Incomplete Backups - Avoiding and Handling

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

   A large multi-gig backup on a large dicey disk (e.g. prone to bsod) may not complete.  It would then be helpful to restore have you got, and keep moving from there on the next pass (perhaps skipping over a folder if there is an indication of disk problems, or trying to copy the folder, but let's assume the bsod is something like memory or driver related).

   What software programs take this into account well ?  e.g. Would be easy to restore what was done.  I noticed that Backup4All wants to put everything into a .zip file and then that file will likely be corrupted on the bsod, and their restore system is looking for files that are written at the end as well.

   So is this a factor that should be carefully considered in delicate backups ?  One obvious solution is a non-compress mode, yet apparently that is not in all of these packages. 

   What is best in this regard ?  And am I right in thinking that this is a largely overlooked part of backup comparisons. 

   Perhaps they could journal a type of restore/continue point, that probably is in some packages, so if you know of that, share. However that would not be as bulletproof as saving files in the same structure and layout (no compression, maybe 10 times larger) as on the disk.

  Thoughts ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery

[mouser]

It's a very good point.

One thing you can do is that most of the best backup tools have a "verification" option, that is a bit time consuming but can verify that the backup was made successfully and can be read, etc.

The other thing you can do is as you say, not make a compressed backup but instead use a mirroring mode which essentially makes a file-by-file copy, which is very big but can be useful if you want really fast access and you want to really know that you can get the data when you need it.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

   It seems that some of the shareware favorites (e.g. Backup4All goes zip, Genie-soft goes zip or exe) don't address this, as far as I can tell.

  A review of Backup Platinum (Softlogica) says :
http://www.techbyter.../2005/20050116.shtml
"Step 4 is unusual. Here I can choose to store files on the server exactly as they are, with no compression or encryption, or with some form of compression or encryption."

  This should not be unusual !

   So I may give it a whirl for my need today, and for future flexibility.  Any other "unusual" recommendations from our team of DonationCoder experts ? I'd like to try and use the best of the genre that has this flexibility.

  I can understand that image backups and file-by-file backups are quite different conceptually, and you might have two different programs (though it would be nice if a program was strong on both) however within the file-by-file world this would seem to be a rather fundamental consideration.  Compression or not as the user's choice, save-by-save.

  Morning add-on: The move to Backup Platinum .. so far very fine.  I was able to back up 10 gigs or so, a good chunk of what I was trying to do, before the bsod.  Now I restart the backup exactly where it crashed in a 2-minute check and modification. 

  The bsod is probably driver related, an DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL message about which discussions on the web gives numerous possible causes.  Here it is apparently driver related, especially IRQL clashes that Windows XP handles poorly, might be the situation here, as sometimes the msg gives an associated file name and in a couple of recent cases it is the USB driver, and this backup is USB.  (So perhaps a Laplink or FTP or Web (slow) backup would work, it would be an interesting test).  I actually at one point had the same message for a graphics driver and upgraded the driver and may have reduced the bsod.  Since the system is a 2-3 years old I am thinking that if I can't do some nice techie stuff (still researching, e.g. this discussions: http://www.hauppauge...mp;t=9888&page=2
And I have some others that gave about 5-10 other possible causes) and since I have an alternate puter, I will move towards a reformat and a lighter XP system .. maybe.

   Oh, and now I've switched to safe mode to get this done hopefully much quicker.

Shalom,
Steven Avery