hey all, I am the desktop support tech here at MSU – Bozeman and have a question about backing up data prior to a total reinstall of XP. The way I’ve been doing it is just copying over anything and everything that I can find on a drive that looks important and sometimes a bunch of stuff that doesn’t like the whole Program Files folder for example. But my question of how you would recommend making absolutely sure never to miss any data stems from missing an extremely critical folder the other day on a user’s machine I backed up. Someone else put a shortcut on her desktop to a My Documents folder in the Administrator profile – not her own profile. So when I backed up all her data, I missed looking at where that shortcut pointed to, and hence missed ALL of her data except for her .pst’s as they were in the default location of her profile. I feel pretty bad about missing her most important folder during my backup and am looking for suggestions. Would ghosting it to another drive allow it to be accessed after delivering the machine just in case anything was missed in the transfer back to the new machine. Thanks, Chuck

don't feel bad ... you are the BOFH :-) ok ... my suggestion ... use automated backup (i'm using hyper backup) you can add files or indeed folders to be backed up anytime a user modifies a specific file or any file inside a folder to another location on the local machine or anywhere on the network, then integrate the backup location into your scheduled tape or dvd backup ... beside the original file u have a copy in a different location AND on your backup media ... kinda bullit proof Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

hyper backup btw is little gadget i came across when i downloaded a shareware program called '12 ghosts' ... it works like a charme Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

I would have used Ntbackup. Why copy? You could set up a server and use shadow copies.

We use a Raid Server and backup the entire contents of the HDD. Since MOST data is stored (as per policy) on a user's server share and not on the local machine, it's mostly just a precaution. But..you never know where users are going to store their stuff... So, If you don't have a server with user shares, I'd set that up and have users store data on the proper share... Soylent Green is PEOPLE!

I just have two HDD and use True Image to back up the first drive on the other one. But there are several ways: 1) You can back up only boot partition by creating an image of this partition and placing it on another HDD. In this way you’ll be able to restore your system completely and simply from this image. 2) The other way is to create a clone of whole HDD and place it to the other HDD – then you won’t lose information of all your drive. You can also back up information on CD and DVD or on the same drive but in another partition, TI allows it, but I don’t use this way.