best way to backup

[bdog]

I finally got my system the way I like it(using w2k). I am using about 4 gigs on my hd. What would be a good way to back this up so that in the event of a disk crash or if I mange to screw up windows again I can easily get it back? I have another pc on network with 4 gigs free but not sure how to get everything over there and how to restore it if I did. I have all important data burned to cdroms and burn a new one every two or three weeks. I just want some way to back up the entire os and all my settings, etc.

[Target]

I make disc images of all my drives using Ghost. Then I back up the Ghosted images to tape for safe keeping and recovery.

Should something go wrong with my setup and I cannot quickly recover, I restore from the Ghost image. If the drive has a hardware failure and I lose the Ghosted images as well, then I can still replace the drive, and then restore the disc images from tape, and next use Ghost to restore the hard disk image file(s) back to their respective partitians.

Sounds like a ton of work, but its really not, and is what I would suggest.

[Mntsnow]

Sounds like Target and I have just about the same backup scheme. But I do it this way in my system...Using Plextor's CD-RESQ software I burn a CD that is bootable and has the hard drive image on it (re-writeable) and do this once a month. then every week I do a full system backup to tape and nightly I do a incremental backup to a seperate harddrive. This way I can restore by day, week or month http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

Mntsnow

[alien_from_io]

Speaking of tape backups,, does anyone remember the VHS adaptor you could get and use the VCR to do complete system backups.. As I recall it was rather slow but cheap.. any neurons firing in the memory mode ?? Alien

[bdog]

I think I have cdresq. It came with my burner. Does it work ok with w2k? I guess i will install it and then post any questions I might have. Thanks.

[This message has been edited by bdog (edited 02-13-2000).]

[Mntsnow]

Bdog, To tell the truth I have yet to try the Software from inside of Win2K. Remember I am triple booting so when I do a backup its of the Whole drive (all 4 paritions) and I actually do this from inside Win98. I will try it from Win2K when I get some more R-W disks just incase it doesnt want to do it.

Mntsnow

[Barney]

Maby use Norton Ghost and just Ghost W2k and copy it to a CDR and make it bootable.

Ronald

[SysOpt]

It's really a pain to have to use multiple backup CD's, etc., to back up your whole drive. If you have to use small media to do it, only backup stuff that you don't have copies of (i.e. - you probably have your whole program files subfolder backed up on original install CD's). There are backup apps that allow you to specify which folders you want to backup, save that list, and then backup whenever you tell it to.

Though, I would prefer to backup to a larger media, like Onstream's 30GB drives (they make them as large as 70+ GB). We'll be reviewing their USB and SCSI versions soon. Slow at 1MB/s for USB, 2MB/s for SCSI, but huge. The drives aren't too pricey ($399 USB, $499 SCSI), and the media is cheap ($39 for 30GB).


[This message has been edited by SysOpt (edited 02-13-2000).]

[bdog]

Thanks for all the replies. I am dual booting right now with w2k an win98se. I didn't think I could backup from w98 since it wouldn't see my ntfs partions. I think the onstream stuff you were mentioning Scott is great, but i am trying to get this done as cheaply as possible. I have even thought about buying a second hd for $125, ghosting everything to it, and then taking it out of my system and putting it somewhere safe. I have virtualy everything backed up right now since I have all my program cd's and all my data is on cdr's as well as updates,patches etc. The problem is I am always tweaking my system and making changes that I later wish I hadn't. I have completely reformated my hd and installed from scratch like 6 times since christmas. While I didn't lose any data during all this, I lost a lot of time. I actually timed the last reinstall and for me to install w98/w2k dual boot, all my software, drivers, and to get everything back the way it was before took about 8 hours. I just want a simple backup that will copy everything and allow me to restore it easily. I think the CDRESQ that Mntsnow mentioned might do the trick. I will let you know.

[Target]

Yeah, I like MtnSnows idea about buring a bootable CD image. That works really well. I don't use it cause I cannot fit any of my partitians on a single CD.... even the Ghosting I do takes up several 8gig tapes. Nice to have so much HD space (25-40gig varies) but its not pratical to use anything but tapes for me. Maybe I should get a DLT <lol>

[Mntsnow]

Target thats what's nice about the Plextor CDRES-Q software. My main partition is 8 gigs in size and fits on 5 cd's (with max compression) (the software "spans" and when doing a restore it will then ask for the next cd until its all done :-) (only thing is..it only will work with a PLEXTOR Burner but you can use ANY CDrom to restore from.) My tape backups consists of a Seagate 4mm 120meter (DDS2 4-8gig)) and 4mm 125meter (DDS3 12-24gig) depending on which system I'm working on. Someday I too will have to go to DLT or 8mm Mammoth2 technology. (capacity and SPEED)

Mntsnow

*edited to fix spelling errors*

[This message has been edited by Mntsnow (edited 02-13-2000).]