can i accidentally delete same named files during backup?

[fireman0175]

Hi, I have windows 7/64 ultimate on a Dell XPS 1640. I back up to a seagate HD remote. My concern is that my camera seems to name the picture file names the same after I upload them to my laptop. I do know it asks me if I want to erase or make a second copy of the same named picture. I think it adds something like (1) to the file name.

Anyway, my concern is that if I have a picture file on my remote backup drive and I do a system backup, could I be erasing files with the same name and replacing them with the new file? Thus, losing important files I had already backed up?

 

[kado897]

Hi fireman and welcome to Seven Forums. I assume that you are using the built in Windows Backup. If that is the case then you will not overwrite files already backed up. The backed up files are stored in such a way that you can have more than one version of the same file.

 

[fireman0175]

Oh great! Thanks for the tidbit.

 

[kado897]

You are welcome.

 

[marsmimar]

Just a bit of info about the Windows 7 backup/system image utility. If you're creating a system image, by default that image is named WindowsImageBackup by Windows 7. If you try to create a second system image, it will overwrite the original WindowsImageBackup with whatever data has changed between the first and second image. So if you want to keep multiple images, the easiest way is to rename each WindowsImageBackup to something else. (I rename mine to WIB-date created; eg: WIB022213.) If I ever need to use a particular image I rename it back to WindowsImageBackup so it will be recognized by Windows 7.

 

[kado897]

What I was talking about was the file and folder backup, but even the image backup can hold multiple images. It reserves up to 30% of the destination disk to hold images and will store as many as it can in that. You only see the one WindowsImageBackup folder which contains the last full image. The remainder are held as differentials in shadow storage. When the 30% allocation is full the oldest is replaced. You can chose to only save the latest image, in which case what you say is true. Some people here, me included, do that as they do not trust the shadow storage solution.