shadow backup

Post by **nikos** » 2013 Mar 07, 08:50

anyone with windows 7 that doesn't use windows backup, can you check the properties of any folder of yours and see what it says in the previous versions tab?

JoyceAE · Post by **JoyceAE** » 2013 Mar 07, 12:53

Mine says 'There are no previous versions available'.

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2013 Mar 07, 13:14

You'll get that if you either have Restore Points disabled, or they have been cleared recently, or have particular settings under System Properties Protection...

Or, like me, prefer to depend upon 3rd-party drive imaging software and have simply nuked the lot of 'em.

Post by **nikos** » 2013 Mar 07, 17:34

my guess is that I get daily "backups" of the filesystem because I am using windows backup regularly. I backup once a week but the system shadow-copies all folders daily, somehow! But that works only for the system C: drive

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2013 Mar 07, 17:52

That's what the Shadow Copy Service does... it kicks in on any scheduled restore-point or primary backup... I think you have to actively "turn it on" for any external drives, as shown in the first pane of the picture above.

Do you do whole image-backups on a weekly basis using Windows? Did they ever learn to implement incremental and differential backups to that service, or is it still just one big chunk of nonsense every time?

Post by **nikos** » 2013 Mar 07, 18:08

to be honest, I don't know. I use windows backup (not image) as a "backup" of the main backup I do with xplorer2 (plain overwrite copy of documents)

as for the system itself, I never had any problems, despite automatic updates. I guess the saving grace is that I don't install nonsense, open source and every shell extension in the world. Test installs go in virtual machines. I am happily running the same system for 3-4 years now without any incidents, fingers crossed

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2013 Mar 07, 18:20

Just out of interest, do you keep a fallback disaster recovery? Say, if the babysitter decides to light your house on fire to destroy everything since you proved to be such a poor tipper after her boyfriend nicked all your alcohol the week before?

You know: the old fashioned way (dropping a disc off at your mum's every week) or do you invest in this this "cloud" fad?

drac · Post by **drac** » 2013 Mar 07, 22:02

Some files say "there are no previous versions available" while others have a list of previous versions. In particular my email (.PST) files have a list.

I do daily backups using a 3rd party backup program (Macrium Reflect) and daily system restore points.

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2013 Mar 07, 22:15

drac wrote:Macrium Reflect

drac · Post by **drac** » 2013 Mar 07, 22:30

Thanks for your cheers! The Reflect forum is one of the others that I read daily. I don't see you there unless you use a different pseudonym. It is indeed a great program - and it has saved my bacon (and that of my clients) multiple times.

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2013 Mar 07, 23:02

When I first abandoned the utterly useless Acronis and defected to Macrium, it took a little while to get x2 to mount mrimg's directly, but once I got it figured out (and have since perfected it a bit), the programme is so good I never really needed to ask anything else. Simple as that.

Thankfully I got my license before MS cut off the PE boot inclusions, so I was happy camper - I don't understand all the WAIK nonsense people (apparently) deal with now.

(Once I discovered that I could rig Beyond Compare [another superlative programme] to immediately target all the differences between two separate images [incrementals] mounted in x2 panes, I was flying.

And then when I discovered how to directly read the registry contained in images, I decided I could die happy - for what other worlds were there to possibly conquer?

)

RightPaddock · Post by **RightPaddock** » 2013 Mar 08, 10:58

Kilmatead wrote:
drac wrote:Macrium Reflect

what he said , twice

BR

Tuxman · Post by **Tuxman** » 2013 Mar 09, 01:58

People actually use built-in Windows safety mechanisms? I thought they just ignore them so they can spread lies about Linux having so many advantages in their kiddie forums.

On a side note, the fastest backup tool is rsync (with the incremental option). Why waste time and hard disk space to fiddle with third-party (even: commerclal?!) backup solutions?

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2013 Mar 09, 09:50

Tuxman wrote:On a side note, the fastest backup tool is rsync (with the incremental option). Why waste time and hard disk space to fiddle with third-party (even: commerclal?!) backup solutions?

Does rsync even do imaging? The shadow service makes speed irrelevant - offline backups are a thing of the past.

I do an automated daily imaging incremental with MR that takes about 2 minutes and I don't even notice it's even there - producing a veritable smörgåsbord of restore solutions. Why anyone would seriously use a computer without something similar in reserve is just lunacy - and that's even before one considers the invaluable option of restoring to partitions which aren't the same size as the original.

Why commercial? Anyone who's ever tried to implement a scaling backup solution on more than their grandmother's laptop using free stuff either has too much time on their hands or lots of seriously damaged hair follicles on their scalp, or both. Probably both.

Post by **nikos** » 2013 Mar 09, 11:04

explanation for my (near) daily restore points: it is the installed MS security essentials to "blame" (actually beneficially in this case). Every time there is a definition update it does an automatic restore point (deleting the older one it may have had created)