Backup to Extrnal HD

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Nicolas Forwood
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:28 pm
Location: Canada

Backup to Extrnal HD

Post by Nicolas Forwood »

I plan to buy an external USB hard disk to be used as a disaster recovery for my Dell Inspiron Laptop. I have the 2.9 (400) AISB version and I run Vista Home Premium.

I read the “Making a backup job and preparing for disaster recovery” tutorial and all is clear to me but have the following questions:

Some of the external hard disks come with a mirror or clone software which can copy the contents of my hard drive to the external hard disk and make it bootable. Is AISB does the same job if I follow the above mentioned tutorial?

I also downloaded the file “AISRestoreCD002” since I don’t want to take the chance to have a failed download when I do my backup. However not clear what to do with this file; do I just copy it to AISB directory for now and run this file only when I’m ready to do my backup?

Thank you
Barry
Site Admin
Posts: 1529
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 3:16 pm

Bootable external drive

Post by Barry »

AISBackup is capable of making bootable external drives for use in disaster recovery. In fact the latest release asks if you would like to make the external drive bootable when a backup job is made. You can of course make any external drive bootable at a later date using the Tools / Create AISBackup Restore CD or USB External/Flash drive option.

The first time the make bootable option is run AISBackup downloads the large boot file image; you have already downloaded this manually.

To set-up your AISBackup to use the boot image double click the AISRestoreCD002 file to run the set-up program; The set-up program will copy the image file to the correct place.

Once you have made the external drive bootable I suggest you test booting from it to ensure everything is working. You still have the option of making a bootable CD or flash drive t give yourself plenty of options of restoring from a backup.
Nicolas Forwood
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:28 pm
Location: Canada

Post by Nicolas Forwood »

Thank you Barry for the fast response

I purchased a 1.5TB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk external HD and did my 1st complete backup. All went fine but have the following questions:

1. Since my C:\ contains 67GB of data uncompressed, I used “Custom Job / Copy the Windows System Disk…” to do my backup to avoid the zip files. Obviously the reason is to make the backup job faster.

2. I noticed on the tutorial “Backup the PC to External…” you mention that the folder “System Volume Info” should also be included. However when I checked the included files, this folder had a red X on the tick box and I couldn’t make it green by clicking at it. I also noticed that AISB log said “External drive F:\ as been made bootable”. Why this folder was excluded?

3. During the create my backup job, the last window said “Create a std AISB CD/Flash Drive?” and I clicked the recommended Yes. What is this and why I need it since my external HD is bootable?

4. Regarding the FAM, do I need this program or it’s only applicable to business environment? The AISB log said “Backingup 43 exclusively opened files”, “Initializing Volume shadow Copy Service for drive C:\”

Thank you
Barry
Site Admin
Posts: 1529
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 3:16 pm

Bootable external drive

Post by Barry »

2. I noticed on the tutorial “Backup the PC to External…” you mention that the folder “System Volume Info” should also be included. However when I checked the included files, this folder had a red X on the tick box and I couldn’t make it green by clicking at it. I also noticed that AISB log said “External drive F:\ as been made bootable”. Why this folder was excluded?

This folder will be included in future versions of AISBackup as the parts of System Volume Information that Microsoft deem not to backup will not be backed up. To remove System Volume Information from the exclusions right click the folder and choose Remove From Exclusions.

3. During the create my backup job, the last window said “Create a std AISB CD/Flash Drive?” and I clicked the recommended Yes. What is this and why I need it since my external HD is bootable?


This message needs updating - but will remain in case some user's prefer to make the boot files manually using the rather large download of Windows AIK. In the majority of cases AIK will not be needed, hence the recommended 'Yes'


4. Regarding the FAM, do I need this program or it’s only applicable to business environment? The AISB log said “Backingup 43 exclusively opened files”, “Initializing Volume shadow Copy Service for drive C:\”

The company that make FAM no longer supply this software so AISBackup was updated to use Microsoft's Volume Copy Shadow service. If the 43 open exclusive files did not backup you should ensure that System File Protection is enabled for the C: drive; if the files backed up then there is nothing to worry about.

Please remember to test booting from the external drive.

Barry
Nicolas Forwood
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:28 pm
Location: Canada

Post by Nicolas Forwood »

Thanks so much Barry for the info

Yes I did test the booting and the external HD boots to AISB Interface, very neat

Nice trick for the System Volume info, now it’s included in my backup

Cheers
Nicolas Forwood
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:28 pm
Location: Canada

Post by Nicolas Forwood »

I tried this morning to do a restore and after booting to AISB GUI, I clicked on the restore list and there was nothing on the list.

Booting back to Vista, AISB shows the backup I did yesterday (Copy System Disk(C)).

Any reason this backup was not on the list to restore?
Barry
Site Admin
Posts: 1529
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 3:16 pm

Copy Jobs vs. Backup jobs

Post by Barry »

Did you make a copy job to the external drive? This is why you cannot restore from it. Copy jobs are not backups, they are copies / mirror images etc. For disaster recovery a proper regular backup is much better, for example:

Copy Jobs:

You copy your PC on a weekly basis to external drive, your computer gets a virus and that copies to the external drive before you notice. You now do not have a virus free copy of your system.

Backup Jobs:

You backup your PC on a weekly basis to external drive, your computer gets a virus and the backup up to external drive runs before you notice. You now have a backup session with the virus but you also have previous backup sessions from which to restore without the virus! The current backup session (with the virus) also contains your documents that were made in the intervening week that you can also restore.

Therefore backup jobs are much better, especially when you have a bootable external drive or another method for booting your PC (CD or flash drive).

Where Copy Jobs are useful

Copy jobs are useful when:

1/ You are replacing a hard drive in your PC.

2/ You want to synchronise documents on a flash drive to take to work / home.

3/ You want to synchronise files between different computers; this is done here to synchronise AISBackup source code between different PCs containing different versions of Windows for testing.

4/ You want to copy your music to a media centre compatible NAS so that you can play the music on your hi-fi system downstairs.

Barry
Nicolas Forwood
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:28 pm
Location: Canada

Post by Nicolas Forwood »

All is clear now Barry, much appreciated

AISB made my 1.5TB USB hard disk bootable in a few seconds + I now have a nice interface to manage my system backups if and when a disaster occurs
nikkil
Posts: 53
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:08 pm

Post by nikkil »

Some things are just not clear to me. So this is a back over the internet, correct?
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