Best First Date Ever - Easy, Free, did what I told it to do, didn't complain, and made me so happy.

I needed to migrate my laptop SSD to a slightly smaller msata drive. I first used the Microsoft Disk Management to shrink a partition of the existing operating system drive. I then used a program that is the best backup and recovery program I have ever used. The learning curve is ZERO. This program is simple to use. intuitive, and fast. I don't see anything it can't do. Most of the application walks you through what you are attempting to do. It really is the complete package and just works no questions asked.

Why you pay for Norton Ghost when there is a free alternative?

Why pay for something that is likely going to frustrate you. Will become outdated with the next release of windows with the offer to buy their new version after you just bought the old version a month ago. No I'm not bitter but there is finally a beautiful alternative to Norton and Acronis.

The biggest issue is the software prompts you periodically through services and startup applications with a S.
Get the job done and uninstall or run it in a VM or dual boot to be safe.

EaseUS Free Backup Software

http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/free-backup-software-features.htm

• Efficient system backup & recovery. No need to reinstall OS or applications to get everything back.
• Backup data, system, hard disk, partition or individual files to a safe destination for disaster recovery.
• Disk clone, disk upgrade and SSD migration solution.
• Directly recover individual files from disk/partition backup image, no need to recover the whole image.
• Every free user also can enjoy free automatic updates and version upgrades.
• Our technical support team is ready to answer questions and guide you to complete repair with 24/7 email support.

My migration from a 128G SSD to a 120G msata SSD was as simple as selecting the clone option and then selecting the target and destination.

Later I wanted to backup my 320G multi partitioned original OS hard drive. This had 3 partitions set up this way to allow for recovery of the original Lenovo image. This is typical for many PCs and Laptops to come with recovery partitions.

I simply selected the 3 partitions and then selected backup and all 3 were stored in a dated folder under a single backup image. The tool provides a data verification which would be most useful with a offsite backup via a network connection or to a wireless NAS. 

I was able to later mount that image where, once open in the tool, I could select which partition to mount. You also have the ability to explore files and folders.

Checkout the full list of features from the link about. The shorter list would be what can't this do. 

Nothing

Recover Your Office Key Before You Can'r

NirSoft is a utilities developer that has a large number of useful tools for recovery and utilities to help diagnose problems. Most of this stuff is free.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html

• Recover lost CD keys for Windows and 1000+ major programs - including products of Adobe, Symantec, Autodesk, and more...
• NK2Edit - Edit, merge and fix the AutoComplete files (.NK2) of Microsoft Outlook.
• FileTypesMan - Alternative to 'File Types' manager of Windows.
• MyUninstaller - Alternative to the software uninstaller of Windows.

Get your keys and print them to a file using foxit pdf or just use the XPS windows format. I prefer to use the portable foxit to avoid and problems with toolbars or crapware that might get installed it you aren't paying attention to the foxit installer.  You can also copy the keys from the tool to a notepad and email them to yourself.

Lets get that bad Windows 8 taste out of our mouths with a little Speccy

 Speccy

Get your Windows Key / Windows 8 for free

Windows 8 is a great operating system. I use it everyday and haven't had a single issue. It takes some getting use to but thanks to Apple force feeding us now Microsoft feels they need to do the same. 

Speccy is a free program for home use to let you uncover your windows 8 key from Piriform (the great makers of CCleaner). With Windows 8 and Media center I ran into a lot of confusion about how this really works. You can only install with your original key and you upgrade to you media center key. So if you get your media center key it will only help you in the upgrade. You will need to find your original receipt with the Windows 8 key.

http://www.piriform.com/speccy

Hide in Plain Sight with BoxCryptor

BoxCryptor is a FREE for non commercial use, cross platform, cloud encryption utility.

https://www.boxcryptor.com/

BoxCryptor secures your data in the cloud – no matter if you use Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive or any other cloud storage provider.
   
Access your encrypted files on all devices. BoxCryptor is available for Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone and iPad. Also compatible with EncFS-Linux.
   
Secure your files the quick and easy way. And what is best: BoxCryptor is free for non-commercial use. Download and try it now!

https://www.boxcryptor.com/

This is encryption end to end for your most important data. You may want to share your password with a trusted friend or family member if the data stored needs to be accessed in the event you can't.

Look both ways before Backing Up, Time to stop playing with Toys

http://www.gfi.com/downloads/mirrors.aspx?pid=bkupf


I was recently working with SYNC TOYwhere I had Visual Studio files stored in a directory the Visual Studio application created for me when I started the project. I tried to used sync toy, a backup utility also from Microsoft that simply synchronizes or echos files from one directory to another. The problem was I had a project folder with the same name as the subfolder with the same project. SYNC TOY would only dump the contents of the second branch of the tree into the first branch. This made a real mess that I couldn't clean up and I wanted the project to maintain the same file and folder structure as the original project because if things go wrong I want to put it back the way it was before the failure.

I found a free utility that seems to work out well. It creates a full tree and ultimately folders containing files from what ever branch of the tree you select. You can also create backup projects and add the individual backups to a single project to back up with one click. If you want to speed things up and you only have one folder needing backing up then you can run the backup for just that folder.

http://www.gfi.com/downloads/mirrors.aspx?pid=bkupf

The backups can be batched together as shown below with the task group VS Projects.

You can do a large backup or simply synchronize files.

You select the first location then where you want it to end up and the method to get it there so you have a choice of date or date and CRC. You can also tell it which way to echo or to synchronize.

Finally you can put this on a schedule.



This is a full featured backup / files sync utility.

Windows 7 can't fail? Well back it up anyways for free.

Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition

NEW 10.2 Edition - Total PC Protection for Serious Users!

Take complete control of your PC’s safety. Based on solid commercial backup and recovery software from Paragon, the new Backup & Recovery 10.2 Free Edition will give you a rich set of features that you can trust.

Smart people backup; Backup & Recovery is smart backup.

A professional backup solution for home/non-commercial use for free and it supports Windows 7.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/

Little Devil is up to no good?

This Linux distro lets you create your own FREE network attached storage. If you have old drives hanging around and a slow machine this little devil can give you a place to share files around all your machines on the network.


http://freenas.org/doku.php

FreeNAS is an embedded open source NAS (Network-Attached Storage) distribution based on FreeBSD, supporting the following protocols: CIFS (samba), FTP, NFS, TFTP, AFP, RSYNC, Unison, iSCSI (initiator and target) and UPnP.

It supports Software RAID (0,1,5), ZFS, disk encryption, S.M.A.R.T/email monitoring with a WEB configuration interface (from m0n0wall).

FreeNAS can be installed on Compact Flash/USB key, hard drive or booted from LiveCD.

Clonezilla, should I be afraid?

What is Clonezilla ?

http://www.clonezilla.org/
When you get windows installed and you have all of your drivers updated and any software you always install then you need to make a clone image.

This program lets you do this from CD, DVD, or direct to another drive.

The best way to go about doing this is to make a backup and restore it as a test run before you reach that point of no return.

This is similar to the commercial package Norton Ghost®, and its Open Source counterpart, Partition Image.

SkyNet Goes Live

http://skydrive.live.com/

Ok, I'm not sure how much intelligence is behind this but if Microsoft is behind it you can bet it will work much better than similiar services. Yes I am a big fan of Microsoft for good reason.

Store files from multiple sources. Store and access your personal files from anywhere online.

This can augment the use of a USB key and eliminates the need for you to back up the USB key which is very easy to loose. All you do is create a Windows live ID. Then once you are in the site then set your permissions to private unless you have a reason not to.

When uploading you can use the standard web upload method likely using ASP which allows you to load a few files at a time or you can install a upload tool that allows drag and drop.

Why does it have to be so hard? Or does it?

Windows Vista’s hard disk imaging utility, Complete PC Backup, allows users to create an image file that contains the complete contents and structure of a hard disk.

I have tried free utilities such as drive image XML but I never seem to get a working bootable image written back in Windows XP. Norton Ghost works real well and is a bit pricey. It's probably worth it just for the time savings. So what other options do we have?

If you have a Seagate or Maxtor hard drive, you can get a free OEM version of Acronis True Image. Seagate makes available a tool for migrating your files from an older Seagate or Maxtor hard disk to a new one. You can also use the tool as backup utilities simply by downloading either the Seagate DiscWizard or Maxtor MaxBlast software.

After you complete your XP build and apply all patches, updates, and drivers as well as any software you always install (not including games), you need to make a disk image. The games put too much data on your hard drive which prevents you from storing your disk image to DVD.

In a previous but not so obvious article I mention CloneMaxx:
http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/clone_maxx/info.htm?Language=1

Data can be copied from hard drives in high speed mode with speeds up to 3.3 GB per minute.

I saw a post: "SATA drives are not supported...damn!"
I'm not sure if this is true. It may be the motherboard manufacturer. Another option would be to get a SATA to ATA converter which run about $12. I'm not sure if at that point you are better off buying Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. Your best bet would be to buy a Seagate or Maxtor Drive to begin with.

************************

Professional hard disk cloning HDClone 3.2 Copy. Backup. Rescue.



Free Edition
Download


http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html#free


The Free Edition of HDClone offers all necessary abilities to copy a entire hard disk onto another, larger hard disk. This can be utilized to migrate an existing installation to a new hard disk as well as for data rescue. The Free Edition is real freeware without obligation to buy and is intended for the short-term usage at no costs. But in case of more frequent usage, we recommend using one of the higher editions since they offer higher performance in the first line but also support a wider range of hardware as well as additional options which are optimized for regular or professional usage. HDClone Free Edition supports IDE/ATA
and SATA/eSATA hard disks and is able to copy up to 300 MB/min.




Notice this says larger disk. What the hell. Well what if we partition our current drive to be a bit smaller. (more headaches)

**************
So if you don't have a Maxtor or Seagate then it is worth the few extra dollars to get the real deal.
http://store.purplus.net/actrim90cd.html

Acronis True Image 9.0 CD
UPC: 625904487506 Mnfg. Part No: PCO48750MB Manufacturer: Acronis Packaging: CD w/ Key Platform: Windows Availability: Out of Stock Product ID #: 9530
Regular price: $29.95Sale price: $9.95


Two things to comment on:
1.) The home edition doesn't support dynamic disks.

This is bad if you like to make a software raid which I always do. The good news here is the way I build my PC. I use 2 drives of equal size.
I partition 25% for the OS on one drive, a 25% partition on the other drive for important data. Then I partition the rest to be used in a software raid. The software raid is done with the Windows XP disk manager. You set both disks to dynamic then create a striped array with the remaining 2 partitions. If you create your OS image before you start the dynamic process you can restore it as a non dynamic and complete the same process after you get your OS up and running again.

2.) The home edition lets you exclude folders which would mean you could do a backup anytime avoiding those huge game directories.

Hamsters Eat Their Young

http://www.mogware.com/filehamster/

FileHamster provides real-time backup and archiving of your files while you work. It enables you to monitor specific files on your hard drive and automatically create incremental backups whenever those files are modified. It also enables you to store notes about the changes that have been made, allowing you to quickly locate a specific revision or provide a detailed account of the work you've done on a project.

It has many features, but is very easy to use and does not require any technical expertise - just point it to the directory or file you want to monitor/backup and it will do the rest.

• Designed for Artists
• Real-time Backup
• Plugin Support
• Simple Interface
• IT'S FREE!!!