Samsung External Hard Drive

[zappaDPJ]

I would never rely on a single backup or multiple backups to a single device. If you follow that advice in some form and run an up-to-date anti-virus product you should generally be ok. For example my main PC gets backed up twice a week to a dedicated internal hard drive and once a week to an external device which holds two month's worth of backups. I also backup important data to USB drives as and when necessary.

[Technical Ben]

The backup is hopefully from before the virus was caught Simon. I did similar and mirrored back about 3 weeks when I got a Java exploit virus/worm/trojan a few years back.

It was on the same system, but the backup archive was a different file structure, so it did not migrate. Using Paragon (free) backup now, and the archive is compressed as well, so it adds a bit more security in a local drive. But that's only for convenience and to avoid a fresh windows install. Important files are backed up externally. I do it manually at the moment. But really should do a proper external back up one of these days.

[colirv]

I've installed CryptoPrevent to deal specifically with CryptoLocker. It seems to sit, as advertised, quite happily alongside my antivirus.

As regards backups, I've been using Livedrive for a year now - prepaid at £30 p.a.. It seems to work fine. However, it might well back up CrytoLocked files, and I don't include the few files I want to keep very secure. So I've recently adopted a second approach as additional security, which is a USB drive (in my case Toshiba rather than Samsung) which will only get switched on for the few hours it'll take to do an image of the whole PC - either monthly or perhaps weekly. This will mean I'll have cloud backup for precious photos and family films in case the house burns down, and a secure in-house backup in case my machine gets badly infected.

I've just tried out Paragon's free backup, and on the second occasion it crashed. I then belatedly looked up some reviews of it, and the same thing happened to the first reviewer. Accordingly it's been uninstalled. I'm about to try AOMEI backupper. My criteria were that it should be free, have the capability of creating a boot disk and do incremental or differential backups. Paragon would have ticked those boxes. I'll see if AOMEI does.

[colirv]

I should add that Livedrive, which checks for altered files hourly, involves a lot of uploading, which is a) why it's nice to be with IDNet and b) it's even nicer when you've just upgraded your FTTC and can upload at a measured 18.7Mbs!

[Simon]

I've been recommended this:  http://www.ax64.com/. Any thoughts?

[colirv]

£25 for a single machine is at the cheaper end of the paid-for market, but I'd need to be convinced that "backing up your drive, or restoring it to an earlier point in time, normally takes seconds to a minute"!

[Simon]

I guess it's only worthwhile if it's an improvement over the built in Windows backup utility.

[Gary]

I misread Gary's comment about a clone of a clean drive.  Yes, I suppose that would work, and leave it disconnected other than when renewing it.  That's kind of what I had in mind by having one drive just for backups, but obviously, I'd want to keep it updated. 

[Steve]

Most backup programs surprisingly will back up but it's the ability to restore from the backup to a clean HDD that's important otherwise it's worthless IMO , one can be mistakenly reassured by your ability to back up you HDD every hour automatically etc but it's no bloody good after format C:\ if you can't boot the machine and get data back. How many people actually test this ability I wonder, it's an exercise I recommend to anyone!

[Technical Ben]

It can take seconds if it does not over write, but instead uses new file at modification point. At which point a restore is just a change on the date of the machine (effectively).
If I ever get really into it, I'll have a "ghosted" drive, so I can just plug it in and be away in seconds.

[Simon]

Most backup programs surprisingly will back up but it's the ability to restore from the backup to a clean HDD that's important otherwise it's worthless IMO , one can be mistakenly reassured by your ability to back up you HDD every hour automatically etc but it's no bloody good after format C:\ if you can't boot the machine and get data back. How many people actually test this ability I wonder, it's an exercise I recommend to anyone!

But not one one usually undertakes until they need to!

[zappaDPJ]

Most backup programs surprisingly will back up but it's the ability to restore from the backup to a clean HDD that's important otherwise it's worthless IMO , one can be mistakenly reassured by your ability to back up you HDD every hour automatically etc but it's no bloody good after format C:\ if you can't boot the machine and get data back. How many people actually test this ability I wonder, it's an exercise I recommend to anyone!

I've tested the ability enough times to know that the chances of success are slim at best which is one reason why I keep a separate data archive. Windows repair does sometimes work but I've seem it fail more often, usually because it thinks the saved data is incompatible with the restore/repair version. I don't recall ever seeing any stand alone application work on Windows.

[Simon]

It can take seconds if it does not over write, but instead uses new file at modification point. At which point a restore is just a change on the date of the machine (effectively).

That AX64 thing claims it takes full backups of all data, but it doesn't specifically mention a system image.  I'm guessing it does, though, otherwise it wouldn't be able to restore 'back in time', would it?

[Steve]

It sounds very much like the Apple Time machine with which you can do complete or partial restores to a past time of your choosing. I recently upgraded by music server to Mavericks and my DAC didn't work, 15 mins later I'd gone back 12 hours to the previous version and in my case it's been a flawless complete restore.

[Gary]

It sounds very much like the Apple Time machine with which you can do complete or partial restores to a past time of your choosing. I recently upgraded by music server to Mavericks and my DAC didn't work, 15 mins later I'd gone back 12 hours to the previous version and in my case it's been a flawless complete restore.

Time machine works well, Steve. Its nice being able to go back toa  working environment that easily. I stuck with Mavericks and have been trouble shooting, Apple called me up and took a image of my machines state at that moment to see what was going wrong, which has to be worth it.

[Technical Ben]

Apple assistant... "Ah, that's the problem, 2,000 tabs open on the forum IDNetters...."