How To Create Backup Windows Xp

Technique

Save Fourth dimension Past
Knowing what Windows XP Home can — and can't — do
Creating copies of your essential files in case something goes wrong
Getting Windows XP to automatically create backups
Have yous ever lost a hard drive? I sure take. Several times. When I had skilful backups, bringing my life and business dorsum merely took a day or two. One time I lost a hard drive in the middle of a topic — and my last fill-in was a calendar week quondam. It took almost a week to recover.
Hard drives are mechanical devices. They go old. They interruption downwards. Nothing you can do will change that.
Y'all demand to figure out how much information you can afford to lose — and so you lot need to spend some time figuring out how to go information technology backed up.
Windows XP comes with a decent backup programme, although XP Abode users take to become out and observe it. XP Professional includes automatic restore features that let you lot bring back an entire dead drive — even if information technology's your C: drive — with surprisingly fiddling hassle. XP Home users, however, take to jump through some extra hoops and take extra precautions with backups.
In this technique, I show you how to measure out out that crucial ounce of prevention — quickly.
Personally, I use a plan called Zip Backup (www.zipbackup.com) for my daily backups and Norton Ghost for occasional total-disk image copies. If y'all can justify the price — $29.95 for Zip Backup, with a free xxx-solar day trial; Ghost runs $69.95 — there's no need to spring through Windows' hoops.

Understanding XP Home's Backup Limitations

When Microsoft fabricated its showtime announcement well-nigh Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Dwelling house, the Folks in Charge had to come with some ways to distinguish the Professional from the Dwelling house Edition — means that would justify the $100-or-so price differential.
They came up with a great idea: They decided to put their fancy automated backup and restore program (which Microsoft bought from a company called Veritas) into XP Professional person, but leave it out of XP Dwelling house.
Oy! Did the offal striking the fan. Journalists everywhere (including me, I must confess) bemoaned the fact that XP Home users wouldn't have a fill-in program, fer sky'southward sake. Habitation and modest role users need backup but as much every bit everybody else.
Microsoft, much to its credit, changed its corporate listen. In the stop, Windows XP Home got a backup and restore plan — a stripped-downwardly version of the Veritas program — but it was stuck on the CD at the final infinitesimal.
That's not the end of the story. Some PC manufacturers forgot to include the backup programme on their XP Habitation machines. It isn't even on the System Restore Disks or hidden on the hard drive somewhere. If you fall into that gunkhole, your best bet is to yell really loudly at your hardware manufacturer; and so borrow an original Windows XP Home Edition CD from a friend.

Automatic System Recovery

The Windows XP Professional version of the backup programme includes Automatic System Recovery (ASR). With ASR, you can reformat or replace your C: drive, boot from the Windows XP Professional CD, and completely restore your organisation to the point of your last backup. (It isn't easy, simply information technology'due south possible: Search in Windows Help and Support for ASR to go the gory details.)
In Windows XP Habitation, the fill-in program doesn't include ASR. If your C: drive dies and you buy a new one, or if you reformat your C: drive for whatever reason, you can restore all your data files — merely that's about it. Your Windows settings are gone. You lot can't restore your Registry settings, so you take to reinstall all your programs. Most (if not all) of your passwords are lost, too.
The real state of affairs is a bit dicier than that. In fact, on some Windows XP Home machines (I'm told) ASR does piece of work. Microsoft is mum on which systems work and which don't, but you tin meet all the news they see fit to print at back up.microsoft.com/?kbid=302700.
Automatic System Recovery is non the same as a Organisation Restore Point (run into Technique 64). Organisation Restore can help you roll back really bad Windows changes — the bits and pieces of Windows that get gummed up can be reset to their original land. The backup and restore methods I depict in this technique refer to information files and/or entire drives, and they're commonly used when you mess up a file across recognition, or an entire hard bulldoze collapses.

What to do well-nigh fill-in limitations

If yous employ Windows XP Home Edition, you accept two choices when information technology comes to restoring your hard drive in the issue of a crash:
Resign yourself to the fact that if your C: drive crashes, you may have to reinstall all your programs, and reconstructing your organization is going to exist hairy.
Purchase a good disk-imaging package, such as Norton Ghost(www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ ghost_personal/), and run it regularly.
Windows XP Professional users, on the other manus, tin can feel pretty (but non completely) comfy that ASR can restore an unabridged hard drive.

Manually installing the fill-in plan

If yous have Windows XP Home, you have to manually install the Veritas backup/restore program:
7. Put the Windows XP Dwelling house CD in your CD drive.
Windows shows you its installation splash screen in Figure lx-ane.

• Figure 60-i: Where practice you want to go today?
2. Click the Perform Additional Tasks link.
The Windows CD gives you more options.
three, Click the Browse This CD link.
Windows Explorer kicks in, and (finally!) lets you look at the contents of the CD.
4, Double-click to VALUEADDOMSFTONTBACKUP, and so double-click the Ntbackup.msi file.
The installer takes off in a glimmer of an center.
5. Get out out of the installer.
Yous return to Windows.

Creating a Backup

Windows XP backup backs up everything on your hard bulldoze: data files, programs, settings, fifty-fifty Windows itself. It essentially creates a clone of your hard drive, optionally compresses all the files, and sticks them on a backup medium of your choice. In the best of circumstances, you have enough room on a dissimilar hard drive (peradventure a hard drive continued to your network, or a removable hard drive) to copy your cloned drive quickly. In the worst of circumstances, you may need to re-create to record. Many people just make backups of function of their hard drives — say, data files but, or the contents of their My Documents folder — and burn the backup on a CD.
Most music (MP3 or WMA), motion-picture show (JPG or GIF), and video files are already compressed. Using the compression option in Windows Backup doesn't hurt, only it's a waste of fourth dimension and won't relieve much, if any, space on the backup media. By and large, information technology'southward meliorate to only re-create these files to a backup media. It stops the principal backup file from getting too large, and carve up files are easier to discover and remember later. Music, pictures, and video are all skilful candidates for writing to a CD or DVD.

When you desire to make a backup:

7. Choose Commencement All Programs Accessories System Tools Backup.
The Backup or Restore Wizard appears.
If you have XP Professional, and you want to create System Restore Disks for ASR, you must click the Advanced Way link at this bespeak. Then, from the Welcome tab, click Automated System Recovery Wizard. If you lot're on a Big Corporate Network, cheque with your network administrator first to make sure you don't mess up whatsoever settings that have been put in place for you.
2. Click Next.
The wizard asks whether you lot want to dorsum upward or restore (see Figure sixty-2).
3. Click the Backup Files and Settings option, and so click Next.
The wizard needs to know what y'all want to back up, as shown in Figure 60-3. If you're not entirely sure, a safe bet is the outset choice — My Documents and Settings gets the most critical data, including your email messages.

• Figure sixty-two: Back up or restore?

• Figure 60-three: What do you desire to support?
four, Choose what you desire to back up, and and then click Next.
If y'all pick the Permit Me Choose What to Dorsum Up choice, yous need to be aware of a rather obscure setting in the next wizard footstep. Underneath My Computer (encounter Figure threescore^four), the Arrangement State option includes your boot files and Registry files. This choice is a good one to have in the event of a catastrophic failure.
If you cull your own files, be very enlightened of the fact that neither Outlook nor Outlook Express stores email messages in the My Documents folder.
The wizard asks for a location to identify the fill-in.

• Figure threescore-4: If you decide to choose your own files, be aware of this odd option nether My Computer.
five, Click Browse, and then navigate to a location suitable for the fill-in (encounter Figure 60-5). Click Salvage.
The Backup or Recovery Wizard puts all the backed up data in one big, compressed .bkf file. Several, uh, design limitations of the sorcerer point to its roots equally a tape fill-in program (run into the sidebar, "Backup alternatives").
If you want to go along your backups on CD, you need to put the .bkf file somewhere on a hard bulldoze, let the sorcerer practise its matter, so manually copy the .bkf file to your CD-RW (or DVD-RW) bulldoze. Unfortunately, there's no mode to pause up a .bkf file, so make sure you don't select too much information to back up at once. An example: Say yous support a My Documents and Settings binder and the resulting .bkf file is 600MB big. (That's a big file, merely if y'all have a lot of electronic photographs or music files — or a ton of spam in Outlook, or a lot of temporary
Internet files — it isn't out of the question.) After y'all create the .bkf file, you drag it to your CD-RW bulldoze, work your style through the CD Writing Wizard (see Technique 41), and fire the .bkf file to CD. Works like a champ: You can restore the files and they work just like the originals. Only if your My Documents and Settings folder is so big that the resulting .bkf file weighs in at 900MB, that file won't fit on a CD. You take to brand two backups, each of which fit on a CD. Or you tin buy a DVD writer.

• Figure lx-v: Cull a destination for the backup.
The Backup or Restore Wizard returns, every bit shown in Figure lx-vi.
6, Type a good name for the backup — something descriptive, so you can figure out what y'all were trying to back up, if worse comes to worst — and then click Adjacent.
The Backup or Restore Sorcerer now has all the data it needs and shows you a summary.
seven Click Stop.
Depending on how much data you chose, this may be a good time to catch a latte.
The wizard starts backing up the information, using a sophisticated technique called shadowing — essentially taking a snapshot of files that may change in the course of the backup.

• Figure 60-6: Location and name.
The wizard keeps you lot posted on its progress, and when it completes the fill-in, yous see the dialog box shown in Figure 60-7.
8, Click Close to cease the magician.

• Figure 60-seven: Summary.

Fill-in alternatives

A few years ago, it looked like everyone would accept to install a record bulldoze to brand backups. These days, few people bother with tape drives because they're expensive, wearisome, and frequently unreliable. Far too often, people have relied on backup tapes, but to detect them useless. Unless you're running a big server, tape drives are not worth the trouble.
So what are the alternatives? A writeable CD (or better, DVD) gives y'all infinite to back up documents, only probably not enough room to re-create an entire drive onto a single disc.
If a domicile or pocket-sized part network has room, you tin can place the backup from i calculator on another reckoner(s). This is fast and easy access, but not much good if the whole edifice burns down (perish the idea!).
A cheap and fast alternative is a 2d, portable hard drive. These plug into your estimator via the USB or FireWire port and appear as another difficult drive. Unremarkably, no special software or drivers are required. You simply copy files and backups to the portable hard drive. When you're done, unplug the difficult drive and take it away for safekeeping. Yous can buy simple sealed units with a hard drive and connection cables from any major retailer. Or get a crush with just the example and cables to utilise with any bare hard drive you accept handy.

Scheduling Backups

Yous can schedule regular backups as often as you want. Before you try, though, yous should read my admonitions in Technique 56. If you want your backups to proceed without incident, you need a user business relationship with a permanent password that doesn't change.
Windows Scheduler and Windows security squared off head-to-head, and Windows Scheduler lost. Yous have to jump through a agglomeration of hoops to get the Scheduler to piece of work.

To schedule regular backups, follow these steps:

7. Cull Get-go All Programs Accessories System Tools Backup.
The Fill-in or Restore Sorcerer appears.
If you have XP Professional, and yous want to create System Restore Disks for ASR, you lot must click the Avant-garde Mode link at this point. Then, from the Welcome tab, click Automated Arrangement Recovery Wizard. If you're on a Big Corporate Network, check with your network administrator first to make sure y'all don't mess up any settings that take been put in place for you.
2. Click Adjacent.
The wizard asks whether you want to support or restore.
3. Click the Backup Files and Settings option, and then click Side by side.
The magician needs to know what you want to back up. If y'all're not entirely certain, a safety bet is the first selection — My Documents and Settings gets the most disquisitional data, including your email messages.
4 Choose what yous want to back up, and then click Next.
If you pick the Permit Me Choose What to Dorsum Upwardly choice, yous demand to be aware of a rather obscure setting in the next wizard step. Underneath My Computer, the Organization Land box includes your boot files and Registry files. This option is a skilful one to have in the upshot of a catastrophic failure.
The sorcerer asks for a location to place the backup.
5. Click Browse, navigate to a location suitable for the fill-in, and and then click Save.
The Backup or Recovery Wizard puts all of the backed upward information in ane big, compressed .bkf file.
The Backup or Restore Wizard returns.
half-dozen. Type a proficient proper name for the backup — something descriptive, and so you tin figure out what yous were trying to back up, if worse comes to worst.
Click Side by side.
The Backup or Restore Wizard has all the information information technology needs.
7 Click the Advanced button.
The magician presents you lot with a serial of options, none of which are particularly useful for near people.
eight. Click Next until y'all arrive at When to Support, as shown in Figure 60-8.

• Effigy 60-eight: Employ this step to schedule backups.
9. Select the Later option, and and then click the Prepare Schedule button.
You run across the Schedule Job dialog box, equally shown in Figure 60-9.
10, Ready the scheduling options you want, and then click OK.
You render to the When to Backup dialog box, as shown in Effigy 60-viii.
xi, Click Next.
The sorcerer has you lot enter a user account and password (see Figure 60-10). Refer to Technique 56, and make sure you use a valid Ambassador account with a password that volition work when the backup runs.
12, Enter an ID and countersign, and then click OK.
A dialog box appears.
13, Click Cease.

• Figure 60-9: A wide variety of scheduling options are available.

• Effigy 60-x: The ID and password must work whenever the fill-in is scheduled to run.
Depending on how much data you lot chose, this may be a good time to grab a latte.
When the backup is consummate, a dialog box appears (refer to Figure threescore-7).
14, Click Close to end the wizard.
With a scheduled backup to a removable media (tape, CD-R, and then on), it'due south up to you to ensure that a blank tape or CD is ready when the backup starts.

Restoring a Backup

Restoring a backup is considerably simpler than creating one.
If yous have to restore an unabridged drive, make sure the new bulldoze has the same formatting every bit the 1 you backed up. You tin lose important file attributes if you restore NTFS files to an Fat drive or fifty-fifty an NTFS drive made with Windows NT 4.

Follow these steps:

i Cull Start All Programs Accessories System Tools Backup.
The Backup or Restore Wizard appears.
ii. Click Next.
The wizard asks whether you want to back up or restore (refer to Figure 60-2).
3. Click the Restore Files and Settings option, and and then click Adjacent.
The wizard responds with a listing of all the folders that are bachelor on the left (meet Figure 60-eleven).
4. Choose the folders or files you wish to restore, and click Side by side.
The sorcerer responds with the Completing Backup or Restore Wizard dialog box.
5. Click Cease.
This might be a good time to fetch a cup o' something warm. When the Restore is done, you see a summary.
half dozen. Click Close.

• Effigy threescore-11: Folders available for restore appear on the left.
Backups made with Windows 95, 98, or Me versions of Windows Fill-in cannot exist restored with Windows XP's Backup utility. You take to restore on a figurer with the before version of Windows installed, then re-create the files to the Windows XP figurer.

Alternatives to Windows Backup

Running Windows Backup gives you a single compressed .bkf file. You have no choice. That'due south fine for tape fill-in (come across the "Backup alternatives" sidebar), merely information technology'due south a pain in the neck if you lot accept a large backup that you want to burn onto a CD or 2 or ten: CDs are limited to 600 to 700MB of data, and even DVDs max out around iv.7GB — smaller than most home offices' hard drives.
It'southward difficult to generalize, but consider my (absolutely atypical) system. My Documents and Settings folder, the folder that holds all of my information, weighs in at one.3GB. Fifty-fifty compressed, information technology won't fit on a CD. My
Documents, on the other hand, is merely 350MB — which is no problem at all for a CD. The biggest hog? A hidden folder called Local Settings, which contains my Outlook files (300MB) and temporary Internet files (400MB). The solution for me is to skip all of my temporary Net files when creating a backup. If I do that, the resulting .bkf file is well within the size limitations for a CD.

At that place are alternatives to consider:

Create a fill-in by but copying the files to a writeable CD or DVD using XP's internal CD-R support. You go no compression, but finding and selecting a certificate is like shooting fish in a barrel if you desire to recover it. You don't need to run the Backup or Restore Wizard to fill-in or restore. All you lot do is copy.
Brand backups of the files into a compressed format like ZIP or RAR. As mentioned at the beginning of this technique, I've been using Zero Backup for years, and it's corking. You can choose the maximum size of a single compressed file and, when that limit is reached, you get a 2nd, "follow on" file, then a third, then a fourth. This gives yous backup files that can each fit onto a single CD.
Choose one of the many backup programs on the marketplace. Almost of them run rings effectually Windows XP'southward backup. Norton Ghost is the best of the bunch, and you get an exact image of your hard bulldoze. Veritas Backup Exec (www.veritas.com) will wait familiar to Windows XP users, because the Windows XP fill-in system is based on an old version of Veritas. Backup Now! is an fantabulous culling (www.ntibackupnow.com), peculiarly if you back up to CD.

Source: http://what-when-how.com/windows-xp/making-backups-%E2%80%94-fast-in-windows-xp/

Posted by: broussardandeping.blogspot.com

Share this post