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| Thread ID: 84053 | 2007-10-22 20:31:00 | Autorun backup on a USB key drive? Possible? | RichardBigBuddy (12954) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 604378 | 2007-10-22 20:31:00 | Hi, I have several backup strategies ( call me paranoid) on of which is backing up my docs to a USB key drive ( 2GB). I'd like to automate this by having a autorun on the USB key drive that runs a copy or zip backup process as soon as the drive is plugged in. I am flexible on how the back up happens, eg simple file copy, zip, whatever. Any ideas? Richard |
RichardBigBuddy (12954) | ||
| 604379 | 2007-10-22 21:30:00 | USB key would be one of the less reliable backup options. Ive had 3 fail allready. Also its not that hard to corrupt files on a USB key. |
steveroby (9470) | ||
| 604380 | 2007-10-22 22:11:00 | Interesting to hear of your experience with USB key reliability. Do you think this would be true for SD memory cards as well, is it a quality thing or just systemic? Richard |
RichardBigBuddy (12954) | ||
| 604381 | 2007-10-22 22:20:00 | Try this (www.microsoft.com) | Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 604382 | 2007-10-22 22:31:00 | I think that flash drives and SD cards are some of the most crash resistant. Not sure if its quality or something else, but I've never had any of my 3 USN drives crash or any one of my 6 SD cards either. | beeswax34 (63) | ||
| 604383 | 2007-10-22 22:34:00 | One reason why either may get corrupted, is if you dont wait for files / whatever to finish writing to it. And you remove it. Or you dont eject USB flash drives, before you remove it. I've got a U3 flash drive, and never had probs with it. |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 604384 | 2007-10-23 00:50:00 | ok good to hear that maybe flash drives are ok, but how about getting them a bit smarter with an autorun backup process Richard |
RichardBigBuddy (12954) | ||
| 604385 | 2007-10-23 01:05:00 | You would have to do something like this (studentgrind.com) Step 1: Create the folder you want to backup to (Mines c:\removablebackup) Step 2: Create the backup batch file for your USB key. You can do this by inserting the following in a textfile and saving it as backup.bat. An example is provided below: @echo off echo ——————- echo Removable Device Automatic Backup echo ——————- echo No Rights Reserved, do whatever you want with this. xcopy “*” “c:\removablebackup\” /Y /E /R echo Backup Complete! Pause. Make sure you change the section in bold to reflect your individual backup location. Step 3: Place the following in a text document, and save it directly to your removable drive as autorun.inf: [autorun] action=Backup open=backup.bat label=Backup includeRuntimeComponents=True Step 4: Your done! Now whenever you insert your USB key you should see this nifty backup option: You can also add the /D flag to the xcopy command to only copy new/changed files. |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 604386 | 2007-10-23 01:29:00 | If you want differential backups, download a free Microsoft app called "Synctoy", then use Speedy's method to execute the program and run the backup. | somebody (208) | ||
| 604387 | 2007-10-23 18:49:00 | Thanks Speedy, this worked fine . Your spec had the USB drive backing up to the harddrive, I needed it the othert way round which was easy enough to change . I notice there are a few shareware products out their that offer a variety of ways to use USB/SD flash drive as backup or sync devices, must be getting to be a popular idea . Richard |
RichardBigBuddy (12954) | ||
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