Following the death of my laptop's hard drive last month (may it rest in pieces), I'm a little more concerned about backing up my stuff. In the past I've used Microsoft Briefcase on my Laptop and synced with identical files on the family PC. Now I have this nifty new 40 gig external harddrive hooked up by USB to the laptop. It would be really handy to use for backing up my important stuff.

What have you seen/used that is good? What I'd like is something that will work over our family wireless network and work automatically..I'd like to be able to tell it what files to check for backing up every morning at 3:00 am..or something like that.

Thanks!

Bret

Hi Bret
I've looked at quite a few ways of backing up - i use a laptop too... And am at this very moment restoring backups because my HDD died too
I've always just gone back to a nice wee script though - seems much quicker - and doesnt take up precious space on the Laptop...
xcopy "C:Documents and SettingsFePixieMy Documents*.*" "PC2laptopBackup" /e /Y /C /D
in a file called backup.bat and have added as a scheduled task in the windows scheduler plot.

Bret,
A great system is now owned by Symantec called V2i Protector and it does a great job. It's smart software that notices only data that was changed since last backup. So instead of backing up all the data again it only does the changed data. We use it for all of our systems and run a server for back ups to go to. You can download a trial at symantec. Also try searching for data vault software. Kim

eeek - symantec - the above script only does files that have changed - and is much smaller than a whole extra program - and takes zero resources... and of course is free

Sorry Fe, we have used it with great success so I just wanted to show a different idea, that's all. It's quick an reliable, yes it costs but it's all about how important your data is to you.
:-) Kim

Hmmmm...I'm sure the script is quick n' easy, but it is confusing me a bit. Would that work with data on both my laptop and on the other computers on my home network?

As for the V2i Protector doo-dad, I can't seem to find the website for it. Got a linky?

Space isn't really an issue. I have 40 gigs work with on this spare drive. I don't really see the need to use it for anything but back up stuff.

Bret

Bret,
V2i was originally PowerQuest but is now owned by Symantec and is incorporated into their programs like Norton Ghost (http://www.symantecstore.com/dr/sat2/ec … CACHE_ID=0) which I have also used to backup my system. Some of the home business solutions are quite affordable. Good luck.

PS. Bret- did our first geocahce with my boys today and they loved finding the treasure box! Kim

Yep - it'll work anywhere
xcopy "C:Documents and SettingsFePixieMy Documents*.*" "PC2laptopBackup" /e /Y /C /D

"C:Documents and SettingsFePixieMy Documents*.*" = the source that you want to back up
"PC2laptopBackup" = the destination drive or machine or folder where the backup will be

The gibble at the end are the switches that say only copy changed files and copy the directory structure etc - leave them the same.

So - open notepad...
type
xcopy "(source directory or drive)*.*" "(destination)" /e /Y /C /D

Save the file as backup.bat

double click it to run it

If you have more than one place to copy files from you can add more lines to your script in the same file

eg
xcopy "C:data*.*" "D:backup" /e /Y /C /D
xcopy "C:moredata*.*" "D:backup" /e /Y /C /D
xcopy "C:otherdata*.*" "E:otherbackup" /e /Y /C /D

Once you have a script that works you can schedule it to run each night - Start - accessories - system tools - scheduled tasks - new task - next - browse to where you've saved your script - name the task - schedule it when you want it to go and forget it

This kind of script does not delete the files you've deleted on yr PC from the backup so can take lots of room if you forget to tidy up yr pc before it backs up each night.

There we go - one free backup program coming right up huh?

I'll have to check that out, Fe Pixie. Interesting.

I've been using Acronis True Image, but it's a lot like Ghost. So far, I've only been doing complete hard drive backups to image files, and wouldn't be recommended for your case. The pro is that if the hard drive failed, I could restore the whole thing w/o any reinstallation of software. The con is it takes up a lot of space and additional backups for changes don't replace the original file (adds on), so there's waste w/ redundancy. I haven't looked at the latest versions of Symantec, so I'll be checking that out as well. Glad you guys brought this up.

Yeah well - disk space used to be way smaller and there wasn't flash programs to do it once upon a time - what works works forever anywhere if you do it basic - no $ no renewals bla bla bla... I've around 400g of other s**t to handle without another program taking up useless space

there is also a script available called robocopy that the boys in the shop use for the server backups - much the same thing - hunt it out if you're interested...