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Windows 2K/XP backing up partitions & directories....."Add mirror"...argh..

Submit

Senior member
I am running XP Pro, but I am guessing if there is a way to do this it would be more or less the same as windows 2k. Say...I have two hard disks, each with several partitions. Lets just say they are all NTFS. Is there a way to automatically have a partition on disk 1 backup to a partition on disk 2? I have some very important files on one of my partitions on disk 1 and I would like to have them backed up automatically.

Any advice?
 
Open two instances of Explorer. To tile them right click on the lower task bar in an empty space. You can from the menu that pops up select to tile the two Explorers either horizontally or vertically. I like vertically. Make sure no other programs are open or they will become tiled also.

Locate the folder on the hard drive you wish to copy from. In the other Explorer locate your second hard disk drive.

With your mouse cursor over the folder you wish to copy, first hold down the CONTROL key. Then with your mouse left click on it and drag it to the other hard drive. If you already have a folder you wish to copy those files to just drag the folder name over that folder and let go of the mouse. All your files will automatically copy to the second drive into that folder. That will even copy all sub folders under the main folder you are copying.

Experiment a couple times to see how that works. You will find it works very smoothly and perfectly.

Using my above technique I copied a hard drive folder that had 50 megs of photos in sub photos onto an LS-120 120 meg disk. I selected the folder the photos were in. Then holding down the Control key I dragged the main folder over to where the LS-120 drive was located. I let go of the Control key and I could see on screen as each photo folder, each photo, each sub folders were copied like magic. All my photos ended up in the same sub folders names they were originally in on my hard drive. I smiled as I watched my computer do all the work and watched it happen on screen.

If you want to copy only certain files you can hold down the Control key and select only the files you wish to drag to the other hard drive folder. You can skip some files you do not want copied.

That should work from Win 98/SE and ME / XP, and Win 2000. Don't remember if it worked that way in Win95.

 
I believe you just described how to manually copy folders/files.

This is what I want to do...

Create a backup of a directory on disk 2 and have windows update it automatically as needed.

Anyone?
 
There is a tool on the MS Win2k Pro Resource Kit that, when combined with the use of a BAT file I wrote and a Scheduled Task, will mirror any given drive(s)/folder(s) to any destination drive(s)/folder(s) on user-determined times.
 
I have converted both of my disks to dynamic disks. The "add mirror" is greyed out...anyone know why?

Any suggestions on what to check?

 
Submit,

I highly recomend you avoid the dynamic disk option and consider an automated BAT file - it works flawlessly for me.
 
mirrored volumes are only supported by the Server verisons of windows NT. Sucks

I guess I will have to consider creating a .bat file or finding some other utility for this...
 
Submit,

The bat file works in conjunction with a tool found on the Windows 2000 Pro Resource Kit. The tool takes a source and destination folder and either does a complete mirror of the two, or does a mirror the first time, and all subsequent runs it just adds files or updates files - it won't delete - unless you tell it it can. So if you already have the Resource Kit (or want to pick one up - Staples has the best price I've seen), I'd be more than happy to send it to you.
 
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