Guest J Posted July 15, 2007 Posted July 15, 2007 I am backing up My Documents to an external hard drive. I installed ntbackup from my Win XP Home CD. However, the icon it backs up to does not look like a folder. Am I better off just dragging the folder over instead of using this utility? Also, how do you import if from the external disk if I ever had to? Thanks, John
Guest Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] Posted July 15, 2007 Posted July 15, 2007 Re: Back up J <j_thinkpad@msn.com> wrote: > I am backing up My Documents to an external hard drive. I installed > ntbackup from my Win XP Home CD. However, the icon it backs up to > does not look like a folder. > Am I better off just dragging the folder over instead of using this > utility? Also, how do you import if from the external disk if I ever > had to? Thanks, > John Not sure what you mean by "the icon it backs up to..." Rather than using NTBackup, or dragging/copying in Windows/GUI, I suggest you try copying the files over to your external drive directly via a command line, so you wouldn't need to do a restore if you ran into trouble....I personally like robocopy from the resource kit... robocopy "C:\documents and settings\myname\my documents"\ e:\backups\mydocs\ /e /r:1 /w:1 Just my $.02.
Guest happymac.support@gmail.com Posted July 15, 2007 Posted July 15, 2007 Re: Back up On Jul 15, 1:26 pm, "J" <j_think...@msn.com> wrote: > I am backing up My Documents to an external hard drive. I installed ntbackup > from my Win XP Home CD. However, the icon it backs up to does not look like > a folder. > Am I better off just dragging the folder over instead of using this utility? > Also, how do you import if from the external disk if I ever had to? > Thanks, > John Using Windows Backup, what it does is backup all the contents in your drive to a single Backup file which is only readable by Windows Backup. You can store the backup file in a safe place and then you can restore the backup using the Windows Backup utility. However, Windows Backup isn't very good in compressing the file into an acceptable size. What I would recommend is: If the contents in My Documents aren't that large in size, then just backup the folder to a removable device (DVD, CD, ZIP, etc.). You can then restore the folder backup by just copying the Backed up My Documents folder back onto your HD. If there is a lot of content in My Documents and the size is too big, then use a good compression utility such as 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org) to compress all the files into a single archive. Then later, you can use 7-Zip again to decompress the archive and load the contents back onto your hard drive. Hope this helps
Guest happymac.support@gmail.com Posted July 15, 2007 Posted July 15, 2007 Re: Back up Also, you can use a number of FREE online backup storage services to back up your files such as: XDrive - http://www.xdrive.com (5GB storage) MediaMax - http://www.mediamax.com (25GB Storage) HTH
Guest Patrick Keenan Posted July 16, 2007 Posted July 16, 2007 Re: Back up "J" <j_thinkpad@msn.com> wrote in message news:%23zoRl5xxHHA.4264@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... >I am backing up My Documents to an external hard drive. I installed >ntbackup from my Win XP Home CD. However, the icon it backs up to does not >look like a folder. And it wouldn't. > Am I better off just dragging the folder over instead of using this > utility? Also, how do you import if from the external disk if I ever had > to? > Thanks, > John ntbackup creates a file, not a folder. You have to restore using ntbackup. ' If you aren't aware of how to restore from backup, then you haven't done one of the necessary steps, and that is testing a restore. A backup that didn't work is much worse than useless. Find this out now, rather than at the worst possible time. Restore that file to another folder, first making a copy of the current My Documents folder just in case you overwrite it by accident. After the restore, open various files and verify that they are valid. HTH -pk
Guest Mike Lowery Posted July 16, 2007 Posted July 16, 2007 Re: Back up "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]" <lanwench@heybuddy.donotsendme.unsolicitedmailatyahoo.com> wrote in message news:O1JWkA7xHHA.4800@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... >J <j_thinkpad@msn.com> wrote: >> I am backing up My Documents to an external hard drive. I installed >> ntbackup from my Win XP Home CD. However, the icon it backs up to >> does not look like a folder. >> Am I better off just dragging the folder over instead of using this >> utility? Also, how do you import if from the external disk if I ever >> had to? Thanks, >> John > > Not sure what you mean by "the icon it backs up to..." > > Rather than using NTBackup, or dragging/copying in Windows/GUI, I suggest you > try copying the files over to your external drive directly via a command line, > so you wouldn't need to do a restore if you ran into trouble....I personally > like robocopy from the resource kit... > > robocopy "C:\documents and settings\myname\my documents"\ e:\backups\mydocs\ > /e /r:1 /w:1 > > Just my $.02. Or, better yet, use SyncToy: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx For a full system backup, I use DriveImage XML: http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm
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