Backup-software questions

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I apologize if this topic has been beaten to death already. Please feel free to reply with links if my questions are already answered elsewhere.

I have two PC’s, one runs Win XP (32 bit) and the other Vista (64-bit). I have no interest in upgrading to Win 7 at this time. I’m looking for some backup software, preferably that would run on either machine. I have looked at many different programs, but haven’t found one that does everything I’m looking for yet.

I would like a backup program with the folllowing features:

1. Backs up to an external hard drive (USB or eSata), flash/thumb drive, or DVD-R’s (blu-ray support would be a plus), or to a cloud account like skydrive. Ability to schedule automated, unattended backups would be a plus.

2. Encrypts the backups before writing. This is especially important if I’m backing up to a cloud account. I know the Microsoft offers their own encryption, but I want it encrypted BEFORE it goes to their servers. I certainly don’t trust them with my unencrypted data.

3. Compression would be a nice touch but with storage media being so cheap these days not an essential.

4. Writes recovery data to the backup. Something like Winrar’s “recovery record” or par2’s “parity files”. This would be especially important when backing up to DVD’s to ensure that a slight scratch on the disc would not render the data on in unrecoverable.

5. Authentication data (digital signature) to ensure that backups were not tampered with would be good.

6. Can do full or incremental backups, allowing me to select entire drives, partitions, folders, and/or individual files.

7. Most importantly, keeps an index of what it has done. I’d like to view my backups in a directory tree format, showing different versions of backups. For example, if I back up the file “my resume.doc”, and then edit it, and back it up again, I’d like the software to show me the two backed up versions, dates they were backed up, and allow me to select which one I want to restore.

7a. I dont want to have to wade thru individual backup sets to search for those different file versions. I want the software to keep track for me and present the different versions ON ONE SCREEN and allow me to select the one I want.

7. Budget around $50. Would really like 2 licenses to be able to run on both machines for that price. I can push the budget a little higher if the software truly does everything I want. I doubt there are any freeware progs that have all these features, but if there is, by all means, do tell.

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JM,

Take a look at Acronis True Image 2010 Home.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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DVD-R’s (blu-ray support would be a plus),

This would be especially important when backing up to DVD’s to ensure that a slight scratch on the disc would not render the data on in unrecoverable.

J M ,
Hello… Yes Acronis ! Only one more thing to add ….. Forget about DVD backup ….total waste of time and is unreliable…. You will find yourself loading disks and removing, loading, on and on and on ..many more chances for something to go wrong (and it will) Regards Fred

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J M ,
Hello… Yes Acronis ! Only one more thing to add ….. Forget about DVD backup ….total waste of time and is unreliable…. You will find yourself loading disks and removing, loading, on and on and on ..many more chances for something to go wrong (and it will) Regards Fred

I agree about NOT using DVDs for backup. I did this two years ago, but it was very slow and tedious to swap the DVDs.

I realized that as a result, I was not backing up regularly. Eventually I just bought several USB hard drives (for rotating off-site backups). Each weekend I create the image files on a separate data partition, then copy those to the external drive.

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I agree about NOT using DVDs for backup. I did this two years ago, but it was very slow and tedious to swap the DVDs.

I realized that as a result, I was not backing up regularly. Eventually I just bought several USB hard drives (for rotating off-site backups). Each weekend I create the image files on a separate data partition, then copy those to the external drive.

I also use Ext HD for Imaging, but just create the back up directly to the Ext HD rather than a seperate partition then copy to the Ext HD. Saves a step, although this only gives me one copy of the Image rather than 2 in seperate locations. Either way, the real point is that up to date Images work very effectively at solving what used to be a very tedious task.

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Have a look at Genie-Soft’s “Genie Timeline”

Fairly new product but works an absolute treat.

Keep an eye on the website as they occasionally have one day offers where they give it away for free.

http://www.genie-soft.com/home/home_solutions.aspx

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You could try Macrium Reflect free?

cheers, Paul

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Or FBackup?

cheers, Paul

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I use Almer Backup for all my clients (rebadged as I am a reseller and provide ongoing support/recovery) but you can buy it direct from Almersoft themselves very cheaply. ( it’s a russian company but don’t let that hold you back )

I took a long time choosing the right solution and I have found it very reliable over the years and so far it has worked well on every operating system.

I generally back up one copy locally for ease of recovery and another direct to an ftp server.

It has pretty much everything you are looking for including incremental backups and versions, with date and time stamps,

PLUS I have recently been using it to backup my programs as I am software developer and I find every time I change the program, sometimes hundreds of times in a day, it backs up the previous version which is brilliant news..I don’t know why I didnt use it for this before.

go to http://www.almersoft.com

you can also download a 30 day demo from there (at least you always could before).

if you want to buy from me, then by all means and I can give you live online training, but it costs a little more through me, so if things are tight, go direct.

Good luck

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Does Almersoft work on Windows 7? The webpage reference above doesn’t say so, although Vista is listed.

Also, is there any way to test that the restore mechanism works correctly? I have used backup programs where the backup procedures seemed to work correctly, but then the restore procedure did NOT.

Thanks for any additional info.

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I’m going to answer with a Freeware-Only approach that can…when used creatively…provide nearly all of the functionality you’re looking for. To add the “recovery” as you specified in item #4, this 100% free solution might require a couple of augmenting programs (also freeware) and a bit more time on the user’s part…but the solution does fit all your specifications except for item #7/7a. Note that step #4 could to some degree also be addressed by setting up each backup “disk” as an appropriate redundant RAID array. That would simplify things regarding recovery, but it makes system configuration more difficult and more expensive…which I’m trying to avoid. I do consider all the suggested freeware to be mature and quality programming. Sources for recommended programs are listed at bottom of this post. I have no personal or financial interest in any persons or organizations referenced directly or indirectly in this post.

RE: Item#

1. I recommend either backup program “DriveImageXML” (DIXML) or “Macrium Reflect” (MR). Using MR can simplify things quite a bit.
Both have free editions that work great for personal use. They both either provide directly for or can be combined with a couple other freeware programs to meet your specifications. They both backup data in XML format which means the backup data can be read by other programs and both can compress the backup data. MR is also faster overall than DIXML, and MR automatically creates a hash of the backup data and the integrity of those data can be checked at any time using MR’s built-in backup dataset verification utility. MR free edition also has an option to exclude the pagefile and hibernation files from the backup set. As these can be very large files, this saves some time and backup storage space each time you backup the system partition.

2. Use “TrueCrypt” to make your entire backup drive(s) automatically encrypt all data you place on the drive. Or, you can setup individual “containers” on a given drive for encrypted data. You can setup the encrypt/decrypt to be “on-the-fly” or on-demand. You can also hide the encrypted data or set it up so the encrypted data exhibit what is called ‘plausible deniability’. The final degree of flexibility, security, and ease-of-use is up to the user.

3. Both DIXML and MR provide varying levels of compression. I recommend the medium setting as higher levels generally don’t provide significantly greater space savings w/r the time required to process. MR is faster and more effective than DIXML in this area for arbitrary data.

4. This one is going to be relatively long as it discusses multiple ways of providing a “recovery ability”. Assuming one doesn’t setup one’s backup “disk” as an appropriate redundant RAID array, “recovery” can be handled a few ways even when the backup software doesn’t provide a self-recovery capability. For example: both DIXML and MR allow the user to specify the maximum size of each file in a backup session. You can backup the data in a single giant file (assuming your OS supports that large file) or into relatively small segments of say 1GB. If you create multiple small files then “recovery” from a corrupted backup file is likely via a manual process (a script could be written to automate this process but it’s beyond the scope of this post). The user makes N backup sets. The more sets, the greater the probability of a successful recovery if a given file in one of the N sets is damaged. One simply recovers the file from one of the other N sets. (By the way, it is good backup protocol to create more than one backup set and store each one in completely separate geographical locations. If one already uses this multi-dataset backup protocol anyway, then this “recovery” approach isn’t adding to the backup workload.) One determines if a given backup file is ‘bad’ by creating a hash of every backup file in every backup set, and compare them to the original hash of the original backup set (MR has a built-in backup file hash verification function). One could also do direct file/folder comparisons between any of the N sets by real-time use a freeware tool such as Microsoft’s venerable “Windiff” (or equivalent) or compare hashes if one has lost the hash data. And/or you can use another freeware hashing program called “DigestIT 2004”. Use “DigestIT” and copy and paste the hash data for all the files to whatever file you wish. For example, one might create a file called ‘backup_hash.txt’, where ‘backup’ is the name of the set of backup files created and hashed using DigestIT. The principle involved here is that if one of the files in one of the sets of the N sets the user created is different from the original hash string, or the other N sets, then it is the corrupted copy. Majority rules. You simply use a file from an undamaged backup set or you simply select to restore from one of the N sets you’ve determined to be completely uncorrupted. However, assuming the backup sets were stored directly to hard disks, it is generally unlikely one will encounter a damaged backup set of data and the “pain” of this manual recovery method of a single backup file (if ever needed) should not be a major issue. If the backups were made to optical media that would be of course another matter entirely. Macrium has an option to let you burn the backup files directly to DVDs, but I do not recommend that option.

5. If you use strong encryption and have secure control of your hash data and password(s) for every backup file, then in this case is digital signature authentication absolutely required? Further protection is achieved by using TrueCrypt’s ability to ‘hide’ your encrypted data. If you use MR and TrueCrypt, then a “bad guy” would have to a) gain access to the media, b) find the datasets on the media, c) have to decrypt all the data, and d) have to create passable substitute data which wouldn’t fail MR’s internal backup dataset verification routines. Succeeding in all 4 very unlikely. And, if you securely make and keep your own dataset file attributes and hash data as another safeguard, it becomes even more difficult as the “bad guy” couldn’t simply substitute an arbitrary MR verified backup dataset for step “d)”.

6. The free versions of the backup programs only allow backup at the partition level, but the retail version of MR provides for the increased granularity you specified.

7/7a. DIXML and MR don’t provide this simultaneous Index/Both-on-one-screen “version control” capability. However, MR (non-free version) does provide for browsing and selective recovery granularity down to the file level. For this type of functionality in a free backup program, I think you have to look at file-oriented rather than system-oriented backup software. There are a number of freeware “Version control” programs and a number of freeware file-oriented backup programs out there. However, I don’t need/use that specific degree of functionality and thus I don’t have a specific recommendation for you here.

“7.” (aka Really 8.) Re: the $50 budget, as indicated my intent was to discuss freeware offerings that would provide most of the functionality you’re looking for. For personal use they are of course free, and I believe under that restriction a user can use each program on as many individual machines as one owns. Of course, check the licenses for every program as they can change over time.

EXAMPLE:
Here’s one example of what one might do to perform a full system partition backup (with redundant encrypted backup dataset copies):
Ahead of time I created multiple encrypted volumes using TrueCrypt. As many as I need depending on my backup protocols. In this simple case I decided on 3 separate drives per backup dataset. One drive will be kept locally for convenience, and the other 2 will be kept in separate locations.

That was a one-time step. Now each time I want to make a “full” backup I execute these 2 steps.

A) Using Macrium Reflect I do a “full” backup of the entire desired partition to a folder in the first of my three TrueCrypt encrypted volumes (Macrium backup settings are verification, medium compression, intelligent copy, and individual output file size limited to 4.7gb (size of DVD). Last time it took about 11min for 13gb system disk that compressed to something like 8gb (in a very slow system).
B) I copy the 1st backup set of files from the 1st drive to the 2 other drives. Since these drives are encrypt the data on-the-fly using TrueCrypt the copied data are also encrypted during the copy process. Note that I can also assign separate passwords to each backup disk. Note that all 3 backup sets if they remain uncorrupted should independently pass Macrium’s built-in backup file verification.

I keep the remaining 2 backup disks away from my house in geographically separate, secure, and controlled-environment locations.
(Note that if I’m not concerned about a catastrophic failure of the backup drive, then to keep the triple dataset redundancy I could store all 3 backup sets on just the one encrypted drive. The file redundancy would still provide for some degree of recovery in the case of individual file failure (e.g. flipped bit, lost cluster, etc) while greatly simplifying the overall process.)
(Note that because I opted to set the output file size to a maximum of 4.7gb…I can copy each of the 2 resulting backup files (remember it’s compressed) plus the overhead/control files to single-layer DVDs. I can also encrypt the files or the DVDs using TrueCrypt if desired, and these files would also have to pass the Macrium internal verification test.)

To restore a partition in the event of a system or disk failure, I verify the 1st backup drive. If its backup dataset fails the internal Macrium backup verification (or a separate hash test), I then of course have to try the other 2 drives. If I can’t get at least one of the 3 drives to pass verification (highly unlikely) then I likely can combine individually valid files from between the 3 drives to create a merged a backup set that passes the verification test(s) to meet the recovery capability you specified in item #4.

(Note that only if I want to be ultra conservative, and not just rely on Macrium’s built-in hash and backup file verification capability, I could add these 2 steps:
C) I use DigestIT and hash the files in each of the 3 drives separately, and do an initial compare of the hashes to detect any initial copy errors.
D) A copy of a text file with the hash data is stored in a special file I created on each drive/backup-folder and I keep a separate printed list in the safe where I also keep the 1st backup drive.)

DriveImage XML
http://majorgeeks.com/DriveImage_XML_d4919.html
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

Maxium Reflect
http://majorgeeks.com/Macrium_Reflect_FREE_Edition_d6034.html
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

TrueCrypt
http://majorgeeks.com/TrueCrypt_d6032.html
http://www.truecrypt.org/

DigestIT
http://download.cnet.com/DigestIT-2004/3000-2248_4-10387706.html
http://www.kennethballard.com/modules/xproject/index.php?op=viewSummary&pid=2

Hope this made some bit of sense…it’s pretty long and I’m on pain meds at the moment.

edit1: to restore some text to its original position. Cut-and-paste error.
edit2: added very minor comment
edit3: some minor wordsmithing

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Jack, that has to be among the most comprehensive replies that I have ever seen in a forum to a question of this nature. It also has made me completely reconsider my notion of backups and safety.

Do you have any suggestions for Roger’s question down further in the post to verify and test the backup process? While I understand that the hashes and such will provide me with the security of data integrity, what’s the easiest way to test that it really works? I am building up to a reinstall, and imaging the system right after I complete the install and testing the process to restore the image would mean less work if it doesn’t do what it is supposed to. But even in the days of cheap multiterabyte hard drives, I hate to spend the money to buy a new hard drive just to have a blank slate to test my restore process. (though if I am paying nothing for the software to do it, buying another drive wouldn’t be that bad, I guess!)

I’m hoping that I am missing some very obvious and easy solution.

Thanks!

– Jonathan

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…Do you have any suggestions for Roger’s question down further in the post to verify and test the backup process?….

I was playing around with a macro scripting program called “Auto Hotkeys” (I’m pretty sure it was this program) a year or so ago for this purpose, but didn’t take it very far. I think it has some potential as it even captures mouse movements etc. Creating some scripts to very specific apps and functionality of a restored system wouldn’t be 100% of course, but it would likely point out any glaring errors. For example,I was thinking it could create documents in the word processor, create/manipulate an excel worksheet, create/manipulate a drawing/image processing program, some internet browsing, do some file manipulation across multiple disk, likely create specific network traffic, etc. Then a simple batch program could compare the end results at the file level and provide a report, and/or a person could examine the file manipulations, any error/event logs, and so on. As I recall, I think the problem I became concerned with is if the human interface devices were changed (display, video card, sound, keyboard, mouse) the results of running a macro script created under one configuration might have significantly different results under a different configuration.

If Auto Hotkey doesn’t work out, perhaps some other macro creation program would. I recall I looked at a few others, but AH seemed to be the easiest to use and most reliable.

One might also want to explore using a great freeware/donationware program like SIW by Gabriel Topala before and after a backup/restore test, create a comprehensive system hardware and software topology report, and compare the two reports for any obvious discrepancies that would lead to functionality issues.

I pretty much let the effort drop away as I had some medical problems and had to prioritize.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/AutoHotkey_d4422.html
http://www.autohotkey.com/

http://www.majorgeeks.com/SIW_System_Info_d4387.html
http://www.gtopala.net/

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You are exactly right that test restores are part of any good backup strategy. This is true for two reasons, When you are under the stress of losing a machine and needing to get it up and running is not the time to be “learning” how to do a restore. The other reason is that there is a chance that a good image will not restore.

For example, Macrium free has two boot restore disk options. The first is a linux disk that will work 75% of the time. (it has limited driver support for some hardware and may not see your hard drive to restore too) The second is a BartPE disk that must be built using a windows XP install source. (the paid version has another option that they guarantee is compatible with all hardware.)

IF you have made the Macrium Linux restore CD and after you lose your machine you find that it will not see your hardware, you are in trouble. Unless you have a lot of time, another machine and the full Windows XP install CD you have no way of restoring.

Of course if you have done a test restore on your machine, you know exactly what to expect and what procedures you need to follow and the chances of doing something stupid that may endanger your data are much lower.

Your drive for a restore test should not need to be terabyte size unless you have a huge amount of data and have not partitioned the data separate from the OS. I would try to keep my OS partition to a MAX of 100gb with most systems operating nicely in the 20-30gb range…..
This should be the ONLY partition you need to do a full test restore on as the rest is just data files and you can physically test by mounting the image and opening the files themselves.

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…Unless you have a lot of time, another machine and the full Windows XP install CD you have no way of restoring….

Although I haven’t seen any problem on various machines, when I’ve had to restore a volume, and when I’ve done my tests (for consistency) I’ve always just used a years-old basic no-frills “restoration” machine that I know works with both DIXML and Macrium Reflect boot media. It’s used to restore the original volume, and then I physically transfer the restored volume to the target system.

I also have Windows XP installed on the “restoration” machine and can just use the applications themselves to restore the data if I ever do run into problems. A friend’s machine would work just as well in this regard by simply installing the applications.

edit1: clarify and add the bits about using an “obsolete” machine or a friend’s machine.

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You are exactly right that test restores are part of any good backup strategy. This is true for two reasons, When you are under the stress of losing a machine and needing to get it up and running is not the time to be “learning” how to do a restore. The other reason is that there is a chance that a good image will not restore.

I couldn’t agree with you more, which is why I tossed out Acronis when their tech support dinked around for three weeks, trying to figure out why I wasn’t able to do a bare metal restore of my WinXP system. Acronis may be fine with simple PC configs but if you have a complex system (I do) then it does a very poor job of a full system restore, if you can manage one at all. After three weeks of going back and forth with their TS (this was a test run to see how well their bare metal restore did), I finally thanked them for their time, cut my losses and chucked the brand new software. Ended up going with Storagecraft’s ShadowProtect Desktop Edition, although it doesn’t provide all the functions the first poster needs. They do have other more robust offerings for backups but I’m guessing those would be pricey. Here’s their web site, in case anyone is interested:
Storagecraft
I have had to do three standalone system restores on two PCs and all worked flawlessly. I have no financial involvement with the company but it’s great to have reliable backup software I don’t need to babysit.

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I personally would not mess with dual boot as a test although this is only personal preference. I would instead opt for a small second (or 3rd, 4th…) drive. I would do the original test restore right in the beginning with a new machine and would pull the power from all drives accept my test restore drive so the machine would present only a single drive. This allows you to test with a blank unformatted drive which would the most closely simulate a bare metal restore and should be the lowest level at which you could expect an image to work. (the lowest level of all is a completely different hardware platform but I don’t think that discussion is for this thread…..)

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Does anybody have any experience with Bounceback Essentials ($29.95) ? They advertise “Instant Recovery”, that is, you are supposed to be able to boot your PC from the backup external USB disk. It also sounds easy to test; just boot from the backup disk and see if the system comes up, but I haven’t yet decided if I want to spend $29.95 to find out. Information at:

http://www.cmsproducts.com/detail.aspx?ID=1354

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Does anybody have any experience with Bounceback Essentials ($29.95) ? They advertise “Instant Recovery”, that is, you are supposed to be able to boot your PC from the backup external USB disk. It also sounds easy to test; just boot from the backup disk and see if the system comes up, but I haven’t yet decided if I want to spend $29.95 to find out.

I’d try freeware XXclone and or HDclone first, depending on specific requirements.

The freeware version of HDclone has some speed, interface, and other restrictions that are removed when you successively upgrade from the “basic edition” to several non-free versions. For example, the freeware version of HDclone requires that the clone disk be larger than than the source disk and the data interface and transfer speeds are artificially reduced. The author sees the free HDclone “Basic Edition” primarily as a system migration facilitating tool…kind of like a crippled version of MaxBlast I suppose.

“XXclone” also creates a bootable backup of the system disk. I haven’t tried it on Win7 but it was reliable in my earlier experiences.

If something happens to your system disk you simply swap the bootable backup drive into the system and you’re up and running in just a few minutes.

http://majorgeeks.com/XXCLONE_d5534.html
http://www.pixelab.com/

http://majorgeeks.com/HDClone_Free_Edition_d3809.html
http://www.miray.de/

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The problem with booting a replacement PC is the replacement hardware may resist either your boot disk, or your restored image. I tend to work on the basis that I can restore to my existing hardware in the event of minor failures, but I can always recover my data no matter what. As a result I have 2 backups.
1. Image backup every month or so to an external disk.
2. Data backup daily to an external disk that I can attach to a new PC via either USB/SATA or network.

FWIW I pay for a backup program because my data is worth a whole lot more than the $50 I paid for the software – I use Acronis.

cheers, Paul

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It’s used to restore the original volume, and then I physically transfer the restored volume to the target system.

That is a great idea and an angle I never thought of pursuing.

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Hello good people. I’ve been reading the back up & recovery threads on this wonderful site for about a week. Understand that my computer skills I consider to be “adolescent”, meaning that I know just enough to get myself in trouble. I too am trying to find great imaging & data back up software. After reading through a lot of posts I don’t understand why the Windows backup & restore that comes with Windows is a bad place to start. Does the Windows back up & restore not work?

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Windows7 backup and restore is a fine place to start. Be sure you tell it to create a system image and if you do not have the original windows install disk, have it make a recovery CD.

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Good morning, Phillip.

You asked : Does the Windows back up & restore not work?

It does. The only drawback is that it creates the BU on the same HD, namely the C:. If it dies on you, all die….. no BU.

I really have not looked into this app, methinks that there ought to be an option to BU to a USB HD. This is my way of doing BU, to a USB HD. Remember that you only need an outside HD large enough for your data, ie: if you have 200 GBs on a 500 GBs HD, you can BU to a 250 GBs USB HD, I even think that if you use Acronis, it would compress the 200 GBs into a 160 GBs USB HD.

The main argument here is: BU to an external medium.

Have a gorgeous week. JP.

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Jean,

Really… Have you tried it?

I have several running happily on USB drives. (they are all Win 7 professional)

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Mercyh,

Please expand on your reply. Do you have several different Windows 7 machines all of which backup using the Windows 7 backup to the SAME USB external disk drive? And can you keep several successive copies on this USB external drive? That’s what I want to do, but haven’t tried to figure it out yet.

And is there any way to test the Windows 7 restore to see that it works?

Thanks for any response.

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I have setup several of my homesmall business customers using Win7 backup to either separate internal hard drives or USB drives (one machine per drive, on Business or Ultimate versions can backup to network shares). These would be in offices that only have one or two machines. I use scheduling so this happens automatically. Windows does a nice job of managing the disk space. It will only allow the disk to get to a certain percentage of usage and then changes how many backups are saved. I have told my customers to contact me if the the notification area (flag in the tray by the clock) shows a problem with backups. I also log in on a weekly schedule and check that backups are working correctly and that I can see the files. I do test restores of a single file on a monthly basis. (This is my full service package).

I try to balance manual intervention (which seems to not get done after a month or so) with some way to have monitored backups. Backups WILL fail and the only way to ensure that you have a backup when you need it is to do it manually or monitor it.

Things I like about Win7 backup…..

Each backup can have an image. This is something nontech home users have never had in the past.

The scheduler works well. (I have never seen one fail because of scheduler issues. You do need to setup a different user for it or use the Admin user as if the user changes their password it will break the scheduler.)

The notification works well. It does not send so many notices that it gets ignored but will notify on missed jobs or file errors.

Disk space management works pretty good. It will not allow the disk to fill completely up and cause the backup to fail completely.

Built right into the OS so I as a tech do not have to try and sell my customer another piece of software for something that they feel is “I don’t know if I’ll ever use”

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I had one customer that did their own monitoring (they watched the notification area and would check the hard drive now and then to make sure new files were being created.)

This setup ran for about 4 months and they got a virus. I tried one cleaning pass and suspected a rootkit (this took about 1.25hr). I then decided to do a restore from image. 45 minutes later the machine was restored to the former evening at 11:30pm and everything was good.

This was using only Win 7 backup with very minimal monitoring (I recommend a little better monitoring and a little more testing but it worked flawlessly in this case.)

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I’ve completed one manual disk image and one automatic back up to an external hard drive. I’m pretty sure that the Windows back up did both data & image during the automatic back up. I say “pretty sure” because it took me a few minutes to open the folder & see that there is actually data in it. If I right click on the file backup icon on the external HD and then click on properties it reads :
Size: 0 bytes
Size on disk: 0 bytes
Contains: 0 Files, 0 folders.

However double clicking on the file backup icon & choosing Manage Windows Backup disk space shows a 100GB Data file backup and a system image of 225GB.

I did receive an error message that said that my Quickbook files were not backed up. Thought that was really strange. Any idea why Quickbook files would not backup?

Is there a way to verify the backup in Windows?

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Is there a way to verify the backup in Windows?

Philip,
Hello… Sorry to be a “nag” (not really ) but forget “Windows Backup” if you don’t want to buy a 3rd party Imaging software … Use “Macrium Reflect Free” http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp (great free Imaging program) Burn the recovery disk and use it …. It will backup everything on your “OS” and with compression . No problems… and you can even “mount” the Image and do a “verify” . “Windows Imaging ” is a waste of time…. (Waiting for the screaming to stop) Regards Fred

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Philip,
Hello… Sorry to be a “nag” (not really ) but forget “Windows Backup” if you don’t want to buy a 3rd party Imaging software … Use “Macrium Reflect Free” http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp (great free Imaging program) Burn the recovery disk and use it …. It will backup everything on your “OS” and with compression . No problems… and you can even “mount” the Image and do a “verify” . “Windows Imaging ” is a waste of time…. (Waiting for the screaming to stop) Regards Fred

OK Fred. I’m going to take your advice. The LCD monitor just failed on my laptop. HP is sending FedEx to pick it up & repair it (free too!) Before the Fed gets here I’ll use the Macrium and image the HD to an external HD. Then reformat the drive before it leaves my home. If it the Macrium doesn’t work . . . well then I guess it didn’t work!

I will keep everyone posted on how it goes. I’ll follow the excellent step by steps that are listed in this forum.

I am not against purchasing good software and I see that I can upgrade the Macrium from their website. In fact I believe that people should be paid for their work especially if the work is good. Anyhow wish me luck.

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You will notice that I didn’t write what I don’t like about windows backup. If you want to see the way I manage the same scenario I describe using Macrium reflect free, see this thread….(last couple of posts)

http://lounge.windowssecrets.com/index.php?showtopic=776749&st=0

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Acronis True Image Home 2011 has been released. It is not free but does have upgrade pricing available. The interface is new, and I believe there is still a bug which I am reporting to Acronis. The bug affects the validate process, but does not prevent an Image from completing and works fine. The user interface has changed somewhat so I will be using it for a while and then, I suppose, redoing my thread about Acronis.

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2010 09 06
Thanks to everyone who made previous suggestions in this discussion about backup options. I have learned a lot and studied the various options mentioned. However, most of the options mentioned as “freeware” don’t seem to be free for business applications. Of course, I could go ahead and use them anyway, but I’m not sure I want to do that.

For example, Macrium Reflect free says it is Free for Home use only; otherwise $39.95 for each PC
Almersoft says it costs $29.
Driveimage XML says that a commercial license for 5 PC’s is $100.
XXclone $40
HDClone 20 euros

I did run across Comodo, which says it is completely free,
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/smb-security/reviews/53047.aspx
but nobody mentioned that, so I don’t know how reliable it might be.

So is there any reliable backup alternative that is in fact free for all uses, including commercial or business uses ? (I have a small business system of 3 or 4 PC’s on a network, as well as a small home network of 2 or 3 PC’s; I would of course prefer to use the same backup procedure on all of these various PC’s (both XP and Windows 7).

(by the way, I tried Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium backup and discovered:
1. I couldn’t select a folder on my USB external hard drive for the backup data. The backup data folder was put in the root directory without any apparent option to put it elsewhere on the drive. This might be workable but it’s not very convenient.
2. I couldn’t make a backup disk image at all because my (old) USB external hard drive was not formatted in NTFS. )

Thanks for any response.

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Regarding “Freeware”: Try this:

Backup & Recovery 2010 – Free – Advanced (Non-commercial
use only): NEW 2010 Advanced Edition – Total PC Protection

Available from Paragon here: http://www.paragon-s…s/features.html

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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2. I couldn’t make a backup disk image at all because my (old) USB external hard drive was not formatted in NTFS. )

FAT32 only allows files up to 4gb. Most of the drive imaging software recognizes this and will split the image. I would view this as another possible point of failure and would reformat that drive to NTFS (unless you are using it on linuxMAC also which may not be able to read NTFS).

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New here. I have used almost all the assorted IMAGE backup programs way back since Norton. I had problems with all of them. Had more ‘bad image’ errors and failed to obtain a good workable restore.

I used a few of the HD CLONE programs free and paid for. The clone of a HD is by far the best reliable method I have used in 10 years.
I have been using CASPER 6.0 for years
It never has failed me.
I have 2 backup HD for each computer. HD are cheap. I get used ones and after testing and cleaning , I use them. I back up mostly to older IDE drives – again cheap.

My backup clone HD is the same size as the master drive.

I CLONE the HD with CASPER. When complete, I reboot – drop to BIOS and set BOOT drive to the clone HD. That is my test. Then back to master boot and disconnect the ext HD

When I trash my master drive and need a restore, I can either replace the HD- swap cloned drive with master or clone back to the master with CASPER Boot Disk. Never has failed.

I clone the active computer 2 times a week. For that computer I use eSATA drives.

The others I use USD IDE drives.

I have a large sata drive in the main computer. I set partitions to the ‘used size’ of the main drive, call it ‘drive c-w7-copy’. I have my program data on another internal drive. I have a partition named ‘copy d data”

I clone the partitions before a major update or adding new programs.
I clone D DATA every 3 days.

Takes a few external drives to provide for a safe easy to run backup/restore policy… but it works great has never failed.
I have the paid for program.
CASPER 6.0

R

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Thanks, Rittenhouse, for your comments. Do you buy a copy of Casper for each PC ( about $30 in a multipack license) ?

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RogerF
You know I am not sure. I think I just installed it on the 3 computers with the same reg ID.? It show as registered to me. I update all 3 with no problems. It has been quite awhile since I bought it. I was running V5.0. Most of updates are free. I should check this out.

Roger R…

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