Best Backup Procedure - still wary of my 1330 HDD

Due to the "clunk" sound on my 1330 HDD, I'm very concious of doing good backups. But I am wondering if you all could point me in the direction of the best backup program or procedure for backing up my files. I backup to an external harddrive, but want to make it more automatic. Here's what I have already tried:

Acronis. I have used Acronis in the past, so I picked up the latest version, but I am still a bit confused and unsettled by the proprietary file extension the program stores things in. I wanted to be able to look at the files and know that the latest version of, say, Outlook.pst was actually backed up. Also, Acronis doesn't do anything if I mistakenly don't have the HDD plugged in. No warning to plug in, no startup when I plug in next time. It just fails to backup without any alert. So I'm not satisfied with it.

WD Backup. This came with the WD external HDD when I purchased it a few years ago. It works, but I had to manually add in file extensions for Office 2007 which is really annoying. It also, stores in proprietary so I can't double check to see that it "got" the files I'm worried about.

Windows Backup. I tried Windows Backup built into Vista, and was fairly happy. My concern was that it kept making "shadow copies" before it actually wrote to the external HDD. I only have home premium, thus can't use Shadow Copies. If I continually backup with Vista windows backup, will Vista make countless copies of each files on my C drive that will eat up space and that I can't access anyway?

Short of manually dragging and dropping files/folders onto the external all the time, anybody have any advice or recommendation on how to make this easier using any of the above programs or something else?

Thanks,
Tom

 

Write your own windows script. Thats what i do Oh and that hard drive click is perfectly normal. The hard drive parks when not in use so that if power is removed it does not crash into the platter and destroy data.

 

Appreciate the response. I may be a bit computer savvy, but I certainly know nothing about programming.

 

I figured that's what the sound was, but it seems so random. Sometimes happens when I'm doing nothing, sometimes when I'm doing all kinds of work. I tried to test out that theory by accessing the HD, then stopping all access and timing to the click sound to see if it was consistent. Wouldn't you know it - I couldn't get it to click when I wanted it to. Very random. Still, I hope it's just the heads parking. It's a very pronounced click that turns heads of people nearby.

 

Yeah, mine and almost everyone elses do it too. Its not dell specific (many other laptops have this too), its all these newest hard drives (it doesnt matter brand either).

Hard drive failure clicking is while similar sounding, is different. If you first turned on your computer and you heard nothing but clicking and nothing was happening, then thats bad. Or if you are trying to access a file and its not loading and all you hear is a steady but slow click, then you should worry. But you need not worry. However, backups are a good thing to do. Aside from manually copying and pasting files, True Image, which you listed, is a great program.

 

I'm still awaiting for my M1530 so can't really speak for laptops. But as far as system backup goes, I do windows backup on my desktop with Vista Business. So far I've only restored my C: once and I was quite satisfied with the performance and results.

 

Rahx, any idea how shadow copies work? I know when you use Vista system restore, it creates a shadow copy first. I know that in Business or Ultimate, you can roll back to previous version of files, thus I am worried that Vista is creating multiple copies of files on my C drive that will eat up space, and that I cannot even access since I have Home Premium.

Am I wrong on this?

 

Step One - Creating The Backup Script File
The script file will contain one or more XCOPY command line(s). Each command line will copy the specified file (or directory) to your specified destination.

Use your favorite text editor to create a script file or .BAT file (we recommend you use NOTEPAD). In our example below, we will use the filename: saveme.bat. Save this file in a familiar location for use in Step 2.

The general form of the XCOPY command is:


XCOPY source destination /switch

where:

source would be your source directory or file

destination would be your destination directory or file

The common source directories you want to consider coping are:

c:\winnt\profiles\username\My Documents (W-NT)
c:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents (W-2K/XP)
c:\My Documents\ (W-95/98/ME)
c:\Program Files\Eudora\ (All OS's)
c:\Program Files\Netscape\user\default\bookmark.htm (All OS's)
The example below provides you with our “first best guess” on what might be correct for you. You will need to review the switches allowed and tailor (or customize) each command line to your specific needs.


XCOPY source destination /y /d /e /c /i /f /h /k /o /v /s

/y allows the command to overwrite existing files without input from the user. The /Y switch helps in an automation process.

/d:m-d-y copies files changed on or after the specified date.
If no date is given, copies only those files whose
source time is newer than the destination time.

/e copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.

/c continues copying even if errors occur.

/i if destination does not exist and copying more than one file, assumes that destination must be a directory.

/f displays full source and destination file names while copying.

/h copies hidden and system files also.

/k copies attributes. Normal XCOPY will reset read-only attributes.

/o copies file ownership and ACL information. This will not work correctly under Windows 95/98/ME


/v verifies each new file. The /V is a good choice.


/s copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.

Other XCOPY switches are available. However, some of these switches require user input, so use these switches with care.

/exclude:file1 ...
Specifies a list of files containing strings. When any of the
strings match any part of the absolute path of the file to be
copied, that file will be excluded from being copied. For
example, specifying a string like \obj\ or .obj will exclude
all files underneath the directory obj or all files with the
.obj extension respectively.


/w prompts you to press a key before copying.


/p prompts you before creating each destination file.


/l displays files that would be copied.


/u copies only files that already exist in destination. This is to back up files that you already have copies of.


/r overwrites read-only files. This is good if you don't use the /K switch.

One line from an example script file (saveit.bat):


xcopy "c:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\*.*" d:\backup\ /y /d /e /c /i /f /h /k /o /v /s

Then put that in a scheduled task...voila!

Or http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx - MS Synctoy

 

You can also just get Norton Ghost, and keep ghosting/imaging your drive to your external hard drive.

 

Short of writing your own scripts, anybody else have luck with Windows Vista System Backup?