Backup Programs

[Kev]

Hi,

I have a fairly new windows 7 64 bit machine, which came with Memeo instant
backup preinstalled, and of course Windows own backup.
I can't say I like Memeo backup - too many pop-ups, and it seems somewhat
erratic. And I'm never inclined to trust Microsoft solutions, but I might be
wrong.

Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? - free if possible

Kev

 

[OREALLY]

Try syncback from 2 bright stars

"Kev" wrote in message
Hi,

I have a fairly new windows 7 64 bit machine, which came with Memeo instant
backup preinstalled, and of course Windows own backup.
I can't say I like Memeo backup - too many pop-ups, and it seems somewhat
erratic. And I'm never inclined to trust Microsoft solutions, but I might be
wrong.

Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? - free if possible

Kev

 

[SC Tom]

Hi,

I have a fairly new windows 7 64 bit machine, which came with Memeo
instant backup preinstalled, and of course Windows own backup.
I can't say I like Memeo backup - too many pop-ups, and it seems somewhat
erratic. And I'm never inclined to trust Microsoft solutions, but I might
be wrong.

Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? - free if possible

Kev

I use and am completely satisfied with Acronis True Image Home 2010. Even
though there's a newer version out, I have not had a single problem creating
or restoring images with it.

There are free versions available if you have the correct internal or
external drive:

ATI for WD drives
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en
ATI for Seagate drives
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
ATI for Maxtor drives
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

I prefer disk images over backups just from the ease of restoring it. Also,
the retail version of it allows you to create a boot CD to run the program
from so it doesn't even have to be installed to the hard drive if you don't
want to. If you want to do scheduled backups, it will need to be installed
(scheduling is not available in the free versions).

 

[Asger-P]

Hi Kev

Hi,

I have a fairly new windows 7 64 bit machine, which came with Memeo
instant backup preinstalled, and of course Windows own backup.
I can't say I like Memeo backup - too many pop-ups, and it seems
somewhat erratic. And I'm never inclined to trust Microsoft solutions,
but I might be wrong.

Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? - free if possible

This is the one I use:
http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/



Best regards
Asger-P

 

[Asger-P]

Hi OREALLY

Try syncback from 2 bright stars

Thats also the one I use:
http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/


Best regards
Asger-P

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Hi,

I have a fairly new windows 7 64 bit machine, which came with Memeo
instant backup preinstalled, and of course Windows own backup.
I can't say I like Memeo backup - too many pop-ups, and it seems
somewhat erratic. And I'm never inclined to trust Microsoft solutions,
but I might be wrong.

Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? - free if possible

I use Paragon, myself (free):
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/features.html

You can find that and other free/cheap backup programs here:
http://thedatalist.com/pages/System_Backup.htm

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hi,

I have a fairly new windows 7 64 bit machine, which came with Memeo
instant backup preinstalled, and of course Windows own backup.
I can't say I like Memeo backup - too many pop-ups, and it seems
somewhat erratic. And I'm never inclined to trust Microsoft solutions,
but I might be wrong.

Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? - free if possible

I don't know anything about Memeo. I have used the Windows backup, it's
competant, though it produces somewhat large archives. I currently use
something called Macrium Reflect, which has a free version. I found it
useful enough to buy it though.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Zaidy036]

Hi,

I have a fairly new windows 7 64 bit machine, which came with Memeo instant
backup preinstalled, and of course Windows own backup.
I can't say I like Memeo backup - too many pop-ups, and it seems somewhat
erratic. And I'm never inclined to trust Microsoft solutions, but I might be
wrong.

Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? - free if possible

Kev

free Replicator at http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

just have it copy c:\Users\"you" to a b/u location = HDD, external HDD, etc.

It includes a scheduler and can do incremental

 

[John Morrison]

Hi,

I have a fairly new windows 7 64 bit machine, which came with Memeo instant
backup preinstalled, and of course Windows own backup.
I can't say I like Memeo backup - too many pop-ups, and it seems somewhat
erratic. And I'm never inclined to trust Microsoft solutions, but I might be
wrong.

Kev, just a different perspective.

The day I bought my new Windows 7 computer I partitioned the hard drive
so that I had C: D: & E: partitions.

I install only Windows 7 to C:.
All other programs are installed to D:.
Music is installed to E:.

Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? - free if possible

I have two external hard drives and I manually backup programs/data to
each external hard drive alternatively because external hard drives can
fail too.

I never backup C: drive because if something goes wrong it is time to
reinstall Windows 7.

One of the advantages I find is if I'm having a problem with a
particular program on D: with my backup solution I can delete the
program causing problems and restore the program from backup using copy
& paste.

It often takes about 30 minutes to copy the whole content of my D: drive
to an external hard drive but I don't need to be in attendance once the
transfer starts.

USB Flash Drives are also an easy instant backup.

 

[BillW50]

In

I use and am completely satisfied with Acronis True Image Home 2010.
Even though there's a newer version out, I have not had a single
problem creating or restoring images with it.

There are free versions available if you have the correct internal or
external drive:

ATI for WD drives
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en
ATI for Seagate drives
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
ATI for Maxtor drives
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

I prefer disk images over backups just from the ease of restoring it.
Also, the retail version of it allows you to create a boot CD to run
the program from so it doesn't even have to be installed to the hard
drive if you don't want to. If you want to do scheduled backups, it
will need to be installed (scheduling is not available in the free
versions).

I have the free versions of Acronis True Image, Acronis True Image Home
2009, and Acronis True Image Home 2011. And I am not satisfied with
them. As ATI (all versions) has trouble seeing from some USB drives
during restore. I just don't understand how they could allow this bug to
continue?

I too prefer disk images to backups. As I bought extra drives and
caddies and just clone one to an other. Then use the clone as the new
master. That way you know by using it if everything is working ok. And
ATI is overkill for disk cloning. Plus it can't do it live like Paragon
can.

 

[SC Tom]

In

I have the free versions of Acronis True Image, Acronis True Image Home
2009, and Acronis True Image Home 2011. And I am not satisfied with them.
As ATI (all versions) has trouble seeing from some USB drives during
restore. I just don't understand how they could allow this bug to
continue?

I too prefer disk images to backups. As I bought extra drives and caddies
and just clone one to an other. Then use the clone as the new master. That
way you know by using it if everything is working ok. And ATI is overkill
for disk cloning. Plus it can't do it live like Paragon can.

That's one of the reasons I haven't upgraded to ATI Home 2011, although I
haven't had any of the problems you described in any of the older free
versions (before the drive-specific ones), the free drive-specific ones, or
in Home 2010.

Since I don't purposely buy drives the same size (although I have, without
really thinking about it), I don't clone at all. Using the ATI boot CD, I
can create an image, change drives, restore that image to the new drive, and
be up and running in less than 2 hours. That's plenty fast enough for me. A
few months back, my old EIDE drive on my XP box was starting to make some
unusual noises. I created an image (after running chkdsk), installed a new
SATA drive, restored the image to it, and was up and running in less time
than it took me to drive to the store to buy the SATA drive.

I am yet to have ATI fail to perform on either USB or firewire, so I have to
stand by my experiences with it. I figure everybody has problems with
something; that's why there are so many different products on the market.
Not just for backing up and imaging, but for everything

 

[Char Jackson]

In

I have the free versions of Acronis True Image, Acronis True Image Home
2009, and Acronis True Image Home 2011. And I am not satisfied with
them. As ATI (all versions) has trouble seeing from some USB drives
during restore. I just don't understand how they could allow this bug to
continue?

I haven't run across that here. It might be a problem with your
hardware, but that's just a guess.

I too prefer disk images to backups. As I bought extra drives and
caddies and just clone one to an other. Then use the clone as the new
master. That way you know by using it if everything is working ok. And
ATI is overkill for disk cloning. Plus it can't do it live like Paragon
can.

I don't know about the free versions of ATI, but the retail versions
can do live backups (or clones) just fine.

 

[Char Jackson]

Since I don't purposely buy drives the same size (although I have, without
really thinking about it), I don't clone at all.

Clones don't need to be the same size. Acronis TI, like most backup
programs, will offer to resize your partition(s) if you attempt to
clone a smaller drive to a larger drive. Same with clones in the other
direction, but of course your data has to fit the new smaller drive.
(The second scenario is less common, but I've done it and it works
fine.)

Using the ATI boot CD, I
can create an image, change drives, restore that image to the new drive, and
be up and running in less than 2 hours. That's plenty fast enough for me.

Just a suggestion, but you can easily cut that time in half or better
by simply cloning. That's what the clone feature is for, allowing you
to combine the two steps (create image, restore image) into one.

 

[BillW50]

I haven't run across that here. It might be a problem with your
hardware, but that's just a guess.

Actually ATI lists this problem on their website. They tell you to copy
the backup to an internal drive and restore from there. First when I
copy the backup archive to somewhere else, ATI calls it corrupt and
won't use it. And secondly, most of my computers are laptops and most of
them only support one internal drive. So I find their solution to be
totally unacceptable. My fix is to *not* use ATI and to use something
that actually works.

I don't know about the free versions of ATI, but the retail versions
can do live backups (or clones) just fine.

Neither ATI 2009 or 2011 can clone the drive that the OS is running
from. Yeah it can do it live for backups, but not for cloning.

 

[BillW50]

Clones don't need to be the same size. Acronis TI, like most backup
programs, will offer to resize your partition(s) if you attempt to
clone a smaller drive to a larger drive. Same with clones in the other
direction, but of course your data has to fit the new smaller drive.
(The second scenario is less common, but I've done it and it works
fine.)

Yes, I too have had no problems going either way too. Size doesn't
matter as long as it all fits.

Just a suggestion, but you can easily cut that time in half or better
by simply cloning. That's what the clone feature is for, allowing you
to combine the two steps (create image, restore image) into one.

Yes, that is why I moved to cloning vs. backups. As cloning is far
faster. And if you have to go back to an earlier version, it only takes
seconds to swap a hard drive caddy on a laptop. And on a desktop, they
have removable drive bays as well.

 

[Char Jackson]

Actually ATI lists this problem on their website. They tell you to copy
the backup to an internal drive and restore from there. First when I
copy the backup archive to somewhere else, ATI calls it corrupt and
won't use it. And secondly, most of my computers are laptops and most of
them only support one internal drive. So I find their solution to be
totally unacceptable. My fix is to *not* use ATI and to use something
that actually works.

More often than not, if I'm restoring a laptop image I remove the hard
drive from the laptop and put it on my workbench where I have the
proper cables and adapters to be able to treat it like any other
drive. Sometimes I leave the drive in the laptop, however, and in
those cases I haven't had any trouble using an external USB drive to
restore from. *shrug*

I'm glad you found something that works for you, however. It's great
that we have all of these choices.

Neither ATI 2009 or 2011 can clone the drive that the OS is running
from. Yeah it can do it live for backups, but not for cloning.

I'm not sure if we're playing with words here or what. Yes, you can
clone the OS drive, but Acronis will require a reboot to do it.

 

[SC Tom]

Clones don't need to be the same size. Acronis TI, like most backup
programs, will offer to resize your partition(s) if you attempt to
clone a smaller drive to a larger drive. Same with clones in the other
direction, but of course your data has to fit the new smaller drive.
(The second scenario is less common, but I've done it and it works
fine.)


Just a suggestion, but you can easily cut that time in half or better
by simply cloning. That's what the clone feature is for, allowing you
to combine the two steps (create image, restore image) into one.

You're probably right. I haven't done any cloning in years (long before I
started using ATI), and wasn't too pleased with the time involved or the
results. Probably because it was an old program (I don't remember it's
name), or because it was an NT drive/OS, or whatever reason of its own, I
didn't have any luck cloning a drive in a work server and ended up spending
hours rebuilding it from backups. Since then, I just kinda shied away from
cloning, and stuck with tape backups until I discovered imaging. I believe
Norton Ghost was the first I used, and created images on CD. Not very
speedy, that's for sure
Now with external hard drives and a program like ATI, I'm happy enough. I
use two separate externals that I can get numerous images on from both my
desktop and my laptop. If I was cloning, I'd need a spare drive for each
machine just to have one "backup" of each. Thanks for the suggestion, but
I'll stick with imaging. Now that I'm retired, the time is not as important
as it was when I was working LOL (even though it seems sometimes that I have
less free)!!

 

[Mark F]

That's one of the reasons I haven't upgraded to ATI Home 2011, although I
haven't had any of the problems you described in any of the older free
versions (before the drive-specific ones), the free drive-specific ones, or
in Home 2010.

Use the new version- see below.

Since I don't purposely buy drives the same size (although I have, without
really thinking about it), I don't clone at all. Using the ATI boot CD, I
can create an image, change drives, restore that image to the new drive, and
be up and running in less than 2 hours. That's plenty fast enough for me. A
few months back, my old EIDE drive on my XP box was starting to make some
unusual noises. I created an image (after running chkdsk), installed a new
SATA drive, restored the image to it, and was up and running in less time
than it took me to drive to the store to buy the SATA drive.

Running from the clone is a good way to test that things worked, but
it is not a sure way. Acronis and another company told me that I
needed (free) updated versions of their programs to get correct clones
of Windows 7 and 64-bit versions even though things seemed to work.

I didn't investigate what might go wrong, I just switched to the new
versions. I don't want to find that did whatever made the old version
not work and I can't backup when a disk is on its last legs, or worse,
find that something I only use every few years didn't get cloned
correctly 8 generations ago.

 

[charliec]

I use and am completely satisfied with Acronis True Image Home 2010. Even
though there's a newer version out, I have not had a single problem creating
or restoring images with it.

Since you are good at using TIv10, may I ask you a question? I have it and have a problem
managing backups. I backup all my files/folders on a manual schedule and would like to
retain the 3 latest backups. I cannot figure out a way it TI to tell it to maintain 3
backups and delete the oldest on the next backup. Any thoughts? I'm running it on WinXP.

 

[Char Jackson]

Since you are good at using TIv10, may I ask you a question? I have it and have a problem
managing backups. I backup all my files/folders on a manual schedule and would like to
retain the 3 latest backups. I cannot figure out a way it TI to tell it to maintain 3
backups and delete the oldest on the next backup. Any thoughts? I'm running it on WinXP.

I don't remember ATI v10 having that capability, (ATI 2011 does), but
someone recently posted a link to a program called Chain2Gen which I
believe will do what you want. <http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5940>