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I think we all have experienced data losses and all the problems with it so I am very grateful to put the program into my little toolkit. I’ve been using synctoy for most local backups but it has several limitations so this will help me a lot. Thanks!

For daily work I normally use DropBox, by doing so I have both all my computers synchronized and each and every saved file is available for an undelete for 30 day. It is not primary designed as a backup, but for me who travel a lot and uses several computers knowing that even if the custom in some strange place decides to keep my computer, external HDD and any other item with value on the second hand market; I still have all the newest code and data ready to sync down when I log on to desktop in the office again. There are without a doubt some weak points in relying on the ‘cloud’ for storing some things, but as it can easily be combined with things like TrueCrypt or Netmaestro’s Windows Cryptor it is ok for me.

Perhaps it's time someone developed a peer 2 peer backup mechanism, where all participants exchange backup data in a pre-defined ratio, with some security checks and encryption on top of it. Such a program, running in the background, would keep a distributed master set virtually untouchable and undestroyable.

Several people have mentioned data recovery programs. Do these programs recover the files with their filenames, or with 8+3 names?

Does "my trip to italy.avi" get recovered as "mytripto.avi" etc?

EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard recovered the 'complete name' and even the drive label,
although a small amount of the recovered files were garbage inside.
I never tried the Recouva program, as that was for deleted files. In my case, the extended
partition table was damaged so bad that the drive didn't even appear as existing.
I know the program cost a bit, but it was worth it to recover what I could of those files.
One key point to remember is that if it happens. Do not, and I repeat do not mess with the drive
until you run the program. As accidentally writing anything to it in an attempt to fix it, could
ruin some of the files that you would like to recover.

Needed to add this: As I was only interested in non deleted files. Those are the files that I was
refering to above. Files that you had previously deleted intentionally, will be displayed with
a # character for the first letter.

Tech Republic (registration is free) published a pdf + other files "200 ways to revive a hard drive". It currently isn't available to download, but Tech Republic members are willing to email it to you:

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-11189- ... nt;leftCol

Now, from the informed to the crazy. I have lost many drives in my time. I have tried this trick with about 6 or 7 failed drives, it only worked with one of them:

http://www.emergingtechs.com/posts/put- ... over-data/

IdeasVacuum wrote: It currently isn't available to download

http://www.google.com/search?q=200+ways ... hard+drive
First two results (two different domains/servers) link directly to pdf document .

Problem is:

The procedures described in "200 Ways to revive a hard drive" are NOT recommended for drives with a capacity greater than 1 gig

Some of the methods are not suitable. When you get so far down the pecking order of solutions that you are trying such desperate things as deep-freezing the drive or hitting it, drive capacity is irrelevant. Mind you, hitting a faulty drive can give a satisfactory result even if no data is recovered

I'll second that

Seymour Clufley wrote:Here's how it works:

• If Folder-B contains files not in Folder-A, they are assumed to be obsolete and are deleted
• Each of the remaining files in Folder-B is compared with its associate in Folder-A. If the LastModifiedTimes differ, the one in Folder-B is deleted and the one in Folder-A is copied over to replace it. So you always have the newest version of the file.
• Finally, if Folder-A contains files not present in Folder-B, they are copied over to Folder-B

You may need to rethink your first item... Assume you run this backup every 12 hours. By accident, you delete your most important program code and then leave. A few hours later, the backup process occurs and also deletes your backup version. I think assuming a file contained in Folder B is obsolete because it does not exist in Folder A is very risky.

The second item also has some risk attached. Again, think about accidentally saving a file over another file by mistakenly using the same name. Of course, this is the "normal" action of "mirror" type backup systems that don't use some type of versioning. In fact, I use a system that does this exact thing myself.

Thanks for contributing your code and ideas.

I actually use a program from IBM called CDP.
The main two features are that it backs up files when they are closed (so when you close a source file, it gets backed up immediately) and does this to two places.
For example, on my laptop, I back up to the local drive (20 versions and use no more than 30GB) and a network drive continuously (could be a USB stick or drive also).

You can also set up a timed backup (hour, day, week, month or what ever) in addition to the continuous backup for like your outlook/mail files.
I have this set up to run at 1am everyday.

When my laptop is disconnected from my network, the software will queue everything that has happen until it is connected again.

Use it on my Win XP (Laptop) and my Win7 desktop (X64).

Harry0

TerryHough wrote:You may need to rethink your first item... Assume you run this backup every 12 hours. By accident, you delete your most important program code and then leave. A few hours later, the backup process occurs and also deletes your backup version. I think assuming a file contained in Folder B is obsolete because it does not exist in Folder A is very risky.

The second item also has some risk attached. Again, think about accidentally saving a file over another file by mistakenly using the same name. Of course, this is the "normal" action of "mirror" type backup systems that don't use some type of versioning.

These are valid points, however, the code is designed purely to keep Folder-B exactly the same as Folder-A. That's all it does.

If someone overwrites or deletes a file, that's their responsibility. This code is not a solution for that. Having said that, this code would give them a chance to reclaim the important version of the file (before it gets deleted/overwritten).

As a long time user of this software, I prefer it as it is.

cheers

rsts wrote:As a long time user of this software, I prefer it as it is.
cheers