Backup User and System Files

zx81 · 30 Oct 2009

Brink,

Thank you for your nice tutorial, it worked almost like it should ;-)
I came across one minor error, I had included a folder from my backup drive in a library. In this case my library MUSIC, included a folder on the external backup drive,
this resulted in an error when I started the backup.
My solution was to remove the folder from the MUSIC library.

Now everything works fine!

One small question, does backup support incremental backups? When are backups overwritten? I mean what happens when my external backup drive is full?

Thanks in advance!

Have a nice day,

zx81

Brink · 30 Oct 2009

zx81,

These are incremental backups. If you run out of space, then you will get a out of space error and will just need to delete these backups and start over on the backups.

papaSmurph · 03 Nov 2009

hi Brink... curious really, any idea why the 7 Home Premium doesn't support backing up to an external network drive like Vista HP did? i actually didn't notice that feature difference and now have 7 HP on a laptop.... am i missing something, or can 7 HP really not back up to a network drive? (if that's true, i have found my first and only gripe!)

Brink · 03 Nov 2009

Hello Papa Smurph,

Sorry, but only the Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions can backup to a network location.

Compare Windows 7 Editions

papaSmurph · 03 Nov 2009

hmph! well i guess i was right to begin with, but i just can't imagine WHY they would have dropped that feature from a HOME premium edition when so many home users these days are using wireless networks and a much-hyped feature of 7 was the ease of network connectivity. Oh well, i guess i can use this copy of Acronis True Image.. but dropping that feature is a real head-scratcher to me.

Brink · 03 Nov 2009

They want you spend more to get get Professional (Business) or Ultimate instead.

Skibumtx · 07 Nov 2009

Brink said:

zx81,

These are incremental backups. If you run out of space, then you will get a out of space error and will just need to delete these backups and start over on the backups.

Really? Incremental only? Not Full or Differential?

I must be misunderstanding your meaning here or not seeing some options in Win 7 Professional Backup and Restore. I don't see any options in Backup and Restore for the backups to be anything but Full or an Image.

Incremental implies that you are only backing up the changes since your last incremental or full backup, whichever came later. This means that if you need to restore data (not system files) that you have to restore your last full backup and all of the incrementals, in order, to get back to where you began.

Differential backup would be the changes since your last Full Backup. Therefore a full restore would consist of restoring your last full backup and only the last differential.

In either case the a FUll Backup is required as a starting point to restore your data.

Backups do NOT restore your system files, only images do. I would love to have the capability to save an image and then just perform Differentials off of the image but I'm not aware of any software that can do this. An alternative would be to save an image of ONLY the system files and then perform backups of everything else but I'm not aware of any way to do this either.

Ski

Brink · 07 Nov 2009

Hello Ski, and welcome to Seven Forums.

When you save a backup to the same location the first time, it saves what you selected to be backed up as a full backup. Everytime you run this backup to be saved at the same location after the first time, the backup will be saved incrementally for what has changed from the previous backups and the current new one.

This backup does give you the option to backup and restore system files as well as user files. Try it and you will see them listed in the backup. :)

A system image backup is basically a restorable clone of the selected drives or partitions backed up instead. It's not for backing up and restoring individual files.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Skibumtx · 08 Nov 2009

Thanks fpr the clarification. So, unless you change the name of the backup file, you will not have more than one backup but the existing file will be incrementally changed to reflect differences?

And are you also saying that if my HDD dies and I replace it with new drive, that is at least as large as the original, that I would be able to totally restore OS, MBR, systems files, applications, registry, etc from the latest backup?

If this is true, I'm going to get rid of my Acronis Software.

Thanks,
Ski

Brink · 08 Nov 2009

Ski,

You would only have one backup at the same location. You would not want to rename or move it. Doing so will make it unrestorable. You can still have multiple incremental backups if each one is saved in a different location.

The replacement drive would need to be at least a little bit larger than what was backed up in the image. It will restore all of that to how it was when the last incremental system image backup was created. :)

It still would not be a bad idea to have a backup from the Acronis program to be extra safe though.