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Thread ID: 54737 2005-02-20 23:08:00 Backup work folder on to 2nd hard drive Morgenmuffel (187) Press F1
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326912 2005-02-20 23:08:00 win2k sp4

Greetings all

What I am needing to do is to back up my work folder on my primary harddrive to my second hard drive automatically so wthat the backup is kept up to date,
I have in the past used cds for backup but that means I can be up to a week out of date.

What I want is it backed up so that if it crashes, I am no more than a day behind, and something cheap preferably free that achieved this would be very handy

Thanks Nigel
Morgenmuffel (187)
326913 2005-02-20 23:19:00 Why not use a batch file with the xcopy command. Go to command prompt and type xcopy /? and use the enter key. This will give you the how to setup the path and switchs you want. Type what you want into a txt file and save as .bat

Double click the bat file and see if it copies the data to want to the right place. Then setup a schedule to run the bat file at a cetain time.
berryb (99)
326914 2005-02-20 23:19:00 A while back I tried a product called Back2zip (http://avatarsoft.com/). It was pretty good. Got lost when I built my new PC, but I'll download it again now that I've been reminded about it. Best of all, it's free. Miami Steve (2128)
326915 2005-02-20 23:23:00 I use a DOS batch, with a shortcut to it on the desktop.
Clicking that backs up only the changed files, it takes a few seconds usually.

The batch file (backup.bat) contains:

xcopy c:\data\*.* e:\data\*.* /y/d/s

Copies all changed files from C:/data to the backup drive E:
godfather (25)
326916 2005-02-21 01:02:00 If your work folder is in 'My Documents', I would redirect 'My Doc's' to the backup drive period, that way you wouldnt need to backup at all!! SolMiester (139)
326917 2005-02-21 01:23:00 Thanks all :thumbs:

I have gone with batch command xcopy thing and it is working fine

-now all I have to do is figure out how to get it to run automatically when shutting down the comp
Morgenmuffel (187)
326918 2005-02-21 01:23:00 If your work folder is in 'My Documents', I would redirect 'My Doc's' to the backup drive period, that way you wouldnt need to backup at all!!
But then there is no backup copy at all, so nothing is gained. Only the one copy will be kept, on the backup drive with none on the main drive.

In addition, if any corruption of the user profile occurs (which happens unfortunately), all data under the "My Documents" tree for that profile can be lost. Best avaoided altogether by having a directory outside that tree if possible.
godfather (25)
326919 2005-02-21 02:32:00 Godfather, if my doc's are on same drive diff partition, same scenario is gained by the backup proceedure. If the drive goes, little is gained by 'MyDocs' and backup copy on the same drive. With profile corruption, administrator can copy docs before deleting profile anyway!

Only if 2 separate disks are used, will any benefit be gained by backup of 'MyDocs', however both are susceptible to power surge and failure. Backup to removeable media is of corse the only safeguard.

My suggestion was only meant to provide daily surety.
SolMiester (139)
326920 2005-02-21 03:00:00 OK, but Nigel seemed clear that it is a second Hard Drive, not a partition.

If the profile goes, there is not always a guarantee that the documents will be rescued. You cannot assume that the "Administrator" has that level of competence.

I have seen a business spend a lot of money in data recovery experts for that exact reason.
godfather (25)
326921 2005-02-21 03:21:00 When a profile goes bad,there is no certainty that the admin account can access the files and folders contained within.

Use the My Documents folder by all means, But do not make your 'backup' under the same tree.

It will make recovery far more possible in the event of a harddrive failure,or coruption of user settings.
Metla (12)
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