Time for me to take a look at the specs for my Inspiron (3 and half years of age). The ability to use USB 2 would add a little to my notebook's life while I look at replacements (which, of course, get better all the time).

Regards
I

Well, I certainly use my computer as more than just a toy, but I've always been a paper guy when it came to the really important stuff, so I always had a hard-copy to refer to. In fact, I always wrote deisgn specs in ink on paper without going to the computer at all. The tablet has changed some of that, and I'd like to get more stuff stored electronically.

My work email is stored on an IMAP server, so no problem there, and I'm tolerant of losing my personal email.

I've observed, like Scott, that installing all my applications takes just a couple of hours and is always a good opportunity to make sure you're installing the latest upgrades anyway.

I've only ever once had a hard drive fail and it wasn't that big of a problem. Other than that, I've upgraded hardware often enough that it hasn't been a problem.

So, I guess I still haven't read the answer to my question. How should I get started if I want to start backing things up? Also, what should I back up and how do I manage it?

How often do you typically back up and how much time does it require?

From my research into imaging software, my two final choices were:
1. Norton Ghost. This is the front runner, both for personal use and corporate use. You can image to a CD set, another partition, or a file on another partition or on another computer via the network or via a USB connector.
2. PowerQuest DriveImage. Never used it, but it's from the Partition Magic people, so it must be good.
3. Partition Magic lets you image to another partition. Since it also lets you repartition your drive in place, you can imagine that it could fill most of your needs if you have lots of hard drive space.

I backup 5 machines across the network, once a week. I use the aforementioned Stomp (Seagate/veritas) backup as a scheduled job, using my "server" machine that is hosting the USB 2.0 hard drive to control the backup. 2 are wireless, 3 are wired, they are all sharing the C: ad D: drives to the server machine.

It starts at 11pm and is finished before 6 am.

I backup everything (including the OS folder) as I've got the space on the disk, the bandwidth on the network, and I'm too lazy to separate out specific folders.

In the event of a crash, I'd likely reinstall the OS and applications, then restore the docs and other important stuff from the backup, in that order.


[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 08-18-2003).]

Is there a way to automate the image process with Ghost or the other programs?

What I like about my setup is that it is Tivo in nature. I set it up once, and pretty much don't have to think about it again (unless a machine is powered off, or a network share does bad).

The answer is this simple, Robb, for me anyway:

1. purchase an external USB 2.0 or Firewire big hairy hard drive. I like the Maxtor series, at least 100GB, or the 250GB.

2. Plug it in to your computer and let it install itself as it usually will. Get it installed so it becomes recognized as an additional drive.

3. Periodically, like every few days, create a folder on the external drive called "my backup 8-18-03". Open up a window on your computer showing your folders. Drag your folders including your mail, and anything that changes frequently like your work folders, into the new folder on the external drive.

4. That's it! Congratulations! You are WAY AHEAD of where you were before. If your computer crashes or gets carried away by aliens from Mars, you will have your precious work and email files to restore on a new machine.

Everything else is probably nice but icing on the cake as far as I am concerned. The important thing is to START BACKING UP WHAT YOU CANNOT EVER REPLACE, NOW.

Looking at the Systemworks 2003 manual, and performing a google search using the term "scheduling ghost", I'd say not.

A primitive solution would be to use a robot and create a macro but how flexible this is (ie. backing up to a different image each time) depends on how sophisticated (and expensive) the robot software is.

I guess if I had a clean install, I'd want to image the machine to save me time on a potential reinstall. but considering I've done one OS reinstall in the last 2-3 years, I'm not sure it is worth the effort.

I'm mainly interested in saving the files I've listed above, and my current backup strategy meeds that need.

If the machine totally dies, I think I'd want to take advantage of having a fresh install vs an "old" image reload.

It's definitely also worth having some kind of removable solution though (CDR/DVDR, Zip etc). I always worry about hard disks dying on me (though I'm definitely going to get one

Just about any backup program out there (probably ever one) lets you choose if you want to back up all files or just changed files. Run a backup of all files, store that someplace. Then just every whenever run one of all changed files, it will go much quicker for you.

Yeah, this is so. But when I've got to find an old file , it's much easier to browse them the way I do backups. They are not in a proprietary format that backup programs often seem to use. I can just poke around and find them on the backup hard drive and copy them over.

If you back up or ghost to a hard drive and are carrying a destrutive virus, how do you salvage?

You have wiped out your last good data, and ove written with a deadly bug.

I keep all my data files in a shared folder on my desktop.

I back up my .pst to another shared folder on my desktop, 1 minute before I walk away with the notebook.

On both, "Offline files" (Tools/Folder Options in Windows Explorer) is enabled.

On my notebook, I map to these 2 network drives. The files are still available when I unplug the notebook from the dock.

The worst case scenario is that if my notebook is stolen, I've only lost any new or updated files (apart from critical ones which I still put on a floppy or CD-R).

Back in the office (or if I use a VPN), the notebook automatically synchronises the files.

Each computer backs up the other.

Each computer's backup is "offsite".

The restore, which I've had to do once from notebook to desktop, and once from desktop to notebook (stolen grrrrr), was simply reinstalling OS, reinstalling apps - usually 2-4 hours.

I'm not as quick as ScottC - but both the backups and restores work.

OK, let me ask you a new question.

If it's so important (Important enough for me to go out and buy extra hardware that I don't otherwise need, and important enough that I should physically take time every week to do this), then why hasn't Microsoft built it into the O/S where it all happens automatically for me.

For all the badmouthing that MS gets, they generally are pretty good about throwing their weight behind whatever it is that everybody out there wants. I still think that the automatic updates to the O/S are a fantastic addition to the product.

So, why hasn't MIcrosoft added it into the O/S automatically and for free to obliterate the competition charging money for their software.

Microsoft hasn't done it because:

1) most people don't really care about backing up. What I mean is that people do care about their data, but they are too lazy to back up. Even if Microsoft made it available (besides the pathetic backup program today) most ppl still wouldn't bother. Heck, it's not that difficult to burn files to CD's, and most ppl I know don't want to to take the time to do it.

It's like keeping your checkbook in balance. A lot of people just don't do it.

2) Microsoft doesn't make money by spending R&D dollars on this new feature, and there's a lot of good solutions out there already. Bill Gates would make a lot more sales by incorportaing functions like voice computing, hand writing software, stuff that makes computing easier, so that's where he's focusing his R&D dollars on.