BackUp on Vista

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I want to backup my Windows Vista profile (C:\Users\[NAME]), which includes My Documents, Outlook PSTs etc etc to another hard drive on a daily basis.

I had used Acronis in the past, but after the most recent batch of Vista updates it has stopped working.

I cannot seem to find any other program that will make differential backups for X days, followed by a full backup and then merge the previous differentials.

I have been playing around with:
Nero BackItUp3
SyncToy
Norton Ghost
Paragon Drive BackUp

But none of these seem to be any good, so has anyone got any advice?
 
robocopy daily
7zip that robocopy folder once a month

that's what i use

so I have full 7z compressed monthly backups and robocopy does the other backups daily

all using bat files, 2x exe files and task manager
 
I would like to at least keep the last 5 days backups in case I need anything from them. Anything before that can be deleted as new backups are made.

We are talking about C:\Users\[NAME] being 26GB in size, so it needs to be differential or incremental (but I prefer differential).

The Windows Backup Tool seems pretty useless to be honest :(
 
You'd be better off backing up only certain folders under %userprofile%\ like docs, pics, music, videos, downloads (or whatever else)

there's a lot of temp folders and application data that you'd be needlessly backing up if you did the whole folder

robocopy /E %userprofile%\Documents X:\Backup\Documents
robocopy /E %userprofile%\Music X:\Backup\Music

etc etc, run that once a day

then set every 5 days for 7zip to backup X:\Backup to X:\7zBackup

or similar
 
You'd be better off backing up only certain folders under %userprofile%\ like docs, pics, music, videos, downloads (or whatever else)

there's a lot of temp folders and application data that you'd be needlessly backing up if you did the whole folder

robocopy /E %userprofile%\Documents X:\Backup\Documents
robocopy /E %userprofile%\Music X:\Backup\Music

etc etc, run that once a day

then set every 5 days for 7zip to backup X:\Backup to X:\7zBackup

or similar

Even excluding the temp files etc, the space required is around 25GB :(
 
What ever you do, don't use Vista's built in backup. It's crap. Doesn't let you select which files/folders you want. It only lets you select an entire drive. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

Bring back NTBACKUP is what I say! :(
 
you need to manage which files you need a monthly backup of

some (like say music, pictures & videos) you can probably just have an ongoing robocopy of (only copies new & updated files)

wheras your documents folder, you may want monthly backups of also.


use JDiskReport to show you exactly where the bigger files are, incase you can delete some. http://www.jgoodies.com/downloads/index.html

you need the java runtime installed first http://jdl.sun.com/webapps/getjava/BrowserRedirect?locale=en&host=www.java.com
 
tried syncback, i use it, not to the extent you want to but IIRC it will do what you want, I use it to manage backups of my docs and pictures (which are around 80gb) and it does it pretty quickly for the amount of files it has to look at etc.

SE version is free too.

You can add exclusions etc etc to it to minimise size.

Also check you arent copying the AppData hidden folder to your backups, I've found that that can be over a few GB sometimes.
 
tried syncback, i use it, not to the extent you want to but IIRC it will do what you want, I use it to manage backups of my docs and pictures (which are around 80gb) and it does it pretty quickly for the amount of files it has to look at etc.

SE version is free too.

You can add exclusions etc etc to it to minimise size.

Also check you arent copying the AppData hidden folder to your backups, I've found that that can be over a few GB sometimes.

I will give that program a go and see how it works out.

I actually want to copy the AppData folder as it contains my Outlook, Firefox, Azureus etc files...
 
Ha, yeah I used to live a bit further down the road past the railway bridge but moved further out now. Must have been a bit noisy living there but at least its in spitting distance of the pubs (well Jug & Jester & Robins Well) and town.

Think there are a few people on here that are at Warwick Uni and live in Leam. Small world :p
 
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