Number 249 - February 2004

Backup Problem Solved!
by Sheldon Shallon, LACS Jan 2004
Backup Tape    For several years I backed up my C drive to tape every week. A tape backup of 3.3-GB of files on C: required about two hours, so I started the backup each Monday before I left home for a weekly lunch with friends. The backup was complete when I returned home.    I recently started copying old LPs to WAV files on my hard drive so I could clean up the clicks, pops and other noises, and then burn the edited WAV files to CDs. This meant I would be generating humongous WAV files that implied long backup times. Also, even a 20-GB (with compression) Travan tape would not hold backups of very many LP WAV files.    I decided that I needed to backup to a large hard drive. There were two ways to go: internal and USB. I opted for an internal drive because they are less expensive and because they may be faster, although I am not certain of the latter. I bought a Western Digital 160-GB drive for $100 after rebates; I have seen them advertised recently at even lower prices. New Hard Drive    I placed the new hard drive in a carrier that plugs in, or unplugs from, a frame that installs in a drive bay that is accessible from the front of the computer. But that is another story. For backup software, I bought Drive Image 7. I knew that Drive Image 7 would not run in Win 98SE, but the Drive Image 7 package includes Drive Image 2002, which does run in Win 98SE.    I told Drive Image 2002 to create an image of my C drive to my new 160-GB drive. To do this, Drive Image 2002 had to reboot my computer. It then displayed the error message "Hard drive not visible from boot mode." MS-DOS did not recognize the 160-GB drive! From Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 118335 I learned (too late) that the MS-DOS file allocation table (FAT) file system could support only 2 GB per partition. What to do?    I assumed that Ghost would have the same problem as Drive Image, so I did not try Ghost. (1 have since read that Ghost also has to reboot the computer and work in DOS.) I tried Microsoft Backup that accompanies Win 98SE. This program does not image a drive, but it will create a single file containing all the files on the drive it is backing up. The program works in Windows, and does not have to reboot. I told the program to backup my C drive onto the new 160-GB drive; this worked, but it was very slow. I then tried using Microsoft Backup with my E drive (another partition on my main drive) that held about 6 GB. This worked--until it had backed up the first 4-GB. It could not backup the additional 2 GB because the FAT32 file system of Win 98 has a 4-GB file size limit. (This problem should not exist with the NTFS file system in Win XP , but I suspect that the Backup program accompanying Win XP is very slow as it is with Win 98SE.) So, how was I to backup a large partition with many WAV files? True Image    I recalled that one of the computer magazines had recently reviewed several backup and drive imaging programs. I searched my magazine back issues and sure enough, I found the reviews in the June 17, 2003, issue of PC Magazine. I visited the Websites for the programs that looked promising, emailecl questions to some of them, and downloaded some trial versions.    A program called True Image solved my problem. True Image works wholly within Windows, and it is fast! It backs up my main drive partitions at 1.5 minutes per gigabyte! And there is no problem in Win	98 when creating image files of large partitions. When the image file size reaches 4 GB, True Image creates additional image files as needed, each limited in size to 4 GB or any lesser size you might specify, until the whole partition has been imaged.    True Image is published by a company named Acronis. Acronis has offices in Germany, Russia and South San Francisco. Its Website is http://www.acronis.com Running True Image    1. When you run True Image to image a partition, you will advance through a series of nine screens by clicking on 'Next' at the bottom of each screen.    2. One of the screens gives you three choices: Create an image, Restore a partition, or Explore an image archive. More about the Explore option later. For now, select the Create option.    3. After True Image analyzes your drives, your drive partitions will be shown in a display similar to that of Partition Magic. If you want to create an image of your drive C, click the C partition in the display and Click 'Next'.    4.On another screen you tell True Image where you want the image archive to be created, and you give the archive a file name. You can choose to create the image archive on a hard drive, a Zip drive, a CD, etc. I select my new 160-GB hard drive, and specify a file name such as C03120 1 if today's date is 2003 December 01. True Image will add a .tib extension.    5. Another screen allows you to choose a compression level from 0 (no compression, largest image file, highest speed) to 9 (maximum compression, smallest image file, lowest speed). At least for now, I use compression level 0 (highest speed) because I have plenty of space on my 160-GB backup drive. If I run out of space in the future, I will choose a higher compression level.    6. On another screen, you can tell True Image the maximum size of an image file; I select 'Automatic' which causes True Image to limit the file size to the 4-GB limit of FAT32, but I could specify a smaller size if I wish. True Image writes an image file until it reaches the limit, and automatically creates additional files as needed. True Image adds '1' to the name of the first file (in my case, CO31201.tib becomes CO312011.tib), '2' to the second, etc. If you are backing up to removable media, a CD for example, you will be prompted to insert a new CD when required, and True Image will split the file automatically.    7. Other screens allow you to specify a password that would have to be used to access an archive, and to add a comment to an archive. I skip these options and allow True Image to create the archive.    8. If the need arises after an image archive is created, you can restore the whole partition or restore specific files. If you want to restore specific files from an archive, select the Explore an image archive option from the initial menu screen. This choice assigns a temporary drive letter (in my case it was N:) to a partition image. Using Windows Explorer, Power Desk, or another file manager, I was able to explore N: as if it were a physical partition on my main drive and restore individual files to their original folders or to other folders. I tried this with one of my drive archives and it worked great!    True Image does not have built-in help. However, it does have a 38-page PDF file you can view with Adobe reader. Problem solved! Thanks, True Image!.
Number 249 - February 2004