[Box Backup] Windows backups

[Adrian]

Just thinking out loud...

If you had a bootable CD with linux on it (like Knoppix) and boxbackup,
you could boot to that once in a while to do a "full backup".  Set up
correctly this could be totally automatic.

Then use the Win32 boxbackup to do "user data" full time.  If you do a
significant system change (ex. install a new app), you can reboot with the
CD and refresh your "full backup".

In the event of a big crash, you would fix whatever is broken.  Insert the
bootable CD and do a restore of the "full backup".  Reboot to you restored
system, and then restore the "user data".

Two accounts would be needed to avoid having bbstored delete the files
that are not common (or a program change to allow different backup
configurations under the same account).  It would also be nice if bbackupd
had a single pass mode, where it quit after completing its work. 
Something like snapshot mode, but with a signal that it is done.

Adrian

> Nick Knight wrote:
>> Hello
>>
>> Here's my two cents.
>>
>> Locked files separate into two areas
>>
>> 1/ dlls, programs etc do not need backing up (IMHO) these are just too
>> difficult on a windows box to backup, make sure you have original
>> install media
> I agree that a proper Windows backup is just 'too difficult', but
> installing a bunch of apps and options and configurations can be an
> enormous amount of time. At the same time, it is trivial to backup and
> restore Windows from Linux. Think how long it would take to install
> every application and every plug-in/module/etc. versus just a one-shot
> whole-disk recovery.
>
>>
>> 2/ Other locked files are things like registry, exchange data, etc etc,
>> to unlock these files you have to stop the apps using them, I always use
>> NT Backup to generate a backup file of things like system state,
>> exchange, then plonk this file into the box backup area to be backuped
>> up. This file is transferred quite efficiently - as most of the contents
>> are the same...
> This sounds like a reasonable approach for a pretty good plan, but a
> backup isn't really a 'system backup' unless you can use it to
> completely restore a system onto blank disks.
>
> It all comes down to whether you just want to back up irreplaceable
> files so that system recovery is possible, or back up everything so
> system recovery is simple.
>
> Joe Krahn
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