional [although it does put food on the table], but potentially overwhelming [in complexity, tediousness, and time consumption] for the amateur.

[BubbaHeel]

For multiple directories I would create a scheduled task for ntbackup to run on all specified directories to create a single compressed .bkf file, then have a scheduled task to fire up your script.

Yeah, I thought about mentioning archiving [TAR/ZIP/GZIP], but thought that that might take me too far afield.

Anyway, for less than $10 a month, you can upload all of your important files to some remote server [potentially as far away as the other side of the globe], or even to several remote servers [purchase one plan from a provider in one state, and another plan from another provider in a different state, or even a different country], and for literally pennies a day, you can have the peace of mind that you've distributed copies of your files to multiple locations around the country [or even around the world], and that it would take something like nuclear armageddon to destroy all of them.

And good grief, if $10 a month sounds like too much money, then BY DEFINITION YOUR FILES ARE NOT IMPORTANT.

Conversely, most professionals [and small businessmen] must have literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of man-hours invested in their computer files [even if your time is worth only $20K/yr, then after five years, you've got $100K invested in your computer files], so if you're such a cheapskate that you won't invest in a remote backup plan that costs as little as 30¢ per day [or less], then, well, don't say I didn't warn you.

[USCG SimTech]

Spend ~$80 and buy 4 PATA or SATA (whichever type of HDDs you are using) removable carriages. Install all 4 drives in these carriages. Take the "Primary Zero" C HDD out of "Machine A" and put it in the "Primary One" D HDD of "Machine B" (paying attention to jumpers on the HDDs as needed). Do a uSoft full backup of the D Drv to the C drv saved as one file. Deselect any large backup image files done at previous times. Reverse machines to back up the C drv of the other. Keep two iterations of backup on each C drv. (You may want to go back a generation of image if something is later found out to be screwed up AFTER your last backup) Delete all other older images.

This is basically how I've kept the USCG Academy's Ship Simulators (6 full mission, ~$9M capital investment) at 99.93% available for training for +15 years. I cheat, though, and have dedicated machines just to RCV the removable carriages from boot disks of all the other 64 machines and have removable 250GB drives in those dedicated backup PCs.

There is always a backup of only "SYSTEM STATE" check box which is the registry and "boot just about everything" of your C Drive also. But ALL the files that would be needed to do a 100% boot are not backed up.

[KoRn]

At work I use Ghost Enterprise for our clients. It has update options and you can ghost over the network to as many simultaneous clients as your bandwidth will allow from ghostcast servers. Your remarks about updates hosing up OSs can be a nightmare! We have a couple of test boxes we use to make sure updates won't break anything, then we release them to our SUS server to go to the clients. Even then, sometimes updates will cause problems.

[don-o]

Thanks a lot - I have options with backup arguments to make my best choice. I appreciate all the input!

[BubbaHeel]

At work I use Ghost Enterprise for our clients. It has update options and you can ghost over the network to as many simultaneous clients as your bandwidth will allow from ghostcast servers. Your remarks about updates hosing up OSs can be a nightmare! We have a couple of test boxes we use to make sure updates won't break anything, then we release them to our SUS server to go to the clients. Even then, sometimes updates will cause problems.

Yeah, for the professional, Critical Updates & system backups are like manna from heaven - it's boring and frustrating as hell, but it's absolutely necessary and can be very, very lucrative.

However, for the amateur, that stuff can drive them bonkers [and they don't get paid to do it].

PS: What're they charging for Ghost Enterprise these days? [Off the top of my head, I'd guess at least about $100 per client seat.]

[relictele]

I'm an Acronis convert.

Ghost is like all Symantec/Norton products these days - an absolute resource hog.

They both work well in this context but Acronis for me.

[BubbaHeel]

Hey, I just checked, and all of the domain names "don-o" look to be available:

http://whois.domaintools.com/don-o.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/don-o.net
http://whois.domaintools.com/don-o.org

Again, it costs only about $10 a year to register something like one of these, and much less than $10 per month to get a hosting provider who would give you many, many gigabytes to store your most important files.

[KoRn]

We paid $6,700 or so for 350 licenses. I think that's around $20 per license on a volume purchase.

[don-o]

Thanks. Need to jump on that!

[Knute]

[Host Monster is based in Utah, so I'm pretty confident that they're GOP-ers. Dreamhost, on the other hand, is in Los Angeles, so who knows?]

My daughter went to school (Computer Science) with the Dreamhost founders at Harvey Mudd in Claremont. All these kids are very bright and motivated. Their politics would skew to the left. Quite a few of her friends were at her wedding in March. Many are now completing their PhD's and doing cutting edge work in technological fields that I cannot fathom! (54 y/o living fosssil)