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Question : Problem: What is the fastest and easiest way to back up large amounts of data?
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Recently my fairly new laptop running XP Home was failing to start up. It would just stop at the log in screen showing "Windows XP Home Edition, but NO USER ICONS! There was no way to get into the system, not even in safe mode. It would do the same exact thing. So I followed some advice from here to repair the OS from the XP cd, which should leave programs and documents intact. When I did this all of my original programs where still there but all my documents where wiped out and then after I restarted it froze up again at "Welcome". So I ended up reformatting and installing new. Luckily I had most of my documents backed up on cds but I still lost some important stuff. HERES THE QUESTION: What is the fastest and easiest way to back up large and numerous amounts of data? My laptop has a 40 GB HD and USB 2.0. I take allot of digital photos weekly (currently 10 GBs on HD), mp3s (currently 10 GBs on HD), and the usual word and excel documents. I was thinking about using a spare 5.25" 60 GB internal hard drive by using an external case SEE: http://www.meritline.com/firewire-usb-external-enclosure-5-25-cd-dvd-drive-hdd.html . Then just copy and paste "My Documents" to the external HD. Will it need to completely rewrite My Documents or will it just find the new or changed files? Will this work or is there a completely better way? This way seems easy to me. Also, Is there a way to make a copy of my complete system so when this happens again I wont need to reinstall everything? Is there a way to do both of these things at the same time? What do you experts think?
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Answer : Problem: What is the fastest and easiest way to back up large amounts of data?
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XP Home Sucks. BUT, most people have it who have home computers and to go pro would cost roughly another $100. One of the reasons I say this is that XP Pro has a Backup tool that will backup to file. While I have managed to use this program by copying the executable from an XP Pro system to the XP Home system, I can't actually recommend doing things this way as you might well be violating copyrights/software agreements/etc. One of the reasons I find that software particular good for the average joe though, is that it does a "system state" backup - which backs up your registry and critical windows files so you can later restore them if necessary.
Windows XP Home seems to rely exclusively on basic recovery options that restore your system to a previous point in time (System Restore). Great... unless you run your system corrupt too long - then you can never restore to the point where things were ok.
Given your description, I'd probably recommend doing just what you're planning on. with a couple of little modifications. For example, I'd write a script (happy to do so for you if you just say the word), that backs up all your data and then I'd schedule it to run however often you want it to. Nightly. Weekly, whatever you think is comfortable for you. This script would copy all your data from whatever locations you want (must specify them in advance) to the external USB 2.0 hard drive.
I actually did something similar for my girlfriend - only the copy is to a network drive, not an external USB drive. Every day, a batch file kicks off at 3am to copy any changed files from her profile directory to the server in a new directory based on the date. She can easily recover any lost files from any date.
Now, the following is really more of a personal preference with an explanation of why...
I would do something similar, only with a firewire hard drive and a device (which I already own) called a FireWire DriveDock - available from www.wiebetech.com. I find this device especially handy because there is NO ENCLOSURE. You can plug pretty much any IDE hard drive into the unit and gain access to the drive. So if you have a LOT of data, you can buy a new 80-400 GB INTERNAL hard drive (much cheaper than the external ones) whenever you need more space. Of course, your notebook also needs to be able to handle Firewire (some do, others require a PCCard add-on).
Of course, you could also consider getting REAL backup software - there's an extensive list here:
http://www.networkingfiles.com/Backup/backup2.htm
And lastly, once you have the system setup as you like, you can get yourself a copy of Ghost or Drive Copy/Drive Image/Deploy Center (basically the same product, varying prices). Then every 6 months (or more often if you like), you can take an image of the system and restore it if necessary.
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