Robocopy or something else to backup C; drive

[kep55]

I want to do a 100% backup of the C: drive on my PC. Since Tom's Forums still doesn't have a forum search (although I'm sure it did before Tom sold out) I'll ask in innocence.
Supposedly XCOPY has been bonged in Win 7 and replaced by ROBOCOPY. If I copy ROBOCOPY to another drive, will I be able to do a 100% backup of my C: drive to an external USB 1.5TB HDD? Is there there something better that might just compress and backup?
Thanks.

 

[hang-the-9]

There is a big Search button up top by the logo.

For what you want to do, use a cloning program like clonezilla or Ghost.

That will create a clone of the drive as it is now. Then you'd want to run backups regularly to capture any changes, or maybe just re-clone the drive every so often.

 

[nordlead]

Robocopy will not copy any files currently in use, so it can't be used for 100% backup.

If you want a complete copy (including OS and programs), then I suggest a cloning program like Clonezilla. I use it for my boot drives and it is easy enough to use and provides various levels of compression. I have a USB stick that I just plug into any PC I want to clone.

However, cloning is slow and annoying if all you are trying to do is back up data files and don't care about the OS or software installed. I personally use rsync and custom scripts for my data files, but I have a fairly unique setup and rsync did exactly what I needed it to do.

If you only want to backup data files I've heard Comodo Backup is a good free program. It can "shadow copy" open files, has optional online backup, and a whole bunch of other useful features. It also allows you to mount your backups so you can access your files without having to restore the backup.

 

[RetiredChief]

Windows 7 has an excellent back up program.
Control panel -> backup, select create an image. Win 7 will then proceed to create a image on another HDD, or DVDs (3->5 + depending on size of C drive.
When image is completed it will ask if you want to create a Bootable repair disk to restore this image. Myself I skip this and just use a win 7 Installation disk and select repair, then from image.

 

[kep55]

There is a big Search button up top by the logo. > That searches the ENTIRE site, not the Forums only.

Thanks for the tip on clonezille. Someplace in my files i have a legit copy of Ghost but knowing Microsoft it probably won't work in Win7-64

 

[techgurus]

You can use tools with GUI and works well with big data. It can help migrate data with same attributes like date and time. here are some of examples

http://www.technocomsolutions.com/data-copy-tool.html

This is one of best tool to backup drives with original date & times for all folders & files.

 

[PriscillaDunn]

I want to do a 100% backup of the C: drive on my PC. Since Tom's Forums still doesn't have a forum search (although I'm sure it did before Tom sold out) I'll ask in innocence.
Supposedly XCOPY has been bonged in Win 7 and replaced by ROBOCOPY. If I copy ROBOCOPY to another drive, will I be able to do a 100% backup of my C: drive to an external USB 1.5TB HDD? Is there there something better that might just compress and backup?
Thanks.

Robocopy is a great tool though we ran into an issue when we wanted to copy open files from users computers like PST file which are locked by outlook. We found gscopypro which works exactly like robocopy but can copy open and locked files. It is like 30 dollars or so and if you need a lot of licenses, you can talk to the software vendor and they can work a deal easily to get a volume license.

Give it a try.. the link is
http://www.gurusquad.com/GSCOPYPRO