Bad news, I'm afraid.
I recently discovered a nifty trick that makes it so you have even less of a cheap, paltry excuse to use when you're trying to feebly explain why you hadn't backed up your files recently after the meltdown.
Pic: Exhibit A
As long-time readers know, I'm BIG on backing things up. As I noted in a former article, one of the best aspects of the cheap new mega-sized hard drives is that we don't have to fuss with backing up to disc anymore, and with zillions of free backup programs around — and what I discovered the other night — there's pretty much zero reason these days not to back up your personal stuff on some kind of schedule, just in case.
There are three tricks to doing it right:
1. The backup drive is disconnected from the system when not in use. This way, should some power surge or lightning strike or ultra-nasty virus hit the computer, the info on the drive is unaffected.
2. As such, the backup drive needs to be easy to turn on and off and, ideally, not even require a reboot to do so.
3. The backup program should be a simple 1-click operation.
Below the fold I'll lay out how I do it, complete with gruesome mechanical details. At one point you may actually have to use one of those exotic 'pliers' things, so I'm not saying this will be easy.
First off, the proper way to back up your main Windows system (the C Drive) is with a disc image program, not a file backup program like we're talking about here. The actual system files can't be backed up this way because many of them are 'in use' and can't be copied. So, for your main C Drive system, either use a commercial image back-up program like True Image, the built-in Windows Restore ('Backup and Restore' on the Control Panel), or look around for a freebie.
For personal files, though, a file backup program is usually preferred because it allows you to monitor things as they happen and only select certain files and folders, whereas an image program backs up the entire partition.
Separate Drive
While you can certainly back up files to a different partition on the same drive, that's only going to protect you if the original partition somehow fails, not if the actual drive turns belly-up, which is far more likely than a partition melting down. In a perfect world, you'd still have your old computer lying around so you can strip the drive from it. In lieu of that, a flea market or yard sale might be the answer. You could also ask your friends, since they might still be using their older rig in the prestigious household position of 'door stop'. Or, since 25 to 50 gigs would probably be plenty, which is ancient technology by today's terabyte standards, you should be able to dig one up one online for dirt cheap.
Regarding external hard drives, I don't like them because they're abysmally slow. And not just when it comes to actually copying files, but any kind of 'scan' operation, like the backup program is doing. Plugging in a USB cable is certainly easier than putting an internal drive on a switch, but the price to be paid is time.
Type of Drive
In general, there are two types of hard drives, IDE and ATA. Any system bought within the last five years or so will probably have an ATA drive. The only difference is that the ATA backup drive can be turned on and off while Windows is up; an IDE drive requires a reboot before and after.
It's easy to tell which type you have. Take off the side panel to the tower and if the power wires to the drive (four colored wires; red, yellow, two black) end up in a white jack, it's an IDE drive. If the jack is black, it's an ATA. An IDE drive will also have a big wide gray cable connecting it to the motherboard, whereas an ATA drive has a relatively small jack and wire, usually red or black.
Powering The Drive
As noted, to do this right the backup drive should be turned off except when you're actually doing the dirty deed. This means a switch. Since you need to cut off the power running down both the red and yellow wires, it has to be a "double-pole" switch, or two separate switches in one.
The standard Radio Shack-type double-pole switch looks like this:
The problem is that this type needs some kind of flat panel or box to be mounted in. I use a boating helm switch available at marine stores which has a flat side so you can use double-sided sticky tape to stick it to the side of the tower:
You could also use a couple of regular cheap wall switches, maybe taped together so you could flip them on and off together, but they'd look pretty shitty and might be hard to attach to anything. But that'd be the cheapest way to go.
You cut the red and yellow power wires, attach wire strips about 2' long to them, then snake them out of the back of the tower to wherever you mount the switch. Soldering the wires on the tower end would be the pro way to go, but otherwise you can just wrap the stripped ends of the wires together and throw a little electrical tape around them.
For the slide-on terminals for the switch, stick the wires in them and crimp the ends with some pliers, or solder them in. You could solder the wires straight to the switch, but you'd have to be quick or you might melt something inside.
The extension pieces of wire don't have to be anything special. Just buy four or five feet of 'lamp cord' (like table lamps use) off the roll at the hardware store. There's very little voltage running down these things (5v and 12v) and zero danger of fire should some wires cross.
Turning The Drive On and Off
If it's an IDE drive, you'll need to power off the system, flip on the drive, then reboot. Ditto after you're finished with the backup.
For an ATA drive, merely flip on the drive, then open Control Panel, Device Manager. Right-click on the 'Disk drives' entry and 'Scan for hardware changes'. It'll futz around for a few seconds, refresh the panel, and the drive should be good to go.
When turning it off, open Device Manager first, as the system might get a little sluggish after you hit the drive's power switch as it tries to figure out what the hell just happened. Flip the drive off, then do the 'Scan for hardware' routine and everything should be back to normal.
This is the tidbit I learned the other night. I'd just never tried it before. After so many years of powering down for IDE drives, I was just doing it out of habit with the ATA drives, and since hard drives aren't considered 'removable devices', like smart cards and mem sticks, I just never thought to try it. But one quick test showed it works as a 'removable device' just fine.
SyncToy
I use SyncToy, a free download from Microsoft. It's a little finicky, and seems to have problems on some Win7 systems, but I've looked over a number of freebie backup programs and SyncToy is the only one that does it right. Get the 64-bit or 32-bit version (x86) to fit your system. If you're unsure which type of Windows you have, right-click on 'Computer', 'Properties', and you'll see it under 'System type'.
Fire up SyncToy. Click on 'Create New Folder Pair'. Browse to the original folder (or whole partition) on the left, the backup folder on the right, Next.
You can look over the three options but 'Echo' seems like the most logical choice for just backing up files and making sure renames and such get taken care of. Put in a name for the entry and the box will close.
Click on 'Change Options':
— The only thing I check is 'Exclude system files' so it won't back up the two system folders on the root of the partition.
— If you only want to back up certain folders, click on 'Select subfolder'.
Usage
To back up your files, just highlight the entry on the left and click 'Run' on the lower-right. A few clicks and you're done. Sure beats the hell out of burning blank discs.
Note: Occasionally SyncToy stops for a bit to do a big comparative routine, usually around the halfway mark. The more files it's scanning, the longer the pause will take, so bear with it.
It'll write a "SyncToy..." data file on both the source drive and backup drive. You can delete the one on the source drive if you want, but don't delete the one on the target drive or SyncToy won't be able to detect to-be-deleted 'orphan' files on the backup drive.
Troubleshooting
If for some reason it seems to get confused and isn't copying over new files or deleting orphan files on the target drive, just delete the entry, then go into each of the two partitions and delete the 'SyncToy...' data file. Make the new entry and it'll give everything a fresh scan the first time through.
If the copy routine stops right near the end, it's probably hung. Click 'Stop', then 'Close' when the button appears. Close down the program, re-open it and try again. If it stopped at the very end, it most likely completed its task, but you have to be sure.
Looking through the forums, a number of people are having odd problems with SyncToy using Windows 7. The version we're using (2.1), however, is the Win7 update, so if it's just too weird or troublesome, go dig up another free backup program. Do a Google search for "free backup program" and there'll be zillions to choose from. As I noted, though, I tried four or five and they each had their problems. The biggest was that none of them saved an entry for later use, although in some cases there was also a 'Pro' version for money, so those might be able to save the pre-set entries.
It might also be noted that if you still have a WinXP or Vista installation disc lying around, you could always install a more SyncToy-friendly Windows on the backup drive (on a separate partition) and boot up from it instead of the C Drive.
