Remember to do backups on your system!

[Lionheart]

Hey guys,


Remember to backup important files on your computers. We never expect to lose our computer or files or Hard Drive. It happens in the blink of an eye. You dont want to lose 'everything' on your computer. So here is some helpful hints to help be prepared against the worst that can happen.

Backup as much as possible on important programs. You can save 'parts' of main programs, such as FS. Things to backup include your FS config file, scenery config file, your aircraft notes that FS saves the hours on, modules, etc.

I also suggest saving your scenery, aircraft, and gauges folders, but that can get huge. For me its in the gigs, but I have an alternate HD that I can send them over to. This can be done at night when you are sleeping, moving over Addon Scenery, etc. This is good for planes that have lots of repaints so you dont have to redo all to get the repaints.

Things can also be saved to CD and DVD. DVD's can hold over 4 Gigs of data, so they can hold a ton of your backups. CD's can also be safe from power spikes and HD failures, which I also highly recommend. Its too bad we dont have DVD's that hold 10 or 20 Gigs, but 4 is better then none. You can also store things on portable HD's. There are some they sell at Costco and BestBuy that are called Books and Personal Drives, designed to be hauled around with you at work, school, etc.

For developers, remember to save your Gmax and Max files. Both scenes as well as your program files. I have 2 backups of Gmax as well as CD backups. I have several Gigs of scenes. So keep backups of your data so that you can easily replace it in quick order in case of a system failure.

Here is another. When I download planes and programs that I really like, I drag copies of the Zip files into a folder called 'Important Programs'. This is a storage center that I will backup to another HD and DVD as well. I then have all my fave programs ready to go when I lose the HD or system.


Always always always be prepared.....



Bill

[harleyman]

Good info There Lionheart..........:ernae:


They now make double DVD's....They each hold 8 gigs.....And are real useful for dividing up your backups.....

Vista also does a nice job of creating backups or just files and folders...I send mine to an extra internal HDD then once a month or so move that to my external.....


Now if I just knew how to save the regestry.......LOl (by itself)

I set up my system froma fresh OS install, install all my apps then, and the base of FSX and Acceleration along with any payware that has a download key thats a pain to install...(FEX comes to mind)..That way for a total system crash I run the double disk and my OS and base are all up to speed,,,Then its just a matter of my extras.... Maybe not the best but it has helped with over 20 or more OS installs over the last 6 months or so....:banghead:

[kilo delta]

Thumbdrives are a handy way to backup files.......small enough to fit on a keyring yet they've huge data capacity these days! Always worth investing in a relatively large external HDD too.:)

[spotlope]

Be careful about relying on thumb drives, though. I've heard way too many stories of them failing, and I've lost a few myself.

[Bruce Thompson]

It works for me :wiggle:

[BananaBob]

I just backed over my system with my truck, other than being in many, many pieces, I don't see how that helped? :d

[Cactuskid]

Good advice Bill! I back-up my entire FSX program at regular intervals on a separate data storage drive, and it's saved my butt several times. I also have FSX on another computer and try to keep it up to date also, so even if the worst happens, I can transfer data from one to the other. One other thing that is essential to back-up, is any purchase codes and unlock keys for payware aircraft and scenery. These are probably best put on a CD, and will save you a lot of grief if something bad happens...

[michael davies]

I've five hard drives, c:\OS ( 150Gb IDE), d:\primary back up(250Gb SATA II), e:\secondary back up ( 200Gb IDE ), all internal and two external, f:\primary back up spare (250Gb USB2 ) and g:\secondary back up spare (200Gb USB1 ), the OS drive is drive imaged and saved on one internal and one external drive, I recommend DriveImage 7.0 but there are other drive mappers and imagers about.

Primary back ups are done each week, spare back ups done each month as is the OS drive image.

c;\ drive hold the OS and all programs, games, etc, d:\ holds all critical reference data, files, photos, manuals, all Max files, FSx stuff and OS drive image, e:\ holds all secondary data like utility programs, music, old Gmax files and FS9 stuff.

f:\ is a mirror of d:\ and g:\ is a mirror of e:\.

All internal drives are thrown away and data transfered to a new replacement drive every 18-24 months, irrespective of usage or capacity. At current prices of $50 for a SATA II 250Gb you cant really afford not to. With 33,000 ship images, 32,000 aircraft images and 130,000 train images, its a hell of a lot to loose :).

External drives are stored safe by the main exit to the house, no power or water within 3m, children, wife, self and HDs exit in case of fire.

Last piece of hardware I need now is a UPS, looking at a 1200KVA unit to filter mains and save power in storms etc.

[MudMarine]

I back up ALL my downloads to disks!

[mike_cyul]

Everything here is backed-up off-site, automatically (subscription service), so if the office/house burns down or burglars take everything or whatever, everything should be recuperatable (is that a word???). Important files are also backed up to an external hard disk here every evening, and even that is periodically backed up to another hard disk that is never connected to the internet and remains unplugged when not used.

There is also a power-backup unit, so that brown-outs and power failures hopefully won't result in data loss if I haven't remembered to save in the last 20 min!

Mike

[SkippyBing]

If you want a one click solution to backing up your files have a look at this guide to writing a batch command to do set directories etc.

http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1547&print=friendly

I've now got one set up as a scheduled task so once a day so as long as the computer is turned on it gets backed up, but only if it's changed.

[BASys]

Hi Folks

Save yourself some heartache & hard flying :banghead:
by also backing-up your logbook & earned reward files.



Logbook.BIN
Your flights, aircraft flown, takeoffs & landings, accrued hours - by type, rating, etc.

XP path -
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\My Documents\Flight Simulator X Files\

Vista path -
C:\Users\%username%\Documents\Flight Simulator X Files\



GrantedRewards.BIN
Any rewards you've earned to date, (for both Missions & Free-Flight).

XP path -
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX\

Vista path -
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\



PS
Could someone please confirm those Vista paths.



HTH
ATB
Paul

[Bjoern]

I don't use backups, since they're just a waste of space in my eyes. I rather try to fix the problem (if it's just OS related) or don't even let my HDD fail in the first place. If its condition worsens to a degree that I consider not safe anymore (hangs, screeching sounds), I'll buy a new drive and just copy all my files over. Safe and simple.


I know I am careless, but rest assured, this only applies to my relationship to my PC. ;)

[SkippyBing]

Bjoern, that's one approach but I've had drives fail without any warning so it's not a risk I'm going to take with anything important. With the size of modern drives I've got more than enough disk space to fill up!

[Bjoern]

Speaking of filling up HDDs...Vista 64 Business, which I am trying out at the moment, steals freaking 15 GBs for nearly nothing useful! :censored:


Other than that and the :censored: 960 MB Ram usage, it is quite nice though.

[JIMJAM]

I have recently had a 1 month old Raptor hard drive fly apart. Shows you that buying the most expensive does not mean its better.
Before that I had both fs9 and fsx on a hd and out of the blue the computer died.
My good freind owns a computer store and still to this day does not know what happened other than the os corrupted so bad that he could not recover any of the information.
These were well maintained,custom built with high end parts.
I used to go overboard with backing up 20-30 gigs in dvds but most is not needed.
All my payware is downloaded onto a external drive.
Flight1 and now simmarket does not need to be saved neither the patches. Same with Alphasim and most others.
Really very few are LOST and those who refuse to let you let you redownload after a crash, I will not do business with anyways.
So if/when you need to reinstall,just download the latest planes/scenery version and skip all the patch headaches.

[smithcorp]

Thanks for the reminder Lionheart. Got me off my arse to mount my old external drives in Vista (so easy!) and do some backups tonight.

Now, when's the FSX Quest coming out...? :wavey:

[Lionheart]

Thanks for the reminder Lionheart. Got me off my arse to mount my old external drives in Vista (so easy!) and do some backups tonight.

Now, when's the FSX Quest coming out...? :wavey:




I hate to say it, but 'Soon.... ' (sorry).

Alot more involved then I thought it would be. I have been redoing alot of the parts and remapping bits and creating new, better graphics.

Back to backups. I just purchased a software package called Roxio. It was on sale at Walmart for half price. I created some auto-backups for several of my most important sections of data, (like the Quest Kodiak). Pretty cool. It updates the backup with new files if any were added, automatically. It can do some other interesting bits as well. Still learning about what all it can do. (Can even create DVD menu's, of all things, lol).


Bill