Backup Blues

[CuRoi]

For a few years now I've used a shareware program called Fileback PC to back up my data to a hard drive in an older PC on a home network. Fileback was able to handle any size job pretty efficiently, but last winter it began reporting a mysterious error ("Incorrect function") when trying to read certain folders on the backup drive, and as a result failing to back up any files in the corresponding folders on the source drive. The same problem has affected every new directory created since that time, so that nothing in a new folder has been getting backed up, and only some of what's in old folders. In the meantime, the program's tech support, which used to be great, seemed to have gone AWOL -- I couldn't manage to get the guy's attention any more. (This is a one-guy company, so he's development, sales, and tech support all in one, though he uses a different mailbox for each.)

So last week I took advantage of the offer in the PC Mechanic daily hint and bought Winbackup 2.0. So far, I'm worse off. For some reason the license key they gave me didn't work and it took 3 exchanges of messages with 2 support people before I got it installed. Lots of time was used up, because you leave a message and they answer it in the wee small hours of the following morning, so each exchange takes 24 hours. (Their website urges you to pay an extra $9.95 a year to upgrade to "priority email support" which I guess means they answer your message the same day.)

I deleted the old program and set up a new backup job to try -- a full backup (because this was the first time) of a big data disk containing about 6.2GB of data: 11k+ files in 600 folders. The program ran for over an hour and gagged (at the point where it was estimating 6 minutes more to finish), leaving a log full of warning messages that aren't documented in the manual. The target backup file has 3.99GB in it but can't be read by the restore routine, so it's impossible to find out how what's in there, much less restore it.

I started Googling reviews of Winback and found a bunch of CNET user reviews that rated this program as pretty much the pits, worse than the 1.x versions it replaced. Fact is, I couldn't find any good reviews later than 2002, but I could find many, many opportunities to buy; they must be one of the biggest advertisers on the Net.

So one question I have, naturally, is why did PC Mech recommend this program? I've just spent 30 bucks to be disillusioned.

But more important, what should I use instead? One review said that big jobs (>6k files) are beyond Winback's ability, and I can understand that I may be asking too much from a program this cheap. Does anyone know a program that will reliably back up large amounts of data onto a networked drive without a lot of fuss once it has been set up? (It doesn't have to cost 30 bucks, but it shouldn't be something only a corporation can afford.)

Senchas

[ktkendall]

Spunds like your backup harddrive could be going bad though..

[eXe]

Hi, Senchas!

I'm slightly embarrassed. I almost sure the most famous software in this field is Acronis True Image. Besides it is really good utility. And it allows backing up to a hard drive in a local network and works stable even with every volume of information... It never let me down.
You can look reviews on these sites for ex.
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews87790.html
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail...e/1020414524/1.
As to your utilities I have never heard about them... But it's only my IMHO.

[CuRoi]

ktk, I don't think that's the problem. Although the backup PC is a few years older than the main one, the hard drive was installed when I assigned it to backup duty a couple of years ago. The two backup programs I've tried seem to have had different types of problems -- while Fileback was saying "incorrect function reading folder X," the message left by Winbackup was (over and over again) "more than 1 file opened," occasionally relieved by "refcount < 0." It never finished creating the backup file, and I think that, rather than disk errors, explains why the file couldn't be read. I've had no trouble accessing the backup disk directly.

eXe, I'm looking into Acronis True Image. Certainly seems to have more good reviews, though like every piece of hardware and software I've ever checked out, it has a few claiming that it's no good for anything whatever.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Senchas

[glc]

Sounds like you are trying to do the backup to a FAT32 drive. That has a 4gb filesize limit.

[CuRoi]

Yes, the backup PC runs WinME, so I don't have a choice (or am I wrong about that?) Somehow Fileback was able to get around this limit before it went south on me, so I never noticed the problem. If Acronis can't get around it too, I'll have to buy another copy of Win XP, which costs a good bit more than Acronis.

Senchas

[glc]

Whatever software you use has to be able to break up the backup files into smaller than 4gb chunks. All imaging programs I know of can, and Acronis True Image is an imaging program.

[eXe]

Of course ATI can do this. There is a special option when creating image – Image Archive Splitting. And you can specify the size of further smaller files.

[CuRoi]

Thank you, gentlefolk. I've been away since my last post and didn't see your replies until tonight. Sorry for asking questions that seem to have obvious answers, but that's the trouble with ignorance -- you can't tell what's obvious. Your posts have been a great help.

Senchas