Re: Backup of SystemState - what might it miss out?

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From: Philip Herlihy (foof8501_at_herlihy.eu.veil.com)
Date: 05/31/04 

Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 17:58:36 +0100

I'm grateful to everyone who replied. These are the conclusions I've come
to after studying everything very carefully (!):

ASR is a waste of time for my most important machine, as it is a laptop.
>From the XP Resource Kit:
"you must use locally attached devices such as the following devices
attached to ATA or SCSI adapters".
I've backed up an ASR set to a USB hard-drive - useless. (Very glad I
asked!). Reference:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prdg_dsm_htwo.asp
(Thanks Carrie!)

To save precious time, I want to avoid having to reinstall everything
(programs, settings, etc) I want to use an image of some kind. I have Ghost
available, and for now I'll use that, but I'll be investigating Acronis,
based on the comments here.

Thanks everyone! The ASR disk requirement gotcha could have wiped a smug
"but I have a backup" smile off my face. 

-- 
####################
##  PH, London
####################
"Philip Herlihy" <foof8501@herlihy.eu.veil.com> wrote in message
news:uhL9aiOREHA.2824@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> I've never quite figured out (despite a search) whether backing up the
> SystemState (from within the XP backup utility ntbackup) is quite enough.
> Enough, for example to deal with a disk failure.  The last time I did
this,
> it produced a backup file of 9Gb, which seems to have included user data
> including a lot of huge audio files.
>
> I have the alternative available to using Ghost to backup the single 60Gb
> partition (I now wish I'd split that in two).  Would Ghost be better /
more
> complete?  Does either record disk partitioning information?
>
> I'd be interested in any pointers to detailed information on how ntbackup
> works, because I haven't found much yet.
>
> (any XP Home edition users reading this - be aware you can install
ntbackup
> from the ValuPack folder on a full installation disk, and it works a
treat.)
>
> -- 
> ####################
> ##  PH, London
> ####################
>
>

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