Backup Software

Chomeur

Can anyone recommend me some software to automatically back up my files from my main hard drive to a secondary one (both located in the same computer)? Preferably free.

Thanks

HoofeHearted

Assuming that you are running windows; I use SyncToy from Microsoft to backup my files to another drive.

It is free and you can run it manually, or create a scheduled task to run periodically.:money:

closed

if either of the drives are seagate or maxtor drives, maxblast

or macrium reflect free

or http://www.runtime.org/shadow-copy.htm

all free

peteb23

Another vote for SyncToy.

Easy to set up and schedule and forget about.

free4440273

yep / +1 https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52

asbokid

Or do the archiving manually which is better insofar as you can file things logically, according to content type.

Chomeur

HoofeHearted wrote: »

Assuming that you are running windows; I use SyncToy from Microsoft to backup my files to another drive.

It is free and you can run it manually, or create a scheduled task to run periodically.:money:

Thanks. This seems good and it works as I would imagine it doing. But I can't schedule a backup. I get a message that access is denied and I do not have permission to perform the requested operation. I don't have a password on my computer. Any thoughts as to why this might be happening?

Chomeur

asbokid wrote: »

Or do the archiving manually which is better insofar as you can file things logically, according to content type.

But I just want to make a copy of what's on my main drive. So the filing system will be just the same. ?

HoofeHearted

Chomeur wrote: »

Thanks. This seems good and it works as I would imagine it doing. But I can't schedule a backup. I get a message that access is denied and I do not have permission to perform the requested operation. I don't have a password on my computer. Any thoughts as to why this might be happening?

Which version of Windows are you running?
XP, Vista or 7.

edit:
See below. This will work for any version. Actually setting up the scheduled task will be slightly different depending on version.

HoofeHearted

You cannot run synctoy.exe as a scheduled task. You have to run SyncToyCmd.exe instead.
Here is how I do it.
Copy the following (text in red) into notepad and save as synctoy.vbs in the folder where synctoy has been installed.

Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

sFilePath = chr(34) & "C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.1\SyncToyCmd.exe" & chr(34) & "-R"

iRC = oShell.Run(sFilePath, 0, True)

' Return with the same errorlevel as the batch file had Wscript.Quit iRC

Now the command for the task scheduler should be

wscript "C:\Program Files\Synctoy 2.1\Synctoy.vbs"

Hope that is clear enough.

The scheduled task probably requires login credentials to run.

You may have to create a password for your account, or create another account with a password and run the task as the new user.

Chomeur

HoofeHearted wrote: »

You cannot run synctoy.exe as a scheduled task. You have to run SyncToyCmd.exe instead.
Here is how I do it.
Copy the following (text in red) into notepad and save as synctoy.vbs in the folder where synctoy has been installed.

Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

sFilePath = chr(34) & "C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.1\SyncToyCmd.exe" & chr(34) & "-R"

iRC = oShell.Run(sFilePath, 0, True)

' Return with the same errorlevel as the batch file had Wscript.Quit iRC

Now the command for the task scheduler should be

wscript "C:\Program Files\Synctoy 2.1\Synctoy.vbs"

Hope that is clear enough.

The scheduled task probably requires login credentials to run.

You may have to create a password for your account, or create another account with a password and run the task as the new user.

Thanks v. much, that works. I did indeed have to set a password on my computer to get it to work.