pc backup software?

[Beer-lord]

Beer-lord, shut the computer down, restart in safe mode and run system restore.
Reboot and run a complete virus scan. Takes a while, but it should solve your problem!

I just use a free external hard drive for back up. The only thing I had to buy was the enclosure.
In fact, I have dual drives in the tower and the spare drive is also
used as a back up, so I have it in triplicate!

I tried that second and it wouldn't work. It was pretty entrenched.
Hard drive space is not a problem for me. I have about 7 TB's of drives in 2 systems with about 2 more saved as backup to my backups. Remember when I said I was OCD?

I'm fine now. But, this is proof that REGULAR backups are needed. And, I'm not a cloud guy so that won't work for me.

[teutonic terror]

I've had the "FBI" pop in on my computer a couple of times and found that procedure most effective.
The new virus, or should I say thievery, I'm not quite sure how to defeat that one!

OCD myself friend!

[zorak1066]

omg.. windows 7 is seriously giving me brain tumors!!!!

I stumbled on something by accident. windows 7 has a built in backup/restore software utility as we already know. according to Microsoft if you do a system image it backs up everything BUT... you can only use it to restore your entire disk if the computer goes poopie. you cant recover individual files...so they say.

ok so what about doing a backup and selecting the c: (full backup)..surely I can restore files from this right? well... maybe. Microsoft says that anything identified in the registry as a 'program' and certain other files like recycle bin , etc will not get backed up even if you say to the machine 'hey! back this up dammit!'. I guess the thinking was to make the backup process faster and use less space?? that you probably have the install disks to recover from anyway?

so what good is it? after much poking around I found a way that they claim you can recover individual files from a system image after all:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24 ... ement.html

while windows 7 is seriously making my head hurt , it does have a lot of powerful things and is fast... but for the newb like myself? ow! OW OW OW OW OW OW!!!!!

i'll probably poke around it this weekend and if it in fact works... FREE SOFTWARE! yeah!

[Crazy Climber]

I used to back up to an external HD using SyncBack software, but decided to switch to Carbonite a couple of years ago, so that my backups would be offsite, and I wouldn't have to manually hook up the HD every month, etc..

Carbonite's about $50/year, but it requires zero effort on my part, and backs up all my data files (not programs or OS) automatically. I used it to restore my data after re-installing Windows due to some corrupted OS files -- it was a snap and did exactly what I wanted it to do.

[zorak1066]

crazyclimber - I'm reluctant to give my computer's files to anyone other than me. yeah I know.. overly paranoid me, break out the tinfoil hat but...

call me crazy - I just don't trust anyone. it would be super easy for them to either send all your files to the nsa or perhaps if they got hacked you would potentially have problems.

[Crazy Climber]

crazyclimber - I'm reluctant to give my computer's files to anyone other than me. yeah I know.. overly paranoid me, break out the tinfoil hat but...

call me crazy - I just don't trust anyone. it would be super easy for them to either send all your files to the nsa or perhaps if they got hacked you would potentially have problems.

Understood, zorak. That is something I considered before signing up. I weighed the risks and potential impacts, and decided I was comfortable enough with it. But that's something everyone needs to do on their own, and everyone's answer will be different.

[DaYooper]

I do a twof-fold backup. One goes to a spare HD in my machine of my major doc/work files. I use Second Copy for that which does it automatically (but isnt free). The other is to the cloud. My thought is that if the house burns down a local backup is going to do me no good.

In the past I used Carbonite until an IT friend found out that there were a ton of files it was ignoring above and beyond what they say will be ignored like video and programs. Since then I have migrated to CrashPlan. They had a free one year trial for past Carbonite users but Ive known many who signed up without ever having Carbonite. I do not know if that special is still going on or not. They have three levels of encryption with the highest being if you forget your pw it can not be recovered. I am pretty comfortrable with that although for a few critical files I have excluded and basically email to myself after encrypting with PKZip.

If you have a friend you trust (or a spare machine) CrashPlan will let you back up (again, encrypted) to their hard drive and vice versa.

Doing an image imho is completely worthless. If your computer crashes it is either a hardware or software issue. If hardware, you will need to reinstall everything anyway on your new (or improved) system most likely. If software, why would you want to reload potentially corrupted software back on ?

[Beer-lord]

For me, the purpose of an image file is that it is pristine when I made it. I agree, a weekly image is only good to grab data from but after I build my computers, I install what I use regularly then make an image back up. So, if I need to use it again, it's back to where I was when I built it. I have another image of all my data that I keep on other drives or partitions and can grab all or part of that image if I need something from it.

[Gymrat]

Am I the only one who uses thumb drives as backups?

[Beer-lord]

Even though I have 1 32GB and 1 64GB thumb drives, I have too much stuff to fit on them. I have lots of hard drive space, more than some schools so I'm good.

[DaYooper]

For me, the purpose of an image file is that it is pristine when I made it. I agree, a weekly image is only good to grab data from but after I build my computers, I install what I use regularly then make an image back up. So, if I need to use it again, it's back to where I was when I built it. I have another image of all my data that I keep on other drives or partitions and can grab all or part of that image if I need something from it.

Good point. When I do a fresh load with the core programs I do an image after doing all the updates and patches. If (WHEN!) something happens, it is simply a matter of loading the image and then restoring the data files and not having to reboot seventy two times for all the updates and patches.