backup software - restore disk

in my system I have 2 hard drives 80 gig each

hard drive 1 has 3 partitions
hard drive 2 is blank at the moment - I want to use this drive to store
backup of drive 1

can anyone recommend any software that can do incremental backups each day
at a particular time so that if my main hard drive fails I can restore it
from the backup by say using a floppy boot disk and it will restore the
whole drive as it was originally from the 2nd hard drive.

I know backup in XP will back the drive up and restore it but only after
installing xp on the computer first.

I want to do it like a restore disk that some pc manufacturers supply with
new systems

I hope I make sense

thanks for your help in advance

chris wrote:

in my system I have 2 hard drives 80 gig each

hard drive 1 has 3 partitions
hard drive 2 is blank at the moment - I want to use this drive to store
backup of drive 1

can anyone recommend any software that can do incremental backups each day
at a particular time so that if my main hard drive fails I can restore it
from the backup by say using a floppy boot disk and it will restore the
whole drive as it was originally from the 2nd hard drive.

I know backup in XP will back the drive up and restore it but only after
installing xp on the computer first.

I want to do it like a restore disk that some pc manufacturers supply with
new systems

xxcopy. http://www.xxcopy.com No sweat.

--
Chuck F ) )
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
http://cbfalconer.home.att.net USE worldnet address!

From: "chris"
Date: 05/19/2004 4:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id:

in my system I have 2 hard drives 80 gig each

hard drive 1 has 3 partitions
hard drive 2 is blank at the moment - I want to use this drive to store
backup of drive 1

can anyone recommend any software that can do incremental backups each day
at a particular time so that if my main hard drive fails I can restore it
from the backup by say using a floppy boot disk and it will restore the
whole drive as it was originally from the 2nd hard drive.

I know backup in XP will back the drive up and restore it but only after
installing xp on the computer first.

I want to do it like a restore disk that some pc manufacturers supply with
new systems

I hope I make sense

thanks for your help in advance


I recommend Drive Image, from Powerquest. Better than incremental backups, it
does a full backup, basically a snapshot of the entire partition or multiple
partitions, which makes for a very easy disaster recovery restore from a boot
floppy (which DI will also create). The images are compressed, and the unused
space is ignored, so you should be able to save multiple images on your second
drive. (Example: I have 4 images taking up a total of about 8gb which
represents about 13gb actual usage.) And you can schedule the backups too. It's
not free, but it's worth every penny. I've been using it for several years.
Works with all versions of Windows. (I have no connection with Powerquest -
just a satisfied user..)
Chris

On Wed, 19 May 2004 16:29:25 +0800, chris wrote:

in my system I have 2 hard drives 80 gig each

hard drive 1 has 3 partitions
hard drive 2 is blank at the moment - I want to use this drive to store
backup of drive 1

can anyone recommend any software that can do incremental backups each day
at a particular time so that if my main hard drive fails I can restore it
from the backup by say using a floppy boot disk and it will restore the
whole drive as it was originally from the 2nd hard drive.

You're referring to a type of backup called imaging.

There are a few commercial titles which will do that, but why not save
your money and just do it for free?

Download a "Live" Linux distro, such as Knoppix http://www.knoppix.com/
and just use the following command from the bash prompt, once you've
booted into Linux from the CD:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/backup/hda-full.img

Where /mnt/backup is your mounted second drive (hdb?).

If you use a filesystem like ext2/3 or ReiserFS then you don't need to
worry about filesize limits either (FAT32 is limited to ... 4GB is it?).

I just imaged 2 36GB drives to a 147GB backup drive, in about an 45 mins.

Restoring the image, is as simple as:

dd if=/mnt/backup/hda-full.img of=/dev/hda

Simple.

Notes:

1) ... It's free.
2) ... It's reliable, and you can use md5sum to check the images'
integrity.
3) ... You will *not* need to install Linux, although you can if you want.
4) ... You will have to do "cat /proc/partitions" to check the device
names of your drives. IDE drives are typically named hda, hdb, hdc ...
etc., while SCSI drives are typically sda, scb, sdc ... etc. Partitions on
hda would be hda1, hda2, hda3 ... you get the idea.
5) ... You'll have a free bootable OS on a CD, that you can use for other
"rescue" operations, as well as the vast array of typical Linux software,
including a full office suite (OpenOffice.org), web browsers, games, etc.

Check out this review:
http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20040303/index.html

Also, if you don't have broadband, you can "buy" Knoppix for £2.50 from
here (UK):
http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/products/standalone/

Or for $4.99 from here (US):
http://tinyurl.co.uk/yctg

Or for 10 AUD from one of my favourite Aussie sites, EverythingLinux:
http://www.everythinglinux.com.au/

It's also on this months Linux Format DVD (LXF54 June 2004):
http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/

Dunno about US Linux print mags, but I assume they publish distos on their
coverdiscs on a fairly regular basis.

-
[H]omer

Homer,

Very interesting information, thats vaulable to me. I was going to
recommend Acronis Trueimange because it's reliable and simple, but Homer's
idea is another "free" alternative, although a bit more complicated. Thanks
for the info. Homer!

Edward W.
El Paso, TX

"[H]omer" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 19 May 2004 16:29:25 +0800, chris wrote:

in my system I have 2 hard drives 80 gig each

hard drive 1 has 3 partitions
hard drive 2 is blank at the moment - I want to use this drive to store
backup of drive 1

can anyone recommend any software that can do incremental backups each
day
at a particular time so that if my main hard drive fails I can restore
it
from the backup by say using a floppy boot disk and it will restore the
whole drive as it was originally from the 2nd hard drive.

You're referring to a type of backup called imaging.

There are a few commercial titles which will do that, but why not save
your money and just do it for free?

Download a "Live" Linux distro, such as Knoppix http://www.knoppix.com/
and just use the following command from the bash prompt, once you've
booted into Linux from the CD:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/backup/hda-full.img

Where /mnt/backup is your mounted second drive (hdb?).

If you use a filesystem like ext2/3 or ReiserFS then you don't need to
worry about filesize limits either (FAT32 is limited to ... 4GB is it?).

I just imaged 2 36GB drives to a 147GB backup drive, in about an 45 mins.

Restoring the image, is as simple as:

dd if=/mnt/backup/hda-full.img of=/dev/hda

Simple.

Notes:

1) ... It's free.
2) ... It's reliable, and you can use md5sum to check the images'
integrity.
3) ... You will *not* need to install Linux, although you can if you want.
4) ... You will have to do "cat /proc/partitions" to check the device
names of your drives. IDE drives are typically named hda, hdb, hdc ...
etc., while SCSI drives are typically sda, scb, sdc ... etc. Partitions on
hda would be hda1, hda2, hda3 ... you get the idea.
5) ... You'll have a free bootable OS on a CD, that you can use for other
"rescue" operations, as well as the vast array of typical Linux software,
including a full office suite (OpenOffice.org), web browsers, games, etc.

Check out this review:
http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20040303/index.html

Also, if you don't have broadband, you can "buy" Knoppix for £2.50 from
here (UK):
http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/products/standalone/

Or for $4.99 from here (US):
http://tinyurl.co.uk/yctg

Or for 10 AUD from one of my favourite Aussie sites, EverythingLinux:
http://www.everythinglinux.com.au/

It's also on this months Linux Format DVD (LXF54 June 2004):
http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/

Dunno about US Linux print mags, but I assume they publish distos on their
coverdiscs on a fairly regular basis.

-
[H]omer

On Thu, 20 May 2004 02:04:20 +0000, Edward A. Weissbard wrote:

Very interesting information, thats vaulable to me. I was going to
recommend Acronis Trueimange because it's reliable and simple, but Homer's
idea is another "free" alternative, although a bit more complicated. Thanks
for the info. Homer!

No probs.

Here's a more detailed guide:

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/s...artitions.html

-
[H]omer