New Back-up drive and software

[kl5333]

I have recently been malware'd. My win 7 ultimate 64bt has a lot of corrupt system files. I have no sound, no backup or restore and lots of other restrictions owing to this attack. I have access to all my files and folders so want to back them up before re installing the OS. Im looking for backup software that will find all the personal files, images and folders over a number of drives and indicate what size/space is required before a backup is started. I can then buy an appropriate sized drive to back up to. I would prefer free but don't have much choice if I want my files back.
Any help is appreciated.

MoBo Gigabyte Z87x UD4H
GPU Gigabyte GTX 1080 G! 8gb WINDFORCE
CPU i5 4670K
RAM 24gb G Skill RipjawsX 2133.
Win7 ultimate 64bt​

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[RolandJS]

Scuttlebutt indicates a number of free and fee backup / restore software that probably will backup whatever folder and file you tell it to backup just fine -- including but not limited to: Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper, EaseUS ToDo, and many more.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

For just data, I recommend FreeFileSync

 

[RolandJS]

For just data, I recommend FreeFileSync

Yes, another good choice! I forgot that one!

 

[Alejandro85]

Backup software don't work like that, you're trying to take the opposite approach.
Backups will consist of all files that you chose, but it's up to you to tell it what must it copy over. No software can know what your "personal files" are (although some guesses can be made).

Since you can still access your files, review them and you can estimate how much space do you need. As a personal preference, I would simply buy the largest drive you can afford, even if it's somewhat too much right now, in the future it may well come to a real use.

Just make sure to never, ever boot into that system again, since your system is compromised. Use it with some kind of "live CD" and copy your data from there, then reformat and reinstall.

 

[Arkman1]

Thank you for the attention.
I was hoping there would be a app., back-up or otherwise, that would search for .Doc* .jp* .ex* .pdf etc. etc.... Silly expectation I suppose, seeing as a *.png search, just on my 128gb SSD OS drive listed thousands of non personal files.
Thankfully I don't save to .png very often.

Will now manually back up my files.

Thanks again for the input.

 

[Paul Black]

Hi kl5333, welcome to Seven Forums,

Other than what Lady Fitzgerald recommended, you could also perhaps use Linux Live CD/Ubuntu Live CD to recovery your files. Any programs that you have downloaded and installed will obviously need to be reinstalled after your clean install.

The only other way is to obviously copy them physically/manually to an external HDD/USB. I would then however run a full virus check on those files immediateley followed by running Malwarebytes.

I hope this helps!

 

[Arkman1]

Hi kl5333, welcome to Seven Forums,

Other than what Lady Fitzgerald recommended, you could also perhaps use Linux Live CD/Ubuntu Live CD to recovery your files. Any programs that you have downloaded and installed will obviously need to be reinstalled after your clean install.

The only other way is to obviously copy them physically/manually to an external HDD/USB. I would then however run a full virus check on those files immediateley followed by running Malwarebytes.

I hope this helps!

Thanks Paul.
I have a daily malwarebytes and BitDefender routine while I am still accessing the PC. I also ran the MS malicious software scan which took 8.5 hours across all my drives (protable included) and all is clean.
I have run SFC/scannow which shows it can't repir all files.
Im going to manually replace those files once I can determin which ones they are, which is another cmd line process.

Again, thanks to all for the advice and attention. I hope I can help others further down the line.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

Special software to back up DATA? Why?

Since the later days of MS DOS, there has been, in the OS, a quick, easy and FREE program that will back up everything but the Boot Sector on any HD.

That freebie is "XCOPY" and can be used within a Batch File, to backup whatever you like, to any other drive or partition.

I have written my own Backup program using XCOPY, which I run at least once a week.
Here's a short sample of the backup batch file that I use.


Rem: Backup My Documents Folder to external HD.

XCOPY /D /S /C /I /H /R /K /Y /J "C:\Documents and Settings\Joe\Documents\*.*" "E:\Documents\My Documents"
XCOPY /D /S /C /I /H /R /K /Y /J "C:\Documents and Settings\Joe\Desktop\My Docs\My Pictures\*.*" "E:\Documents\My Documents\My Pictures"

Echo: My Data files copy is complete.
Pause Press any key to continue


Being a lover of simplicity and efficiency, I've set up my HD so that all my important data files fall into some sub-directory under "My Documents". If there were data files that were located in some other directory, I'd just have to write another line in my batch file, for that directory.

My backup drive has pre-made directories with the same names as specified in my batch file.

I can run such a batch file in any version of Windows, because they all have XCOPY as part of the OS.

I've written backup batch files for many of my customers and they love the simplicity of it.

Good Luck!
TechnoMage

 

[Paul Black]

Being a lover of simplicity and efficiency, I've set up my HD so that all my important data files fall into some sub-directory under "My Documents". If there were data files that were located in some other directory, I'd just have to write another line in my batch file, for that directory.

My backup drive has pre-made directories with the same names as specified in my batch file.

The same here, it does make it so much easier and manageable .

 

[Arkman1]

I'm a little surprised and very grateful for the amount of help I have received on here. So glad there are some good folks like you out there.
I have to admit, I need to stand on the naughty step for a while as I manage specialised systems for my job. We just clone and restore to clean drives if there is a problem. Its so quick and simple, repair and diagnostics is not worth the effort.
At home, however, I have been adding and expanding and moving bits and pieces here and there, and not 'managing' the content properly. Worst of all I did not back up, something I continually grind into everyone at work.
I can blame no one else for my problems (other than the person/s who wrote the malware, with whom I would like to commit repeated crimes of gross indecency involving a large pineapple) and have to take the blame.
So, new regime, when I get this fixed.

Thank you.