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Thread ID: 36130 2003-08-01 02:20:00 Backup Query Oxie (1318) Press F1
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164336 2003-08-01 02:20:00 I have XP Pro and have two hard drives ? C for program files and D for data files. Periodically I back my whole C drive up to my D drive using the backup utility in XP. Until now I have had no problems. My latest attempt failed giving the message I had either run out of disk space (which I haven?t) or the drive I was backing up to was formatted as Fat32 and maximum file sizes allowed is 4 GB. Sure enough my D drive is formatted as Fat32. Therefore is my only solution (apart from formatting the drive as NTFS) to backup to the D drive splitting the folders so that I have two backup files in order to get below the max of 4 GB? My C Drive has obviously just over 4 GB of files on it. Your comments are most welcome.

Lyn (Oxie)
Oxie (1318)
164337 2003-08-01 05:05:00 There would be nothing stopping you converting the drive to NTFS .

The conversion is done by XP .

To convert a volume to NTFS from the command prompt

Open Command Prompt .
In the command prompt window, type

convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs

For example, typing convert D: /fs:ntfs would format drive D: with the ntfs format .

Note

To open command prompt, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt .

You can convert FAT or FAT32 volumes to NTFS with this command .

The above is from XP Help and Support (Start - Help and Support - convert ntfs)
godfather (25)
164338 2003-08-01 22:52:00 Thanks Godfather . I will make a note of it should I decide to convert the drive .

Does anyone know of any pitfalls in having two backup files to cover the whole drive if it ever came to having to use them?

Oxie
Oxie (1318)
164339 2003-08-02 00:02:00 I cannot answer your question, sorry, but just lately I have been very impressed with my Ghost program for backing up my entire partitions - it is worth its weight in gold .

Lots of other people here also swear by it so if you can afford it I would recommend that you get it . :-)
Susan B (19)
164340 2003-08-05 07:59:00 Susan B,

Thanks for your advice . Can you answer a couple of questions for me please re Norton's Ghost program . Does Norton Ghost compress the
file in any way? For example my C Drive contains 5 GB of files,
would the Norton Ghost file placed on my D Drive be smaller than 5
GB or the same size?

Secondly, how user friendly is Norton Ghost? Is it easy to ghost say, Drive D to C, and Drive C to D minus the other ghosted file? I know that sounds confusing .

Your comments would be most welcome .

Lyn (Oxie)
Oxie (1318)
164341 2003-08-05 09:26:00 Yes, Ghost does compress the files/image so yes, 5GB of files would be compressed to smaller than 5GB. Using my own as an example my C: drive has about 5.85GB used space and the Ghost image is around 2GB.

It is quite user friendly, you should have no problems driving it. You need to have a second partition to image the ghost file to and you can probably shift the ghost file to the other partition when you image that but someone else may have to advise there because I have not tried it. I have two hard drives to take care of mine.

Dont forget, if you do have any problems we are here to help. :-)
Susan B (19)
164342 2003-08-05 10:29:00 Thanks Susan

It is good to know that the image file is compressed, and no doubt you image the ghost file of your C Drive to your second drive (D). I have two drives and would do the same. Now do you also image a second ghost file of your D drive to your C Drive?
Oxie (1318)
164343 2003-08-05 10:53:00 If the D drive backup is a representation of the C drive, then why would you back the D drive back to the C drive, sounds like redundancy to me. roofus (483)
164344 2003-08-05 21:37:00 Roofus

The D drive is not a representation of the C Drive. On the C Drive I store all programs and files relating to the Internet. On the D Drive I store all documents and working files. Hence my wanting to back up each drive to the other.

Oxie (Lyn)
Oxie (1318)
164345 2003-08-05 22:27:00 How much space do you have on your D drive Oxie . If you only just have enough to contain your backup job it may not fit with temp files, etc . Just a thought .

I dont think Ghost can incrementaly back up or restore, just the whole partition or disc image if thats what you are after .

Cheers Murray P
Murray P (44)
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