What should one back up from the system partition?

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John Gray
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What should one back up from the system partition?

Post by John Gray »

Obviously it is a Good Idea to do regular boot/system/Windows partition imaging with a product such as Shadow Protect, Macrium Reflect, or Acronis TrueImage.

But it's probably a good idea to back up more regularly (e.g. at logon and/or shutdown, if this can be done) the user data which hasn't been, or can't be, located on a data disk such as D:.

The files which occur to me are:
  • all of My Documents (if this is used)
  • the Outlook PST file, or equivalent in other mail clients (but not while it's open!)
  • Firefox Profile, or equivalent in other browser
Can anyone add to the list?
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HansV
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Re: What should one back up from the system partition?

Post by HansV »

Why not your entire user profile? That includes all items you mentioned, plus settings from other applications.
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Bigaldoc
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Re: What should one back up from the system partition?

Post by Bigaldoc »

I don't use Outlook so I don't know the "peculiarities" of that product, so I don't know why you can't back it up while it's open. I regularly backup Thunderbird's files without closing and that works just fine.

You neglect to mention, when you say "if this is used" about My Documents that it SHOULD be backed up regularly for there are some programs which store data there without allowance to the user to change same. In addition, if one does store other user data on the boot partition, hopefully in an identifiable folder, that too should be backed up.

With all of that out of the way, why bother? Why not do incrementals of the whole partition on a daily basis? Mine only takes a couple of minutes. A problem could be in the scheduling of same if the imaging software doesn't willingly deal with "at shutdown" or "at bootup" or whatever. I do mine at 1 am whilst I (sometimes) slumber.

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Argus
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Re: What should one back up from the system partition?

Post by Argus »

For me it's a bit of the opposite; My Documents points to a Document folder on another partition, so My Docs is indeed used, since it's a convenient short cut built into the OS, though I've moved the folder. And it’s part of a frequent data backup; as for my e-mail client I have also chosen another partition for the "mailbox", also part of the frequent backups.

Major things left on the system partition, for me, are, as you mention, browser profile with the settings and bookmarks, and the Office settings. To be honest, those are not a major concern; I have plenty of copies over the years. One or two weeks of emails or documents would be sad to lose, since they are important, but Office settings doesn't change that often, or if they do, are easily restored in some way. Bookmarks do change more often, true. Thus, for me, browser and office settings are part of the less frequent system partition backup; mail and docs are part of the more frequent data backup. But I also backup the Office and browser profile separately if doing major changes such as installing a new version.

So, since I have separated important data and OS/software, not only for different backups, but for a safer OS repair etc., I've decided that what is left is less important. Your post seems to indicate a similar situation, but perhaps with the user data on another drive ("all of My Documents (if this is used)").

(As for the "all of My Documents (if this is used)"; I can't understand those that insist to not use this convenient thing, some even trying to erase it completely, perhaps since they use something like "C:\data", whatever, as they always have done, and they also find it "childish"; but then as Al said, some software might use the "My Doc". Why then, since it's possible to point My Doc to any folder on any partition, not just relocate it.)
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John Gray
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Re: What should one back up from the system partition?

Post by John Gray »

HansV wrote:Why not your entire user profile? That includes all items you mentioned, plus settings from other applications.
I suppose this is an all-encompassing approach, other than that my Windows 7 User Profile is over 700 MB, and Users\All Users => ProgramData is 1200 MB! I will do a bit more research on this...

Big Al: Incremental backups are fine (and that's what I do), but it's not so easy to get a file back as just looking for it on another drive.
Because the Outlook PST file is open when Outlook is running, it can't be backed up unless you use Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS) in Windows 7.
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Bigaldoc
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Re: What should one back up from the system partition?

Post by Bigaldoc »

Well, to each his own, John, obviously. But I've restored one or more individual files from my Shadow Protect backup images more times than I can count and it's never been a problem. It only takes a minute or two to mount an image and from there it's a simple drag-n-drop in Windows Explorer.

Well, good luck on whatever you decide to do...

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PaulB
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Re: What should one back up from the system partition?

Post by PaulB »

I agree wholeheartedly with Big Al's methodology for backups and have adopted it myself: weekly full images of all disks supplemented by daily incrementals. As full images take quite some time to complete, I schedule them to run overnight. Incrementals usually take only minutes to complete and can be scheduled for any time. I use ShadowProtect Desktop. It uses VSS so open files are not a concern. Like Big Al mentions above, restoring one or more file is quick and easy.

Edited to add: Just completed today's 6:00 PM incremental. Total time: 29 seconds.
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StuartR
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Re: What should one back up from the system partition?

Post by StuartR »

John Gray wrote:...
  • the Outlook PST file, or equivalent in other mail clients (but not while it's open!)
...
I always create my Outlook PST file on a data partition, so that it gets included in my daily backups.
StuartR