Windows XP Backup Utility

[Chris]

Bill,

I tend to agree with Joe, a mirror would be best. It will always be kept exactly as the main disk. But that won't protect you against some software installation rendering the OS inoperable. You could also use an imager (like Ghost, Drive Image) which can boot from CD or diskettes (get them while they last). You would have to clone on command, but that would allow you to make sure that the clone is in a workable state. But the restore is no where as quick as using a mirror

Chris

Thanks to everyone for your responses. I have looked at most of the
programs mentioned here. So far I like best the way Second Copy
2000 works however I'm not sure that it satisfies the bootable
backup requirement.

Some of the ways of creating bootable backups seem overly
complicated to me. I have not been able to find anything that seems
to work as simply as does Synchronize! Pro X on my Mac.

Bill

Chris

I would appreciate any suggestions for a Windows XP backup utility
that can do incremental backups.

 

[mhbstevens]

ALSO: One of the Golden rules of backup is to keep the copy at a seperate and distant location. By backing up to an internal second HD not only are you at risk of micheivous actions that will attack original and copy disk, you have no protection from fire or theft.

If you do not want to use removable media and want a true bootable image, you could mirror via a network cabel to a second cheap low-end machine.

I tend to agree with Joe, a mirror would be best. It will always be
kept exactly as the main disk. But that won't protect you against
some software installation rendering the OS inoperable. You could
also use an imager (like Ghost, Drive Image) which can boot from CD
or diskettes (get them while they last). You would have to clone on
command, but that would allow you to make sure that the clone is in
a workable state. But the restore is no where as quick as using a
mirror

Chris

Thanks to everyone for your responses. I have looked at most of the
programs mentioned here. So far I like best the way Second Copy
2000 works however I'm not sure that it satisfies the bootable
backup requirement.

Some of the ways of creating bootable backups seem overly
complicated to me. I have not been able to find anything that seems
to work as simply as does Synchronize! Pro X on my Mac.

Bill

Chris

I would appreciate any suggestions for a Windows XP backup utility
that can do incremental backups.

 

[Albert Voss]

Backups come in two kinds: the big backup/copy/mirror of the the whole system with all the programms and configuration files and folders of all kinds, optimally the data stuff on another drive and as a day to day thing the incremental growth of new produced data/photos/downloads/emails etc.

As someone who probably has installed windows some twenty times or so, mostly because some drivers went astray or something like the net configuration would not work, I think the running system with all the installes bells and whistles is an as important backup item as the data. And here the imaging tools are my favorite programm. I personally prefer Norton Ghost 2003, as it is fast, which is not only important per se but it helps doing the actual backups at all and not to "forget" them, because they take too much time. I "copy" my boot/program-partition to another harddrive in a removable bay. This is cheap and fast. And it fullfills the first demand: put your backup somewhere else and outside your running computer!.

The data can be put everywhere: either backuped on another harddrive or cumbersome on CDs or DVDs, this is not neccessary every day of course. I use Second Copy 2000 and so to say "mirror" the second data drive to a second partition on the boot disk for the whole thing and incremental backup at the same time. Powerquest Data Keeper I think does the same . If it is important they can store different versions of documents still in the process of beeing created.

For pure incremental backups even the programm packaged with XP is good enough (I never understood, why Microsoft left it uninstalled in a hard to find subfolder)

Albert