Backups

[samuijimmy]

My back up drive is so full, I can no longer make a current backup!

Looking through the back up drive, each back up is listed.

The question is can I remove / delete the earlier back ups, (listed) without deleting tons of pictures? Which I have just managed to get to my main computer...(from laptop, older backup drives etc)

When the back up drive, was performing, it was set to "update new data only"... this is what scares me! I am not sure, if the last successful backup has all the info!!! !

[niveknedwob]

It sounds as if you might have been performing incremental backups, in which case you would need all previous files to recover everything.

What backup software are you using ?

[thaimite]

From the information given you must have been performing incremental backups. Your only option is to do a new full backup and then delete all the old one, howver this will mean you no longer have copies of any files that you previously deleted on your PC.

At 3,xxx Baht for a new 1TB USB drive I think that is your best option!

[samuijimmy]

Thanks guys....

The backup up drive is Sea Gate's Free Agent Extreme 1000 gb. Used space 929 gb used

My Hard drive "c" is only 500 gb, used space 258 gb that is what made me ask the question!

The program that handles the backups is Windows One Care (soon to be gone as Microsoft is discontinuing, few people in Thailand seem to know that Program, but I found it very good generally for virus scans & host of other things).

I had wondered about cleaning off (formating the Free A Extreme & redoing a new back up) .... Murphy's law says the something terrible will happen! & the C drive will go south, in the process !!!! But perhaps should grit my teeth & just do that!

It's going to be my "rainy season" project to sort through ten years of pictures & get them sorted! So what is already deleted is not a problem

Yes thought about getting yet another back drive, but money only goes so far...

Any other thoughts, appreciated!

[astral]

I use FileSync for backing up http://www.fileware.com/

It just copies the new files for me.

Once in a while I do delete whole folders from the backup, and start again,

where I know I have been deleting a lot of dross.

You may need to to do the same.

[JetsetBkk]

I use FileSync for backing up http://www.fileware.com/

It just copies the new files for me.

Once in a while I do delete whole folders from the backup, and start again,

where I know I have been deleting a lot of dross.

You may need to to do the same.

I use "Beyond Compare" - it can compare or synchronise files, folders or drives. The comparisons can be binary, or size, or date and size, etc of the files. It also compares images, exe file versions, etc. Many options.

I use it to synchronise my backup drive with my working drive and have done for about 10 years.

[samuijimmy]

Thanks guys...

I bit the bullet this morning & formated the backup drive... so now doing a whole new backup... taking hours!

Jesterbbk..... I have downloaded the "Beyond Compare" Do you use the Standard or Pro Version?

Will try out the Trail version, & see how it works...

[JetsetBkk]

Thanks guys...

I bit the bullet this morning & formated the backup drive... so now doing a whole new backup... taking hours!

Jesterbbk..... I have downloaded the "Beyond Compare" Do you use the Standard or Pro Version?

Will try out the Trail version, & see how it works...

I now use version 2.5.2. I don't actually know if it's "Pro" or not - I would think not as I don't think there was a "Pro" version when I got version 2.

I use this program several times every day. You can save "sessions" and run them from a command file so that specific folders are compared a particular way - makes it easy to check that you've got an exact (binary) copy of important files/folders/disks.

It's one of those utilities that I can't do without and thoroughly recommend.

[samuijimmy]

Well I have tried using the Beyond Compare, several times now, & not having much success.... I have thousands of pictures, but when trying to use the BC program, it only seems to "compare" a very few of them... one or two folders.... even though I set to "compare my pictures"...

So I'm a bit lost as to how effective it is to use, probably something simple I am not doing correctly.... simple answer or not?

Thanks!

[danspy]

Try Acronis True Image Home

[JetsetBkk]

Well I have tried using the Beyond Compare, several times now, & not having much success.... I have thousands of pictures, but when trying to use the BC program, it only seems to "compare" a very few of them... one or two folders.... even though I set to "compare my pictures"...

So I'm a bit lost as to how effective it is to use, probably something simple I am not doing correctly.... simple answer or not?

Thanks!

I've just installed Beyond Compare Pro version 3. I haven't played with it much, but the way I usually use it to compare the contents of 2 folders is to right click on the first folder in Windows Explorer's "Folder" pane and select "Select left folder for compare".

Then I right click on the second folder and select "Compare to <folder name>".

BC then displays the two folders side by side and the files are compared. I just did that with two folders containing 668 .jpg and .mov files from my recent trip up north and it is doing a binary comparison of the files in each folder. (I have two identical folders because I download the pictures twice from my camera, just to make sure I got them all).

It takes a several seconds to compare a 250 MB .mov file, but it's just finished them all and they are identical. If I click on the "differences only" icon at the top (a red 'not equal' sign), all the files disappear from the list. If there had been any differences, those files would be shown in the list and you can see what is different by double-clicking on them.

I've just tried the "Picture Compare" feature, but that seems to compare only single pictures, i.e. single files. When you do a "Folder Compare", you get two panes, each listing the files in each folder. When the file names match, the files are compared and the result is shown - usually as an "equals" sign between the two folder lists.

If you double-click on any of the .jpg files in either window, you get the "Picture Compare" screen that you posted about and both pictures are shown with any differences in a centre window.

I would persevere a bit more if I were you. This new version has a lot of options that need understanding - the earlier versions of Beyond Compare were very simple, but it has grown a lot and I need more time to appreciate what else it can do now.

[JetsetBkk]

Try Acronis True Image Home

I use that every week to make a system image. Excellent product.

[samuijimmy]

Thank you all for the replies... I'll try out these programs again, after installing Window 7, next week I hope . Vista is down to a snail's pace on doing many things.... I just hope W 7 has some of the problems sorted... we'll see I guess!