RE: Backup with out a Floppy Drive in XP

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for the life of Me I can not understand why people somehow think I am trying
to back up to floppies.

Maybe I am speaking a different language.

"FrankChin" wrote:

Mars:

Why?

Because after backing up "All information on my Computer" using "Backup" it
asks me to insert a floppy disk so that restore information can be saved.

I've been doing backups since the mid 80's, and I recall doing a backup of a
"20 meg" drive to floppies took 30 minutes. Floppies are slow to begin with.
These days, I have 20Gigs or more to backup on each PC, 1000 times the
volume, so it'll take 500 hours to sit there and back it up onto thousands of
floppies.

How much would 20,000 floppies cost, and think of the room you'll need to
store it, and what happens if some of them fell on the floor. LOL.

There are these additional problems with the NTBACKUP

- I've tried using it to backup to an external HD just for the fun of it,
but failed as maxes out at a certain point, and there's been prior
discussions as to why on this board.
- As someone who's done backup and actual needed and done "restore" of many
years, often, you need to restore ONE or sevral files, as files may corrupt,
or you may mess up that spread*** from yesterday. Norton Ghost allows me to
restore just that one file whereas NT backup does not.
- Often, when HD fails, it's gotten old and bloated, and it'll be better if
you restore the software and data searately. If you restore the system the
way it was, it'll be the same virus ridden bloated system that you got.

Let's put it in simple terms (for a neophyte).

While it's free, NTBACKUP is useless. Backing up to thousands of floppies is
ludicrous in this day and age HD's with a minimum of 20 Gigs of data.

Spend less than $200 and get yourself an external USB drive and a useful
backup package like Norton Ghost or Acronis.

And here's an old "war story"

Years back, I worked somehere (a cheap company) we actually used the old
DOS "backup" and "restore" utilities to backup data onto floppies. As I
mentioned, 20 megs took over 30 minutes.

One time, we had a brilliant idea. Let's try restoring data to a new PC we
got to see if restore works or not. In the days of 5-1/4" low desnsity
floppies, 20 megs backs up to over 50 to 100 floppies.

And we couldn't restore. Why??

One of the floppies was bad, corrputed. We were stuck on floppy "#15" as I
recall, and we couldn't get onto #16, so the rest of the set was useless,
though. somwone taught us a trick much later on to get through this, losing
some data in the process.

And we couldn't restore just one file either.







"Mars" wrote:

To everyone who wrote....

Wow, this is my first time asking a question in a Microsoft Windows Forum.
Not exactly the same experience as when asking in other forums.

Okay, should I start off by saying, " I love Microsoft, I think they are the
greatest company in the world and make the best darn software I ever did
use,.... please help." ?

hehehehe,

So, essentially I'm not a hard core windows geek, and my only experience
with command line tasks have been with Bash. I do remember using DOS back in
the good ole days when purchasing an old X86 with a monochrome monitor was
somehow a step up from my Commodore 64.

So, why am I saying this?

Because I do not know what all these acronyms are in Windows. Think of me as
a neophyte and someone who would like to embrace Windows, and does not have
much patience for silly remarks, unless of course they come from my nephew.

So back to my original Question I was asking:

I have used the BackUp application which comes with Windows XP Pro. It's
free and makes sense to use whatever utilities come with the operating system.

I do not wish to purchase a floppy disk driver, I don't care if it costs
less than bowl of cherries, I'd rather buy the cherries thank you.

Every operating system I have used has a nice quick utility for creating "
disk images " I am looking how to create a "floppy disk image" for windows
xp.

Why?

Because after backing up "All information on my Computer" using "Backup" it
asks me to insert a floppy disk so that restore information can be saved.

I am backing up everything because I am hoping that if Windows XPpro gibbles
on me again, ( This largely do to some sort of issue with ArcGIS Info and a
developer tool set I installed improperly.. I assume) I can simply restore my
system to my latest Backup and not go through the full 12hr + reinstallation
of Windows XP, it's many updates, then ArcGIS, it's many updates, then all
the dependancies updates.

So now that you know I am not an operating system wizard, not an acronym
juggler, not interested in purchasing a floppy drive, that I do wish to
embrace XP and what it can offer, and am interested in finding a nice simple
solution, any takers?

oh Yes, I back up to a hard drive. That hard drive gets mirrored to another
hard drive and all my hard drives get once again backed up to an offsite
location. So yes, my time and data are very important to me.

Please forgive me for not being very clear in the first post, this operating
system is kinda new to me.

Thank you.

Mars
.

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