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Newsletter

Smart Computing

June, 2006

Smart Computing web site

Follow the Backup Wizard

Step-By-Step Archiving, Scheduling & Drive Imaging

Now that you know what software to use and what to be wary of when making backups, it's time to do the deed. Regardless of whether you want to make a long-term copy of your data, schedule automated backups for your important files, or make a backup of your entire hard drive, we've got you covered.

The Importance of Archiving

If the data you want to back up is never be edited or otherwise changed, archiving is the best solution. This is a one-time backup of data you plan to store long-term, and it's best suited for original (pre-edited) digital photos and videos, as well as digital music and vital documents that you may need to access (but not change) in the future.

All backup programs are suitable for archiving, including the Backup utility that ships with Windows XP. If you have WinXP Professional, the software is already installed, which enables you to perform the simplest WinXP backup. (From the Start menu, click All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Backup.) If you have WinXP Home, you'll need to install the software from the installation CD-ROM if you haven't done so already.

The Backup utility should start in the wizard mode, but if not, expand the Tools menu and click Switch to Wizard Mode. Click Next, select the Back Up Files And Settings radio button, and click Next. The following dialog box asks what you'd like to back up; although it offers to copy your Internet Explorer Favorites and My Documents folder, let's pick files and folders manually by selecting the Let Me Choose What To Back Up radio button and clicking Next.

Designate what you want to add to the backup by selecting checkboxes next to folders or individual files. Click folders in the left pane to display their contents in the right pane. When you finish making your selections, click Next and select a place to store the backup file. You can either manually enter a file path or click Browse to navigate to the appropriate folder. Remember that WinXP's Backup utility won't store backups directly on an optical disc, but you can read our "Transferring Backups" sidebar to find out how to work around this restriction.

Be sure to select the option to verify the data in Windows XP's Backup utility, as it's worth the extra time to make sure your system properly completes the backup.

Give the backup file a name, click Next, and click Finish. There are ways to use the Backup utility for additional tasks, such as backup scheduling and incremental backups, but if you plan to do anything beyond archiving data, we strongly recommend using a more robust third-party backup application, allowing for overall WinXP backup.

Schedule Incremental Backups

All good backup software lets you schedule automated backups, but only the best of these applications saves you time and computer resources by doing this incrementally. With an incremental backup, only files that have been changed or added to a folder are added to the existing backup file. Using this method, the backup process takes much less time than it does when the entire folder is backed up.

Genie Backup Manager Home is a great program that allows for incremental backups, so we'll use it as our example application. To set it up, launch the software, click Backup in the right pane of the main window, make sure the Create New Backup Job radio button is selected, and give the backup a name. Click Next and select the radio button that corresponds to the backup media you plan to use. The software can make backups directly to CDs or DVDs, but for incremental backups, it's usually better to make them to a hard drive because the information in the backup frequently changes (and is more likely to be accessed often).

Genie Backup Manager's My Profile tool allows you to back up all sorts of files and settings that are impossible to access by merely using WinXP's Backup utility.

Click Next and choose the My Profile tab. This section lets you back up information such as Outlook email messages, Internet Explorer Favorites, the Windows Desktop settings and icons, and the Windows Registry. Select all the options you want to back up, and if you also want to back up particular files and folders, choose the My Folders tab so you can select the appropriate checkboxes in that section, as well.

The My Plugins tab is where you'll see a list of miscellaneous files that Genie Backup Manager can automatically back up. You can even click Download New Plugins to get additional options you can designate as files you want to automatically back up. These options, available via the Genie-Soft Web site, cover more games and programs than are included with the default installation.

After you've selected everything of importance on these three tabs, click Next and select the Increment radio button. This action designates the backup as an incremental backup file, and because of this, future backups are created only if files you included in the backup are edited or new files are added to specific areas.

The Enable Rollback option maintains copies of original backup files and edited versions of those files so you can revert to an earlier version if necessary. This is handy if an edited file becomes corrupted before Genie Backup Manager has a chance to back it up, as you can simply access an earlier version of the file from the rollback archive instead of getting stuck with only the corrupted version.

Select the Backup Without Compression option if you plan to access the backed up files a lot, or if you're worried about the entire archive becoming corrupted (which is possible with compressed files). If you use compression, the Default compression level is just fine and is much faster than the Best level.

Be careful about using encryption for long-term backups, as you may have to remember the password a long time from now.

If you decide to use one of the security options, which adds password protection to the backup file, remember that Zip password protection only works if you choose to compress the data. AES (Advanced Encryption Standard; the 128-bit standard for data encryption) is a far more secure option than a Zip password, but it adds another level of processing to the backup, and as a result, it slightly increases the likelihood that the backup may become corrupted. Even so, using AES is definitely worth this infinitesimal risk if the security of your data is extremely important. However, AES-encrypted files are nearly impossible to crack, so just be sure to remember your password.

Don't worry about enabling the SwiftRestore option; it's best to use it for creating archive files that you may not need to access for years to come. Click Next and then click Backup Now, and Genie Backup Manager will create your backup.

Click Verify Now if you want to check the integrity of the data and then click Main Page. After that, click Schedule Wizard in the right pane, click Create New Schedule, select the name of the backup you just created, and click Next. Select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly from the drop-down menu (depending on how often you want to maintain the backup), and select any additional options that might be necessary to fit the backup process within your schedule, such as the time frame and day of the week you want the software to run an automated backup. Click Next, enter the User Name and Password for your computer (if necessary), and click Finish.

Acronis True Image 9.0 Home lets you create a carbon copy of your entire hard drive.

Genie Backup Manager will automatically maintain the backup file you created, including adding any new files created afterward or changing files that are edited as the contents of the files and folders you selected change over time.

Take the Drive-Imaging Route

If you want to make a backup of your entire hard drive, or transfer the contents of an existing drive to a newer, higher-capacity drive, you should definitely invest in a good third-party application that's designed for these tasks. Acronis True Image 9.0 Home is one such product, and it's very user-friendly. To use it, you must install the new hard drive as a secondary or slave drive using the instructions the drive shipped with, and then you need to make sure the new drive has as much or more storage space than the original hard drive.

If you have WinXP, an option to create a writeable folder appears whenever you insert a blank CD in the computer's recordable/rewriteable CD drive.

After that, launch Acronis True Image, click Clone Disk, and click Next. Select the Automatic radio button, click Next, select the icon for the hard drive you want to copy, and click Next. This time, select the icon for the drive you want to copy data to and click Next. If the new drive isn't completely empty, select the Delete Partitions On The Destination Hard Disk radio button and click Next.

Click Next again, and select the Keep Data radio button if you want to keep a copy of all of the original data on the original hard drive; if not, select Create A New Partition Layout to erase the original drive but leave it ready to store data in the future.

Click Next and select Normal if you decided to get rid of the data on the old hard drive. This option overwrites the data several times, making the information almost impossible to recover should someone get their hands on the old drive. Click Next and select Proportional to maintain the structure of the original drive but compensate for the additional space. Click Next and click Proceed to clone the drive.

When the operation is complete, you should be able to install the new drive as the primary hard drive and then use the old drive for additional storage or to permanently store all of the files you just copied.

A Bright Future for Backups

Of course, if what Microsoft claims is true, you may not need articles such as this one once the company releases Windows Vista. The OS (operating system) successor to WinXP supposedly will include integrated backup software that is much more powerful than the Backup utility shipped with previous versions and include the ability to back up files directly to optical discs. Additional features remain to be seen, but until Microsoft finally releases Vista (which will likely take quite awhile), at least we have products such as Genie Backup Manager and Acronis True Image to cater to our backup needs, allowing for scheduled backup, online automated backup, incremental backup and whatsoever.

Transferring Backups

Want to get the files you created with Windows XP's Backup utility onto an optical disc but don't have third-party backup software? If possible, use the disc-recording application that came with your recordable/rewriteable optical drive. But if you don't have such an application, you can still use WinXP's integrated recording capabilities to find a way to store data on a CD. (Unfortunately, DVDs aren't supported.)

Insert a recordable/rewriteable CD in your CD-R (CD-recordable) or CD-RW (CD-rewriteable) drive, select Open Writable CD Folder when the option appears in the drive's dialog box, and click OK. If that option doesn't automatically appear, click My Computer from the Start menu and double-click the CD-R/-RW drive icon. Navigate to the folder where you saved the backup file(s) and drag and drop the file(s) to the window that's open for the CD-R/-RW drive.

Backup files that WinXP's Backup utility created use the .BKF file extension. If your settings currently hide file extensions, open any folder, open the Tools menu, click Folder Options, choose the View tab, deselect the Hide Extensions for Known File Types checkbox, and click Apply To All Folders.

After the BKF file or files are visible in the CD-R/-RW drive's window (you can drag and drop as many backup files as space permits), click Write These Files to CD and click Next to finish the recording process.