[Option]

Hello,

I am planning to backup my hard drive each week to an external hard drive using Retrospect Express v6.5 (it came free with the external HD). Should I keep this backup drive turned off when not in use to extend its life and protect against viral corruption?

Also, has anyone had good or bad experiences with Retrospect Express? It’s a few years old now and I was wondering if there was a better (more user friendly) option available for free download.

Thank you!

[Elvandil]

If you are only going to make a backup once a week, then it is a very good idea to turn it off and save its lifetime. Be sure to use the Safely Remove icon before flicking that switch to prevent data loss (if the computer is running. If not, just switch it off.)

Drive images are best. They save everything, operating system, programs, and files, and can be restored to a new drive if necessary. With "incremental" backups, only the changes from the previous full backup need to be saved so they are pretty fast. You then have all the past backup dates to choose from if you need to restore (like System Restore). You can also mount the images as drives to retrieve files and folders individually, if you need to.

Most people here recommend Acronis True Image, but these are free (They work fine, but have fewer options, like automated, scheduled backups):

Macrium Reflect
Paragon Drive Backup Express
Drive Image XML
G4U - Ghost For Unix (Platform-independent, floppy or CD)
DiscWizard (For Seagate or Maxtor drives - contains reduced version of Acronis)

It looks like Retrospect Express is similar, but I have never heard of it. The most important part of recovery is being able to access the backup that you made. Images are easy, but if they cannot be restored, they are useless. So use your bootable restoration CD to be sure that you have access to the recovery files and that drivers are installed for your recovery medium. If there is an option in the boot CD for validating the backup archive, use that. It is a good way to insure access to the device will work as you want it to. Boot with it and test it ahead of time so you don't end up stuck when there is a disaster.

[Elvandil]

PS. Congratulations on your foresight in making backups. If only everyone would back up their systems....

[perfume]

Dear Elvandil,
I thank you for introducing the concept of backup and Restore when i joined this site and you recommended Macrium Reflect as the freeware for the purpose. I could create a linux Rescue Disk (CD-RW) and backed up as image to an external Hard Drive.

In one of your recent posts, you mentioned Paragon Drive Backup Express which again is a freeware. My query to you is does the Paragon software need a Rescue disk and how to create one? Kindly help!

[Elvandil]

Originally Posted by perfume

Dear Elvandil,
I thank you for introducing the concept of backup and Restore when i joined this site and you recommended Macrium Reflect as the freeware for the purpose. I could create a linux Rescue Disk (CD-RW) and backed up as image to an external Hard Drive.

In one of your recent posts, you mentioned Paragon Drive Backup Express which again is a freeware. My query to you is does the Paragon software need a Rescue disk and how to create one? Kindly help!

If these programs can be installed to Windows, they can do restorations from Windows. But that is really of little help when the Windows system is down unless you are restoring other drives.

Being able to restore is the most important part of backing up. It is often the part that fails because people feel so satisfied that they have made a backup that they fail to plan for restoration.

There has to be some way of accessing both the backup and the location it is to be restored to. A boot disk does that. The few imaging solutions that have no boot disks are limited in their ability to restore.

Once installed in Windows, the option to create a "rescue disk" will be found in the program's menus and Help. Sometimes, I don't install the program, or rather, do an "Administrative install", to extract the files to get the iso image of the recovery CD without the program having to be in Windows at all.

[Gamajobert]

I have a Ceedo back up HD - can anyone explain why it's used space is 41GB when the C drive is using only 14GB?

[perfume]

Dear Elvandil,
Thanks a lot for the reply. I could get a step by step approach to creating a paragon backup and RESTORING IT, on this website!:http://www.tipsfor.us/2009/04/01/gho...-visual-guide/

[perfume]

Dear Gamajobert,
There is a nice little free tool called "Treesize free" to check where your precious disk space has gone. You can download it from here:http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml .Best wishes!

[Option]

Thank you Elvandil!

[Elvandil]

Originally Posted by Gamajobert

I have a Ceedo back up HD - can anyone explain why it's used space is 41GB when the C drive is using only 14GB?

Why would you use Ceedo for a backup? Ceedo is an application for creating "portable" applications on removable drives. It creates mini- operating systems so that programs can be run in a virtual layer without using the libraries of the host operating system. It is not a backup program. It is an alternative to the U3 drives.

In any case, you should start your own thread for your own problem or question.

[Kenny94]

Originally Posted by Elvandil

PS. Congratulations on your foresight in making backups. If only everyone would back up their systems....

Ditto!