backup software. What to get?

[kater1]

Due to a hard drive crash (just went dead one day) I have learned the hard way that you must back-up your data. I have lost many family pics and all my Outlook data. Not to mention the 6 months of information I will have to put in since the end of the year printouts from MS money.

But now to my question. What is everyone using for back-up software?

I would like to be able to make a image after reinstalling everything and also have it do weekly backups of selected folders. I also want it to bge able to due my Outlook data files.

What do you all suggest.

Thanks

Bill

 

[Need4Speed]

SyncBackSE or TrueImage....both can copy open PST files ... SyncBackSE I think needs to copy from NTFS to NTFS in order to shadow an open PST.

 

[bucwylde23]

I love Acronis True Image... works well for me.

 

[Navid]

I use Acronis for imaging my OS partition.
I have all my data on a separate partition. So, if I restore the image, i will not lose all my data.

I use Cobian for data (pictures, music, Outlook, Word, movies, ....) backup.
http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

Cobian is free. I have set it up to create a daily incremental backup, a monthly differential backup and a quarterly full backup.

I store all the backups and Acronis images on a secondary physical hard drive.
Occasionally, I burn a full data backup on a DVD.

Edit:
The reason I do not use Acronis for my data backups is that Cobian's backups are just compressed folders. I do not need any software to access them. For Acronis, I would need Acronis. In a few years, if I upgrade to another imaging software, all my Cobian backup files will still be useful to me. If they were in Acronis, I would need to keep Acronis or convert them all.

 

[Rottie]

Another vote for True Image I had a hard drive about to die soon last month I did not make any incremental or differential back up since full back up last December. When I got new hard drive the True Image restored everything really easy but the problem I have is True Image 9 restored 750GB hard drive becomes 400GB HD. I can't even find to get my 300GB space back.

 

[Need4Speed]

Originally posted by: Rottie
Another vote for True Image I had a hard drive about to die soon last month I did not make any incremental or differential back up since full back up last December. When I got new hard drive the True Image restored everything really easy but the problem I have is True Image 9 restored 750GB hard drive becomes 400GB HD. I can't even find to get my 300GB space back.

it's because the empty space has not been partitioned...all you need to do is use XP's (I assume you are running this) Disk Management to create and format a new partition from the empty disk space

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: chrisg22
I love Acronis True Image... works well for me.

True Image is Free if you own a Seagate or Maxtor drive

 

[Rottie]

Originally posted by: Need4Speed

Originally posted by: Rottie
Another vote for True Image I had a hard drive about to die soon last month I did not make any incremental or differential back up since full back up last December. When I got new hard drive the True Image restored everything really easy but the problem I have is True Image 9 restored 750GB hard drive becomes 400GB HD. I can't even find to get my 300GB space back.

it's because the empty space has not been partitioned...all you need to do is use XP's (I assume you are running this) Disk Management to create and format a new partition from the empty disk space

is it safe? I don't want to accident format it. but when I got new 750GB and I did full format before using True Image restore.

 

[kater1]

I purchased True Image since that is what most people recommend. Thanks for the help.

 

[Need4Speed]

Originally posted by: Rottie

Originally posted by: Need4Speed

Originally posted by: Rottie
Another vote for True Image I had a hard drive about to die soon last month I did not make any incremental or differential back up since full back up last December. When I got new hard drive the True Image restored everything really easy but the problem I have is True Image 9 restored 750GB hard drive becomes 400GB HD. I can't even find to get my 300GB space back.

it's because the empty space has not been partitioned...all you need to do is use XP's (I assume you are running this) Disk Management to create and format a new partition from the empty disk space

is it safe? I don't want to accident format it. but when I got new 750GB and I did full format before using True Image restore.

just make sure you choose the free space to partition and not the space your data is using...that would be the only place to screw up.

 

[Skypix7]

I had terrible, terrible luck with Acronis TrueImage v11. I got so frustrated I broke the bootable disc in half and attempted (still not successful) to manually uninstall it from my system, as it would not uninstall on its own, because of course it did not fully install. This, on a fresh Vista install with nothing else running, not even internet or antivirus.

It seems to work great for some people and cause awful headaches for others. For example, it took down my master boot record, requiring another four hours troubleshooting today before I repaired the MBR! And it would not restore to a brand new hard drive from a verified sound backup archive.

I gave up on Acronis, if you're not lucky to have a system it works on, you're really screwed...just go their support forum to see the copious emails from equally frustrated users.