Looking for an archival program

Ryan Lintker · 2002-10-28T08:14:51-06:00 (Monday)

I have an older hard drive that I would like to format and use as a slave for my new hard drive. Before I do this, I would like to back up the files on the old one just in case there are some things that I would want to use later. I don't have the time to go through its contents right now, so I'd like to throw it all on cds so I can get to using the HD.

Does anybody know of a program that will let me backup the HD onto cd and allow me to get files off of one of the cds without reinstalling the whole thing?

Stiffler · 2002-10-28T11:57:55-06:00 (Monday)

I use a program called WinRAR at rarlab.com. You can select all the files you want to backup, and then select how big you want each archive to be. Then, WinRAR will break all those files up into archives that are of that size. For example, you have an file that is 2MBs big, but you want to put the file on floppy disk, if the compression dosen't make it fit on 1.44 MB then it will brek the file up into to files. You need the program to "piece" the file back together. It's very simple to use, and cheap, too.

Jon

Ryan Lintker · 2002-10-28T12:13:50-06:00 (Monday)

Actually, I was hoping to backup everything onto cd's. This could mean burning up to 5 gigs of data onto cds. Also, I don't want to have to select all of the files that I want to back up. I think I have used winRar in the past to break up movie files into zip disk size chunks.

Kade P. Cole · 2002-10-28T12:54:30-06:00 (Monday)

You could use Norton Ghost. It will make an image of an entire HD and span multiple cd's with the image. Then they have a view program that lets you look at the files in the image and extract them one by one. Or you can restore the whole image back to the HD. It also has other features. Check it out: Norton Ghost

Stiffler · 2002-10-28T13:27:28-06:00 (Monday)

Maybe I didn't make myself clear when I said you could set the archive size to anything, including 650 or 700 MBs. Then all you do is burn each archive to a CD.

Jon

Ryan Lintker · 2002-10-28T13:34:47-06:00 (Monday)

I guess it was because you were talking about how it will break larger files down into smaller ones.

Does it also put many files together to form the archive pieces? If it does this, how does one get the individual pieces out? How cheap is cheap? Free?

As far as Norton Ghost is concerned, that would be my first choice, if money wasn't an issue. At $70 a copy, it's a very good but expensive alternative. Sometimes, you get what you pay for.

Stiffler · 2002-10-28T14:53:02-06:00 (Monday)

Goto the website to find out more on it. Yes it puts many files into one archive, and compresses the data. If you put 5 gigs of stuff in one archive you will have one big archive, but if you say preak the archive up, it will take that one large archive and break it up into smaller archives of the size you specify. That example was just that, an example. It can take large files and break them up into smaller ones, or it can take a whole mess of files and brek it up.

Jon

Ryan Lintker · 2002-10-28T16:32:54-06:00 (Monday)

I like the fact that you buy the license once, and they say that all future releases are your for free, that is at least, until they change the name of the program. For $30, I don't think it will be useful enough. Norton can do some powerful things that would make my computing life easier. Having an image of my new hard drive backed up allowing a 20 minute system restore sounds pretty neat. I am still up for cheap and easy though. If I come across something that will do what I want for free, that'll probably be the route I go.

Stiffler · 2002-10-28T17:03:15-06:00 (Monday)

Then goto tucows.com, and browse the Compression setion. There are other Progs the do what WinRAR do, but are free. I mention WinRAR, because it's the best proggie out there.

Jon

William Grim · 2002-10-28T20:40:36-06:00 (Monday)

"Best" is often relative. I would recommend "tar" and "dd", but you aren't on a Unix machine.

Anyway, Jon is right, you can do pretty much all you are needing to do by using Winrar. Also, when the trial time is up, the software does not lock out features; it just presents you with a nag screen that I've gotten used to seeing. I would crack the software, but over the past year I've been moving away from pirated software because I realize how important some of that may be to programmers (considering I'll be something of a programmer/researcher someday).

Plus, now the FBI can't come to my residence and barge into it; I can tell them straight-faced to eat it! Mwahahahaha!

Peter Motyka · 2002-10-28T21:14:08-06:00 (Monday)

QuoteI would recommend "tar" and "dd", but you aren't on a Unix machine.

Just use Cygwin suite for Win32, then you have tar, dd, gzip etc for creating backup volumes. From the looks of it, we are trying to find an easy to use backup solution. This might be going in the complete opposite direction since they are all commandline tools...

Peter

Ryan Lintker · 2002-10-28T22:35:08-06:00 (Monday)

Very true Peter. A full backup would be great. I also want to be confident that I backed everything up. I don't know that I would get that from a command line program.

I do have nero 5.5 on this hard drive which I belive has a drive back up utility. I think it may actually just create an image of the entire drive, free sectors as well as used. That may be wrong, but if it's true, that's alot of cds for a 30 gig drive. Also, I want to be able to pull individual files out if possible. I'm not in a huge hurry, so I'll take a look at these options.

Stiffler · 2002-11-02T09:52:36-06:00 (Saturday)

I love WinRAR. I took 7 hundred and some odd megs of files and compressed them into on rar file that is just under 400 megs. I got more that 300 megs of compression out of it. :-)

I need all the room I can muster up, because I'm transfering all files from one computer to another computer. So, in total I'm transfering about 80 gigs of data. (That's why my shares are down on my file server.) My file server is being upgraded to SuSE 8.1.

Jon

Peter Motyka · 2002-11-02T10:15:59-06:00 (Saturday)

I bet you would get just as good of compression from rar.exe or a freeware version of rar. WinRaR simply provides a nice GUI to the overwhelming set of command line switches required by the console version. Perhaps there is a quick how-to to get rar.exe/rar to do this same kind of stuff without having to put out any money for the enhanced GUI version.

Peter

Stiffler · 2002-11-02T14:05:42-06:00 (Saturday)

I will, but I love that GUI. I have to set about 10 switches to get all I wanted for the RAR file. Also, the GUI integrates in the right click menu, so all I need to do is select the files I want to, right click on one of the highlighted files, and choose add to rar archive. A window the pops up that has about a hundred switch and choices that you can do in a very nice tabbed display.

Jon

Peter Motyka · 2002-11-02T14:11:55-06:00 (Saturday)

I dont argue the fact that WinRar has a nice GUI, it sure it a nice example of complete integration into the Win32 environment. What I do have to consider is the wallet I am sitting on. It is empty.... So, when the choice between a phat GUI and raw functionality comes to the table, I have to choose the free alternative. I guess I should be thankful that the free version even exists :)

Peter

Stiffler · 2002-11-02T14:25:03-06:00 (Saturday)

Good point! There you go Ryan, as soon as you fix your computer, you can get the free version of WinRAR. You get the power, but not the pretty looks.

Oh, I got the multi-computer license of WinRAR, so it was relativly cheap for the ten computers that my family has I think I have about 2 or 3 computers left on the license legally, but I think they need to ones I actually own.

Jon

William Grim · 2002-11-03T00:53:15-06:00 (Sunday)

You know, when WinRar's evaluation period runs out, it only brings up a nag screen. As far as I remember, it doesn't actually turn off any functionality.