Backing Up

[Marco]

I use IFD from a cold boot. Highend has described perfectly the workflow, which applies to IFD as well.
I myself don't use scripted backup/restores, i.e. when I boot from the IFD disk I manually chose Backup resp. Restore, I manually chose the image path, the various options and so on. This because there are times in which I want to change some parameters. I confirm that IFD boots virtually immediately, I put it on a CD and as soon as the BIOS appears and the drive spins up, in a couple of seconds I see the main menu.
The IFW variant allows imaging a live system: it installs a special driver that as soon as the imaging process starts, it redirects all non-IFW disk writes to RAM, to preserve disk consistency during the process. I tried once some years ago but I failed to get a bootable system afterwards - but I'm pretty sure I did something wrong since it was a test purely out of curiosity.
As I said, I've been using IFD for six years and can't recommend it enough. It definitely saved my a## multiple times too. All this for, back then, the amount highend mentioned - a bargain.

[klownboy]

Thanks highend and Marco for that background. I read about the Linux version and using it without a boot disk and how you can modify the command line to suit your needs/options. When you go that route with a modified "bat" file containing your specific command line options, I assume you get immediately into the back-up, bypassing the options screen or is it just preselecting the back-up options? I'm not sure if I'd go that way at least initially until I'm accustomed to the new program though it sounds like it would be much quicker than rebooting to a boot disk. One of the main reasons I'm exploring an alternative to Ghost and SSR is the extremely long wait for it to boot into that Windows Recovery Environment...it's ridiculous (5 to 10 minutes) even on a fast computer by today's standards. I'll assume you haven't experienced an issues with the MBR and the system not booting back into Windows after using the Linux boot file method.

When I purchase, I may spend the extra $9.00 and get Image for Windows since it comes with the DOS and Linux versions though I'll probably never use/install the Windows version...so maybe I shouldn't bother since the DOS version comes with the Linux.

[TheQwerty]

Wow - looks like we have a lot of responsible individuals here!
Guess I should probably see myself out.

Coding things: git

Cloud backups via rsync.

If you don't mind my asking... so where are you storing the repositories and who is your current cloud of choice?

And a question for those creating image backups... are any of you also using full disk encryption and care to comment on how that impacts things?


Thanks for all the suggestions, it's going to give me a lot to consider!

[Marco]

I can't answer about the automation in IFx since I don't know about it, but you certainly better use use it "manually" the first times, just to get familiar. WinRE is a pita and I know it because I tried ActiveBootDisk: definitely super feature-packed, but it takes a lot to boot IFD fits on a floppy, so it's less then 1.5 MB, do your math

Never say never, those extra $9 may reveal well spent in the future... I'm not affiliated with TB, btw.

[highend]

@Ken

I read about the Linux version and using it without a boot disk and how you can modify the command line to suit your needs/options. When you go that route with a modified "bat" file containing your specific command line options, I assume you get immediately into the back-up, bypassing the options screen or is it just preselecting the back-up options?

You can pass any command line options that you like but I prefer to pass everything that's needed to create / restore a backup and then reboot automatically.

I'm not sure if I'd go that way at least initially until I'm accustomed to the new program though it sounds like it would be much quicker than rebooting to a boot disk.

You can create a standard boot CD (through makedisk.exe in the IFD package) and when you've done all steps right before you finally say: do it, you can press F6 to show the command line options, that IFD would use. Note them, create the backup and if everything went right you know what to pass to IFD when you want to script it).

I'll assume you haven't experienced an issues with the MBR and the system not booting back into Windows after using the Linux boot file method.

Not a single time, no.

If you can afford it, buy the complete package. TBOSDT for example is a great tool to help on scripting.


@TheQwerty

If you don't mind my asking... so where are you storing the repositories and who is your current cloud of choice?

Repositories: Bitbucket (free)
Rsync: Strato HiDrive (hosted in Germany, 15€ per Month (500GB, 5 Users). You probably don't get that deal anymore).

[klownboy]

Thanks highend and Marco for answering my questions. One question I forgot to ask is, when you both mentioned purchasing the full package, did you mean with the BootIt Bare Metal as well? I've been using Partition Wizard boot disk version http://partitionwizard.com/partition-wi ... le-cd.htmlfor all my partitioning needs so I'm not sure how much I'd need the Bootit Bare Metal for it's Boot Manager at least currently I'm not running multiple operating systems on my computers. I ask because they have a special bundle price of $49 that includes all their products including Boot-it Bare Metal and all the others we've discussed.

[highend]

did you mean with the BootIt Bare Metal as well?

I didn't buy my package because of this tool. In fact I only tested it a few times and considered it as: I don't need it. It replaces the bootloader and incorporates backup & restore capabilites. It's been over a year since I last looked at it but I always found it a bit hard to use. I don't use multiboot systems as well...

[klownboy]

Thanks, I bought it today through BitsDujour for $33.10 (an additional $5 off). Made some C: and D: drive backs-ups with it. Some of those options could do with some better explanations as to whether they you should use the default or something else. Anyway, I won't know if they work unless I have a problem. I may continue using Symantec's SSR along with Image for DOS until the ultimate test. I ended up using the CUI not the GUI version due to a lockup, but I think I know why now and could go back to the GUI version. Thanks again.

[stanmarsh]

i use roadkill's unstoppable copiers, i usually do backups once every few months, i only backup a single folder (user files) on external hdd, i delete the old backup, then create a new backup, reading this thread i really need to improve my backup process.

@highend

hello sir, i have never tried imaging before because it looks intimidating, but your post using FARR then typing "re" caught my interest. would you mind sharing your process/script?

and can i image only a single folder like doing backup?

TIA

merci!

[highend]

IFD/IFL/IFW all create / restore an image of a partition, not a single folder... and imho it doesn't make much sense if they'd behave differently (because normal backup applications are there to backup / restore "normal" files / folders).

Regarding the process:
I've modified a few TBOSDT files that create a system specific .bat file for me. Depending on the current installed OS.
So if I'm currently using e.g. Windows 7, my setupifl.bat takes the content of the files "Backup_Windows_7" and
"Restore_Windows_7" (which contain the necessary command line parameters for IFL) and creates new .bat files
that I can execute on this computer.

I'll compile these files with Quick Batch File Compiler because I've told FARR not to show any .bat files (have too many of them).

When I execute "restore(.exe)" from FARR, the computer shuts down, restarts into IFL and restores the image file named
"D:\Backup\Windows_7.tbi to my system partition.

When I setup a new computer (and buy IFL + TBOSDT for it), I just copy my TBOSDT folder to it, execute my setupifl.bat
and after answering 2 questions (netbios name of the pc + backup or restore), the necessary scripts that are tailored to
this pc will be created.

It takes some time to customize things in "such" detail but I really like automating things

[stanmarsh]

tyvm highend for the detailed instruction! i will try to recreate it myself!

thank you!

[aliteralmind]

A month or so ago, I had my first true hard drive failure (terabyte! luckily recovered everything), followed a few days later by my five-year-old computer, which just wouldn't turn on anymore...not even the initial BEEP. So much for the recovery disk.

I now have a four year contract with crashplan, which is only around four bucks a month. Once a day, or whenever I press a button, it backs up my computer to both an external hard drive and to their servers. It also backs up my wife's laptop to MY computer...which is then backed up to those other two places. Pretty neat. All included in the four bucks. My wife's only got a couple gigs of critical data, I've got a few hundred gigs. Much of it music...including 38 gigs of Billy Joel *audio*, thank you very much

I also backup individual critical things to bitbucket, which is a Git repository, which is normally used for version control and branching of programming projects. For example, my XY configuration (C:\Users\aliteralmind\AppData\Roaming\XYplorer\) is a Git repository. Whenever I make any significant change, I save its configuration, shut down XY (not sure if shutting down is critical, but I'm nervous something might not be fully saved...), then in a shell/command prompt, I go to that directory and run either the following script with something like

git_add_commit_push_master.bat "Added custom toolbar button for custom layouts"

Code: Select all

REM For use in all project sandboxes.
REM Save this in the project's root directory,
REM with the name:
REM    git_add_commit_push_master.bat

;set branch=%1
;set commit_msg=%2
set branch=master
set commit_msg=%1

REM ECHO The commit message is the one and only command-line parameter.
REM ECHO About to do
REM ECHO 1.  git add --all :/
REM ECHO 2.  git commit -m "%commit_msg%"
REM ECHO 3.  git push -u origin %branch%
REM PAUSE Press a key to proceed.

git add --all :/
REM PAUSE
git commit -m %commit_msg%
REM PAUSE
git push -u origin %branch%

Or more often just call the following script with no command-line parameters:

git_add_commit_push_master_quick.bat

Code: Select all

call git_add_commit_push_master.bat "Quick save (no message)"

To quickly get to any repository's directory I have an item in my XY catalog to copy it:



For example:



I am starting to use Listary in place of these catalog items (Although it's really annoying in Listary, to have to use the right arrow between selecting the file and action to take...two right-hand movements of around five inches, each time you use it. The author says the upcoming version will make this easier.)

Even though I likely don't need versioning (and definitely don't need branching!) for my XY configuration, it's nice to know older versions are out there in case I backup something that's truly messed up. Every now and then I just completely recreate the repository, to obliterate old versions (keeping track of every version, git repositories can balloon in size).

What's beautiful about this is that everything is offline. Dropbox and mediafire and similar cloud tools are always online...always attached to your computer, so if you're hit with something like crypto locker or some bad virus, then your dropbox--all of your backups!!--are immediately infected as well. For me this is an obvious dealbreaker, and I would be surprised if a "disconnect every time" version wasn't eventually offered. With crashplan and bitbucket (and github, etc.), they're backed up and then immediately disconnected, each time, which is so much safer.

[tux.]

So what software and strategies are all of you taking to minimize downtime and data/configuration loss?

Server backups: rsync.
Desktop backups: I just put my stuff into the cloud and use hardlinks to keep it organized.

(While "the cloud" means "a server owned by me or someone else, depending on the data".)

[Filehero]

Has anyone signed for the beta of Veeam Endpoint Backup?


Cheers, FH