Community Newsletter: Q&A: How to back up and restore my PC to the exact same condition it was...
- 8/30/07 3:39 PM
I disagree
by santuccie - 9/1/07 1:04 AM In reply to: How to back up and restore my PC to the exact same condition it was... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
While I wouldn't argue against hard drive backups being the fastest and easiest way, I'd like to point out that there is one disaster that looms large and ugly over the nastiest of malware infections...hard disk failure.
Like it or not, EVERY hard drive fails. Most of them last a good few years to several years, depending on use; but there is always that rogue dud rampaging around the retail shelves, waiting to catch a new buyer off-guard. Anyone who values their data such that it is irreplaceable NEEDS more than one backup, and ROM backups to DVD are by no means out of style.
While it's almost impossible to successfully burn a DVD backup while running the bootable environment for imaging, it is simple enough to create the files on a separate partition or disk, then boot back into Windows and burn the media for safekeeping. It is said that a good DVD+R disc, if handled according to NIST standards, could potentially last a century ( http://www.computervideo.net/sep03-1.html ), far longer than any hard drive.
Agree and Disagree
by waytron - 9/1/07 3:40 AM In reply to: I disagree by santuccieI agree that a single backup is simply not enough and the LAST place I would ever store a hard drive is in the trunk of a car. You can test and theorize up the kazoo, but years of practical experience has taught me to not trust any form of recordable media. Over the years, I have had premature failures with all of them. Most people are not going to lookup or even follow the NIST standard for storage of CD/DVD media and even if they did, you still have no real way of knowing if you have good quality media in the first place. So the best you can do is make multiple backups on to different types of media, store them off-site and pray.
To each his own, I guess
by santuccie - 9/1/07 1:04 PM In reply to: Agree and Disagree by waytronYou're not wrong about that. Most people do not take optimal care of their media, but anyone who cares enough to actually make such backups will usually care for them well enough that they should still outlast a hard drive (unless they put the drive itself on a shelf and leave it). Few manufacturers produce poor-quality media these days, and one of the first ways to tell is to ask oneself, "Have I ever heard of this brand before?" As far as premature failures, one thing you should NEVER do is create a backup without validating it immediately. If your hard disk has bad sectors, your situation isn't going to be any better.
That said, I test software all the time, and prefer full disk image backups to System Restore here. Just so you know, I almost always do my restoration from hard disk. But there have been a few times when I discovered that the backup image I had on the hard drive was of a rather unstable operating system, or I had to go further back in time because I discovered a conflict that was caused not by the last thing I'd installed, but a previous installation. In such scenarios, I pull up a DVD backup and load it to the hard drive.
In the past year, I have made at least 20 backup images of my systems. And all the discs I used cost me roughly $6, plus an additional $2.40 for all the jewel cases I put them in.
Reply
by waytron - 9/2/07 4:18 AM In reply to: To each his own, I guess by santuccieI wish everyone took care of their media. Having called on probably thousands of homes and offices over the years now. You would be very surprised to see how most backup CD's, Tapes and media are stored and handled. And the number of people that do NOT backup at all is just incredible. Well we just had one user tell us he stored his backup hard drive in the trunk of his car? Many users do not pay any attention to the quality of the media they are purchasing. Walk into any large computer store such as microcenter, a lot of people are buying those discount CD's and DV's that are floor piled on skids. There was some controversy last year when a storage expert from IBM anounced that burned media such as CDs were only lasting about 5 years. I personally have had very mixed results with CD's that I have burned. I have had some that seem to hold up very well and others that the reflective layer had started to oxidize after only 6 months. I guess we will all find out in another 10 years or so. For now I choose to keep as many backups as possible on several types of media including the use of online backup. I keep Data only backups as well as full image backups. You never really know which will be needed. You would think that everyone would be backing up their computer by now, but I still run into households that have thousands of dollars worth of music and years of photos on their computers with no thought of ever backing up any of it
You people misunderstand--read carefully what I said.
by skip-h - 9/2/07 11:19 AM In reply to: Reply by waytronSeveral have referred to my posting saying that I stored my backed up drive in the trunk of my car. You did not read carefully, what I said was that when I leave town I take my backed up or cloned drive with me. I pack it carefully, and take it with me, but never do I store it there. Stop making me sound like a nut who stores hard drives in the trunk of my car. Again, I prefer a cloned drive which can be booted up in my machine any time I have a problem with the primary drive. Since having tape backups fail, and I mean expensive ones, the Norton Ghost cloning has solved all my problems, I have quit worrying about it since I have used the cloned drive a number of times to get back up and running instantly when the primary drive failed.
Best things to do in my opinon
by sirronc - 9/1/07 3:38 AM In reply to: How to back up and restore my PC to the exact same condition it was... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Sure, backing up your hard drive is great, but you have to remember to do it, or else schedule it. You still have to do the work of swapping out the drives. What I prefer is what I have in my server. I know its not for everyone but it works nice. My system drive is mirrored (raid 1) and my data drive is raid 5 (was raid 50) for redundancy and parity. This way that if anything happens my data is seperate from my OS and is backed up live with no effort on my part. If a drive does go down I can hotswap my scsi sca drive out realtime without even shutting down and my raid controller will rebuild it on the fly. No data or time loss. Some people say that raid is slower. Not true. My system is faster with it, but then again my server has 12 Ultra 320 10k rpm scsi drives in it. Even just a two 15k rpm drives in raid 1 doesn't cost very much these days. Compare that to the drives in most home systems these days. Most have at most sata 3g 7200 rpm drives. A lot are still running EIDE drives at ATA 100. Upgrade to 15k rpm U320 drives and you won't care about any possible loss of speed with raid.
Until something goes wrong
by waytron - 9/1/07 7:38 AM In reply to: Best things to do in my opinon by sirroncMirror drives are great until something goes wrong like a corrupted database and that gets mirrored instantly. Now you have no good backups, just two copies of bad data. You still need backups...
mirror image
by deadkeen - 9/1/07 8:57 AM In reply to: Until something goes wrong by waytronOh dear! Some people do not understand the true meaning of "mirror image", do they? A mirror image is something that is back to front! The true term is "cloning", so if you clone a bad hard drive (HDD) in the first place, you have started the system of cloning (making a full copy) too late, haven't you? You should surely clone your HDD when it is PERFECT working order - not later when it is has already gone belly up!
The only time your clone image will let you down, is if your motherboard (MB) goes down, and you cannot install the clone on a new MB! Even then you can slave it to a new HDD (in the case of an earlier IDE HDD drive) and read off whetever you want to in the form of work you have written etc., and copy it on the new drive in the new PC!
If you have SATA HDD drives then the same will apply, but no need to "slave" them.
Can I also ask the contributors to this forum to keep the wording simple, so that those with little knowledge can actually understand what is going on? Please do not assume that all readers know the terminology that you use!
I am sorry but you are wrong
by waytron - 9/1/07 9:26 AM In reply to: mirror image by deadkeenOne would assume that it would only make sense to clone a perfectly good working drive. But, in reality, how do you know it is a perfectly good working drive. How do you know if every file is perfect? How do you know if all of your data files are ok? You would have to run every program, every report, every function and open every file to verify that everything is in perfect working condition. Some file corruption problems may not actually surface for days or even weeks after the initial problem has occurred. If you talk to anyone who works with Database files on a regular basis, they will tell you that it is very common to have a problem and restore a backup from the day before and find that it too is damage. In some cases you may have to go back a few days of even weeks to find a backup that has clean data. If you have mirrored drives or just one cloned backup, you are sunk. Why do you think that most servers that have mirrored drives also have a tape backup? And why do most companies have a separate backup for each day of the week?
"Mirror image" and ""clone"
by deadkeen - 9/1/07 10:11 AM In reply to: I am sorry but you are wrong by waytronHere we go again . . . . mirror image is a reverse of something - just look in the mirror sometime!
One "clones" a HDD as one wants it exactly the same as the one in your PC - not a reversed image!
A cloned HDD is infinitely better to put back in your PC than one that has gone belly up and won't run at all - isn't it? I have three clones - one of which is in my PC, and the other two are rotated strictly in date order. This means that if the drive inside the PC is unusable for any reason, I can take the latest "backup clone" and install that, and be up and running again in a few minutes . . . .
if that is corrupted, then I can use the previous one - which is only a few days old anyway. This is no different to using different types of backup, as the "corrupted" bit could be on any system of backup!
Surely your worries of letting the server take the risk, as one might say, is no different to doing it at home - any of us could have a fire, or flood or whatever to destroy the records - or are the servers invincible, do you think?
Someone said on the forum they could install the software again anyway on a clean HDD - what a chore!!
I have used this method for over 5 years, and have had to use my clone backup once or twice in that time - with 100% success, so I DO know what I am talking about!
Incidentally you CAN move a cloned HDD to another machine sometimes, but the "new" PC would at least have to have a chipset of the same type to have a chance of the different motherboard reading it, and adjusting itself to it. . . . . Doesn't always work for me, but worth a try, so I ALWAYS now buy a MB with the same type of chipset on it (VIA, Intel, etc) in the hope it might reduce my workload!
So I will continue to do so, and advise anyone else to do the same!
reply
by waytron - 9/1/07 10:26 AM In reply to: "Mirror image" and ""clone" by deadkeenYou neglected to mention before that you had more than one clone. That is fine, I personally would prefer a few more copies, but that may be just me.
I don’t think that recovering data with 100% success only once or twice in 5 years is very convincing. Come back when you have 20 or 30 years experience with all types of data and with hundreds of drive recoveries under your belt.
Backup to change raid array
by subguru - 9/17/07 8:40 AM In reply to: reply by waytronOk, My company upgraded there servers and I got a newer dell poweredge 2900 super cheap in the deal. I have Win XP Pro 32bit on it with all my programs. It is a raid 10 array of four 146gb 15k sas drives. I only use less than 5gb on the array. So I want to backup os and everything and convert it to raid 0 for speed and storage. Will Acronis True Image allow me to clone the 270gb raid 10 "only 5gb worth" and restore it to the new 540gb raid 0 array? This is on drive E: because the server uses drive C: for it's own thing I guess. Do I have to do anything with the drive C: ? I didn't know the the os hides files on it or not. I was hoping to use a thumb drive to perfectly restore everything since on a raid 0 if one drive fails I'm losing my data.
Thanks, Mike...
This best answer has many major flaws
by daleisfflchamp - 9/7/07 12:01 PM In reply to: How to back up and restore my PC to the exact same condition it was... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I'd bark against using RAID array as a solution to backup. RAID array is used to improve reliability, not to undo changes, as per se requested by the asker. RAID array is used as a safe cautions against harddisk failure not to undo changes, RAID array harddisk don't undo change, it only prevents computer from going wrong.
I'd only go with making a drive clone, it is basically a Ctrl+Z of the whole computer system. All things would be reversed. If you clone the drive, say monthly, you'd get a good trade-offs: All patches since the month before would be gone (but that might be a good thing, since the problem might lie in the patch), ease of use (only copy everything back to the original disk or use the backup disk as main and buy a new backup disk), everything is restored as it is before, that's not a bad deal. The only catch is, it is wise NOT to make major hardware modification before restoring cloned backup, although possible I wouldn't guarantee it would work.
"Now you might be wondering why I didn't suggest using an external drive. The answer would be simple. Yes, it can be done, but there are a number of negatives. 1.) It's SLOW compared to native IDE/ATA 133 or SATA 150 or 300 speeds. Cloning an 80 GB drive using an internal hard drive takes about 30 minutes from start to finish."
You should be happy to know about eSATA (external SATA), which is basically a SATA connector (internal Harddisk connector) put outside the case with simple modification for external condition (sturdier connector, etc). eSATA speed is the same as a SATA connection, which is currently the fastest harddrive connector widely available (eSATA support, however may not be available to all SATA enabled computer).
I'd also bark against using a backup software (backup software means software that saves data, settings and configurations, etc only but doesn't make a full clone). They're junks, they makes more wrongs than rights. Making data backup is easier and better, rather than using backup software.
I agree with you!
by spacepirate1 - 9/12/07 11:03 AM In reply to: This best answer has many major flaws by daleisfflchampI can only agree whole-heartedly with your comments. Although everybody means well and wants to help, many of the posts here are based on strategies and concepts that are misguided. The original question relates to the best method for backing up your system in order to restore it. As mentioned in LieR's post, RAID is not such a method. You use RAID to duplicate your original drive on the fly. This method is used for servers. If your original hard drive breaks, you just swap it with the second drive. You then install another (new) secondary drive and begin the whole process over again of running two drives with identical data on them. The RAID controller usually initiates the duplication of data to the secondary drive automatically, or you might have to manually command it to do so. Depends on the motherboard and the settings you've chosen.
If your operating system gets corrupted or screwed up because of viruses or ad-ware / spyware, then your duplicate drive on a RAID setup with have the same problems. It's an identical copy for heaven sakes! So how is it that in such a situation the RAID feature will help? Some of you guys really need to get a better understanding of these technologies before you give advice. Again, I know you guys mean well and want to help, but you're actually confusing the issue and tossing out ideas that do not address the subject at hand.
The proper way of going about this is the following:
1. Make several partitions. If you're using Windows (which I guess the vast majority of you are), create a C: to hold the operating system and all your installed software. Make it big enough. The average user using Windows XP will not need more than 15gigs, even 10gigs will do fine and you'll still have empty space big enough for the swap file. I use a lot of program, so I created a 20gig C: partition which also has plenty of extra space (5gigs at least) to accommodate the swap file. After this, create other partitions (D:, E:, F:, etc) to hold your other data. I use D: for video games, all of them get installed there. Use the other partitions to hold your photos, videos, music, software downloads, whatever. Decide for yourself, everyone has different needs. The best thing is to write it down beforehand, alone with what goes where and how much space you'll need. Then, use a disk partitioning software (i.e. Western Digital & Seagate provide them for free) to set up the partitions. By using multiple partitions you get a few advantages. a) The read head will travel over more disk surface evenly, rather than just move near the beginning of the disk or one particular area. b) You only really have to defragment your C: partition since this is where most of the reading / writing happens. If you defragment and entire partition that also contains all of your other stuff as well, then it will take you all night, if not a day or two. This isn't a joke, I've experienced this myself. People often believe that the amount of space that data occupies is the primary reason behind the length of time it takes to defragment. It's actually the amount of files that is the primary reason. 5000 files using 10gigs of space will be faster to defragment than 10,000 files using 5gigs of space. So, you don't really want to (or need to) constantly defragment picture and music files. c) Because of a) and b) your drive will last longer.
2. After you've installed your OS, installed all the updates, drivers, anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, additional software you need and configured your settings, do a proper disk defragmentation. Don't use the software that Microsoft supplies, it's rubbish. Use Norton Speed Disk, Raxco Perfect Disk, or any other good defragmentation software.
3. Use an imaging software to make a full backup of your C: partition. Acronis True Image is probably the best one out there right now, but Norton Ghost or others will do too. Back the image onto one of your other partitions at first. Instruct the software to make equal files of either 700MB (if you only have a CD burner, no DVD burner) or 4.7GB (if you have a DVD burner). Don't burn directly to the CD or DVD because you might encounter an error during burning (ie defective media). Burn the image file, or files, to a CD or DVD and mark them accordingly. It's probably a good idea to indicate which software you used for the backup. Also mark the date. Some people like to leave the images on the other partitions. But, what do you do if the drive breaks? You're screwed, that's what. Some will back the image onto an external hard drive. But, what if that breaks? Don't rely on a mechanical device to store this, because they can break. By using a CD or DVD it's simply up to you to store them in a safe place. They won't break or deteriorate just by lying in a case on your shelf. If your optical drive breaks just get a new one, right?
Don't be worried about the amount of time it takes to restore the system from a CD or DVD. It's probably faster than from an external hard drive (unless you're using a fire-wire cable), and not terribly slower than from an internal hard drive. If it takes 30 minutes using an internal drive, then it might be 45 minutes from the optical drive. It's not really a big deal. What's more important is that it works properly and your image doesn't get lost. I'd rather wait 45 minutes or an hour than risk losing the image and having to repeat the entire installation process from scratch. That will cost you anywhere from 5 to 10 hours depending on the amount of software you install. You can do it a bit faster on newer computers, but it's still pretty long in comparison.
If you do have to restore the system, then just copy all your emails, browser bookmarks, files in My Documents, etc. to one of the other partitions (about a 5-minute process) and copy them back manually after you've restored the system (another 5 minutes).
I do this ALL THE TIME for clients, and it's the only way to go if you really want to get things done properly. The only thing you need to do after resetting the system, apart from copying back the emails, bookmarks, etc., is install any new updates or patches for Windows or the other installed software, and also run another defragmentation. After you've done that, you can simply create another backup image that is more updated.
Forgot something....
by spacepirate1 - 9/12/07 11:24 AM In reply to: I agree with you! by spacepirate1Oh, and if you also installed the video on the D: partition like me, then you'll probably have to reinstall them to get the proper entries back into the Windows Registry. Back up you saved games to another folder, erase the folder in which the game was installed, and install them game again. Then, copy the saved games back to the folder in which they belong.
Another thing, if all of this is too technical for you, then you really need a professional to do it for you. A lot of people think there is some magic wand method with which you can back everything up and then restore with little effort. This doesn't exist, so PLEASE stop looking for such a method. You're chasing a ghost. This is really a hands-on process and a person needs to know exactly what they are doing. I constantly get people asking me if there isn't some way of just clicking here and there, and kazam!, everything is done for you. I wish there was, but unfortunately, there isn't. You have to know what you are doing and which method is best suited for what you wish to accomplish.
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