User's Guide
Backing up your files
Restoring your files

Author
Peter Bennett

My Other Projects
Jampal mp3 library & Jukebox
Tag Backup
Text to Speech

Peter's Backup writes your backup set to a local hard drive, network hard drive, diskette, large capacity diskette (e.g. zip drive or LS120 drive), CD R/W, DVD R/W or CD-ROM. To write to CD R/W or DVD R/W you need packet writing software, for example "Drag to Disk" from Roxio, which is packaged with Easy CD Creator, or InCD from Nero software, which is packaged with Nero Burning ROM and with other CD burning programs. To write to CD-ROM you will also need an appropriate packet writing solution, "Drag to Disk" and InCD support this.

When using packet writing software to write to a CD R/W or DVD R/W, there is a safety feature in Peter's Backup. Because packet writing software uses a delayed write to the CD, your backup run may have completed before the data is actually on the CD. It can happen that the packet writing software then displays an error message telling you to discard the CD and try another one. Unfortunately if your backup run is complete the backup data has not been written. To solve this problem there is a check box on the backup page. When this is selected, the backup is not finalized until you confirm that the disk is written without error. To do this you eject the disk when the backup program prompts you. This forces all outstanding writes to complete, and you can then respond to the backup program to finalize the backup.

When using Peter's Backup with removable media, the program numbers the disks in a set sequentially and keeps track of what backup files and what versions of them are on each disk. You can store incremental backups on the same disk as the full backup, or you can request that a new disk be used each time. The program automatically requests a new disk when one becomes full.

One backup can span many disks, or many backups can be stored on one disk.

Backup sets are named with names in the form xxxxxxxx.xxx so that you can use a file system that only supports DOS (8.3) names. Note that the files you backup can have names of any length and form that is valid for the operating system in use.

Huge Files and Double Byte Character Set

Peter's Backup will back up files of any size supported by current technology. It can create backup files of any size. It supports Double Byte Character file names (UNICODE) when running on operating systems that support this. This means that file names in any character set or language can be backed up and restored. There is a "Font" option to help in case the file names use a character set that does not display correctly.

Backup

Any number of files can be backed up and any volume of data can be included. There is no problem with creating backup files that span multiple disks. Backup data is compressed using the ZLIB compression library This is the same compression that is used in zip files. Note that the backup file is not a zip file, it cannot be accessed with a zip utility, the only way to restore files is with Peter's Backup.

File Permissions

Peter's Backup does not keep track of file permissions. Files will be restored with default permissions. It does keep track of certain attributes, and the attributes are restored when restoring files. It keeps track of "readable", "writeable", "executable", "read only", "hidden" attributes where supported by the operating system.

File deletions

If you have backed up a set of files, then you delete one of these files from your hard drive, the next incremental backup records the fact that the file was deleted. The reason is that if you later do a full restore you do not want to get back all of your garbage files that you have cleaned out. Of course, you may want to use the restore to get back a file you accidentally deleted, even after incremental backups had been run. You can always do that, by selecting the file name from the restore page.

Incremental Backup

Every backup is part of a set, which starts with a full backup and includes any number of incremental backups. When performing a backup the program checks the backup set for what was previously backed up.

Incremental backups with this program are superior to any others I have come across. An incremental backup will back up any file that was not previously backed up or that has a different size or date from the previously backed up version. If on an incremental backup you add some files that were never in the list before they will immediately be backed up regardless of their date or archive bit. If you put an older version of a file on your disk for some reason it will be backed up, so that you have an accurate picture of what was the state of the disk. Likewise it keeps track of which files were deleted also to have an accurate version of the state of the disk.

Encryption

Optionally, backup media can be encrypted. The encryption uses AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). A supplied password is used to generate a key. Optionally the password can be saved in the backup set on your hard drive. The password is not written to the backup media and the backup cannot be restored without the password. Each incremental backup can have a different password (not recommended - this could be confusing).

Comparison

Advantages over windows XP backup: Compresses data, Keeps a list of files and dates, automatically selecting the correct backup when doing a restore, does not use "archive" bit so that if the archive bit is incorrect you still get the correct incremental backup, keeps track of deleted files, has a safety feature for use with packet writing software. The list of files is displayed in a text format so that you have no doubt about what is being backed up, you do not need to navigate a graphical tree, and you are not left wondering whether new files you may add will be backed up.

Disadvantages: Cannot back up system state or operating system files, there is no graphical tree interface for selecting files to backup, you have to type in the file specification (in my opinion that is an advantage - see above), does not restore file permissions (other than basic readable, writeable, executable permissions), does not write to tape drives.

Command line and Scheduled Backup

Using the Windows Scheduler, or a scheduler on another operating system, backups can be scheduled to be run at regular intervals, provided that either the backup is to a fixed drive or network drive, or that the removable drive is left mounted. An unattended option can be activated so that messages about files that cannot be processed do not hold up the run.

When running on Unix or Linux systems, there has to be a graphical display present in order to run. This limits the usefulness of the scheduling ability on those environments. Please send me a request for a command line option if you feel the need to schedule jobs with cron or other Unix scheduling software.