PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic) Windows Image backup / Cloning or something else? For music related files / programs.

Hi folks.

Got a question (a couple ) for somebody who knows, who had done this in the past.
I am facing a dilemma with backing up my computer. Usually, I just backup crucial user files like documents, Cakewalk Project folder and other personal items.
This time, I want to make things easier for myself to restore by doing a full backup either by "Windows Image backup" or Hard drive clone...

Not sure which is better for musical items as far as licenses go. If same computer is used, my understanding that program licences will be intact, regardless of the of backup type (Full HD cloning or Windows Image backup) I am talking about BIAB, Kontakt, Izotope, Halion and several minor plugins that use computer to manage licences (not ilok)

Question #1 Am I right about licenses staying intact if same computer, but different hard drive is used with restored backup from same computer?

And question #2 I usually do (personal files) backups every 2-3 month or so. Is there a backup process that would only add "new things" to existing backup, without backing up whole +/- 400GB, Or for image / clone it has to be all or nothing?

Thank you in advance,
Misha.

I think Matt and others use a tool called SyncToy from Microsoft that does some of the functions you ask about.

John and I use .BAT scripts for our backups where we just want changed files to copy.

I run my script against various directories on my PC and laptop weekly to my external USB drives for backup.

Here's an example of a line of my script:

robocopy "D:\Executable Files" "H:\Executable Files" /E /PURGE /LOG+:"H:\PC.log" /NDL /TEE

D:\ is the PC hard drive and H:\ is the USB Backup. The script is set up only to copy what's different on the D:\ drive from when the last backup was made to the H:\. I also log the whole list of changed files to PC.log so I can review later. If you type robocopy /? in a command prompt window, you will get all the instructions for using robocopy. If you venture into this scripting angle just make some temporary notepad files to test it out so you don't lose any real data until you know what you are doing.

Steve,
Thanks.
Scripts are a bit too technical for me. I get the logic and sure that I can get a hang of it.,
but if I am not mistaken that works as "files" backup, not actually adding to the backup "image".

I have tried SyncToy in the past. If I am not mistaken, it sees Source-->Target and makes them same (and few other options)

Maybe I am wrong and when disk is cloned, I can still write the changes to it (syncing) with running drive? I thought that when you do a Windows backup it is compacted to some creepy format, not folder tree structure..

Correct. I've always used the file route and never backup images (personal choice).


I'll defer to Matt on that one....


I'm not sure you can do that.

Misha, Acronis will do what you are asking:

https://www.acronis.com/

And yes your licenses are carried in the image backup.

I have been using Acronis for a number of years now with no problems. I have it on four computers and it has saved my butt a couple of times.

I use Acronis True Image, and even test it pretty often. So far for me, it has always preserved licensing (except one program a long time ago, but I contacted the company and got it resolved). I take an image of my C: drive partition, but I don't actually use the "My Documents" and other "user" folders that get created on the C: drive (although many programs do install stuff there). All my data files, my song content libraries, etc go on other drives. In only "image" the C: drive partition, and then like Steve, I have batch files created to use the "Robocopy" command for stuff on the other drives. My command line is similar, but slightly different:

My user data is stored in several folders on D:, E:, and F: drives.

D: - contains a folder called "d:\AudioData", which contains all my sound libraries in "d:\AudioData\Sounds" and all my VST's and related files in "d:\AudioData\VST".

E: - contains several folders. Most of my data is found in "e:\MyData" (which then has a bunch of subfolders under it). Then there is "e:\Audio" (which contains audio project files and audio content files, such as the Cakewalk Content folder), as well as "e:\Virtualization" (which contains my VMWare virtual machine images).

F: - contains all my MP3 file rips in "f:\MP3" (and appropriate subfolders underneath.

So, while I probably should do it more often, I generally do a full C: drive image using Acronis True Image 2018 at the beginning of each month (and I've been using it for probably 20 years now) to an external USB drive. I always do a full drive image, but it does let you do incremental and differential images as well. While the program lets you image while Windows is open, I don't do that, preferring instead to use the Linux based boot CD to ensure no files are open while doing the image - it's worked for me for a long time and saved my skin several times when a hard drive did die.

But for the stuff on D:, E:, and F:, I use a batch file to back those files up. The command line I use is (assuming my backup USB drive is J:):

robocopy "d:\FolderName" "j:\FolderName" /e /s /mir /r:2 /w:2 /log+:"e:\PC_Bkup.log" /tee

which means to copy everything in "d:\FolderName" to (and create if necessary) "j:\FolderName" with the following options:

• /e - copy empty folder; this preserves the entire folder structure, even if no files are in those folders
• /s - copy all the subfolders under "FolderName"
• /mir - mirror the d: drive folder to the j: drive folder - this ensures that the j: drive folder results in an exact image of the d: folder. If the files already on the j: drive is the same, nothing is copied (which speeds up the process), if the j: drive file name is not the same as the d: drive file name, it copies over the d: drive file, and if the j: drive has files and folders no longer on the d: drive, those files and folders are removed. Steve uses "/purge", which is the same as the more explicit "/e /mir" that I use.
• /r:2 - if the file cannot be copied be for some reason (perhaps it was open), then retry twice (you want to set this, because the default is to retry it 1 million times)
• /w:2 - if a retry is required, only wait two seconds before trying again (you want to set this, because the default is to wait 30 seconds)
• /log+ - to log the results of the operation and appends to the previous; however, the first line of my backup batch file just uses /log (to overwrite the previous log, but subsequent command use the "+", so the whole backup gets logged
• /tee - output to the console window as well as the log file

So I just create a file in the root folder of the e: drive (my main data drive) called PC_Bkup.bat that contains the following commands:



Obviously, you need to make sure that your destination drive is big enough to hold all the content.

I just create a shortcut on my desktop to the batch file, set it to run as administrator, and then whenever I need to a backup, I just double click on it. The first time it runs will take a very long time, as it has to copy all the files. Subsequent runs will go much, much quicker.

That's what I do and have done for many many years. It works for me, and I've never lost any data and I have had to use the backed up files to get up and running when hard drives have failed (which they will do).

It takes me about an hour to restore my C: drive partition using Acronis True Image; restoring the data drives takes many hours, because of the speed limitations of the USB interface (my laptop only has USB2, even though my hard drives are 7200RPM drives). But if I start it in the morning, I'm fully up and running by late afternoon. And that's without having to install a single application or enter any licensing codes.

I generally image monthly (or more often if I've done a major application upgrade) and I generally run my data backup batch file at least on a weekly basis (if not more often). If I've been working with a lot of files, I will often manually just update those folders to my backup drive to keep everything up to date.

Don't know if this helps any or just muddies the issue.

Robocopy paired with Acronis True Image is a great combination for keeping your system backed up. And for me, I do it on three different computers.

Mario, John
Thank you for the input.

Acronis looks like an interesting product as it lets add things to existing image backup. As I read about it, seems to do the job right., but what got me a little suspicious is some reviews stating that new version is trying to push cloud based backup, even if you install local version. I am not a big fan of companies that push subscription based products.

My setup is fairly simple. I use a laptop with fast, 500gb Opal nmve SSD and a very small factor USB 3 flash drive that I use to backup personal items that stays plugged in. Initially I thought of just getting a cheap 500gb 7200 drive and make a system image and just re-write whole image from time to time, still backing up personal music files to flash as extra guard. But the other issue is, if internal hard drive fails, I would have to buy same one (m.2 one sided form factor) that sits in my laptop to replace it... And the whole idea behind image or clone backup is that if (hopefully not) main drive fails.

One of the solutions I came up that can possibly work is getting a large, 1TB internal drive that will fit my laptop. Partition it in two halves. Clone my existing drive to 1 partition and swap drives. In this scenario, I will have internal drive with what I have now, plus second equal partition that I can use as just space for something.

Now the trick is to find a way to have new drive active partition to sync to my old drive, to make them same... So in case something happens, in theory, I will just swap the drives and whole thing should start right up, without actually "unpacking" stuff and using proprietary software. I am wondering if SyncToy from Microsoft will do the job if I connect old drive via external enclosure to sync with new "active" drive?

Thank you.

The problem with using a second internal drive or a continually plugged in USB drive is catching a bad virus or malware. That can corrupt every drive connected to your computer. Your cloned image and critical data needs to be unplugged and put into the same safe place as your critical personal physical documents.

Bob

Bob,
Thanks.
Yes, I am aware of that. The plugged flash drive is a secondary backup.
I am curious is it is possible to use something like Microsoft SyncToy to sync active drive with cloned drive...

I use a StarTech external dual-bay duplicator, which has USB and eSATA i/o. I remove my system drive and use the StarTech's cloning feature to make a backup HD. It does not even need to be connected to the computer to do this---it works as a complete standalone cloner. Very little software uses the HD ID (although Windows 10 does reference it)---most of it, including windows, uses the CPU ID to reference the system integrity. When I'm not using the cloning function, I have it loaded with two 4TB GPT-formatted SATA drives, one for my Kontakt, UVI, Ueberschall, FXpansion, Steven Slate, etc., factory libraries and one for my third-party Kontakt libraries. I have backup drives for all of my data drives. I'll either keep new purchases in a holding directory on my D: drive and periodically transfer them to the library drives or just clone a drive I've checked and I'm satisfied with.

No matter how you do it, it's a pain---but nothing like losing data or a hard drive.

Paj
8^)

Paj, thanks. I have seen some hardware duplicators, but I have a laptop and it would be a pain to remove and do cloning externally.

After some thoughts I decided to go with the path of least resistance and just use native Windows image backup instead of third party software.
With USB C process went relatively fast and backup included all partitions from my main drive.

As far backing up user files continuously I am thinking of making a few folders on external drive, same drive that has Windows image and syncing them once in a while to folders that get new files on main drive. Probably with Microsoft SyncToy.

I do have a question to somebody who knows.... The hard drive I used to make the Windows image was freshly formatted. So now, there is only that image there. I still have about 100GB of space on it. My idea was to make a 95GB partition and use it to sync user files. This (partitioning) should not mess up that Windows image right?

Kindly let me know.

Thank you,
Misha.

Not if you use the right software. For as long as I can remember I've used third-party software that could non-destructively create/resize partitions, preserving all the original data on the drive. For the past decade or so this has been EaseUS Partition Master. You could always ask EaseUS support for info. There's probably other third-party software out there that can be recommended. I'm assuming that the included disk-mamagement snap-in for Win10 is as destructive to data as anything previously offered in the OS when it comes to creating/deleting/resizing partitions.


Something to SERIOUSLY consider: Will the image file you created be added to or larger the next time you do a backup? If so, partitioning the drive might not allow you to do subsequent backups of your image file.

External drives are so inexpensive now, my recommendation would be just get another drive and keep your important backup image separate and solitary.

Paj
8^)