Backing up cabinet hard drives

[LeedsFan]

I've built a few projects over the years and although I have backups of the main data I've come to realise that what I really need is a full backup of the hard drive in each cabinet. Basically when I came to tweak something it dawned on me that should the drive ever fail completely I;d have a hassle to get the cabinet back up and running with the exact same setup and specs.

So basically guys... what's the best way to go about this? I've got six machines here and 5 of those are 30 Gb or less. Only one is a behemoth with 86 GB on the C drive and the data drive is already backed up on 1 TB.

The software I'm gonna use is AOMEI backupper. It looks really simple to use with a neat and easy interface. And it's free!

But I'm torn between cloning each hard drive or creating disc images and collecting them onto one hard drive. The cloning of drives would mean more hard drives, but each drive could be plugged in and running in a matter of minutes should a hard drive fail completely. It's the disc images I don't fully understand. If a hard drive died on me completely how do I restore an image backup onto a fresh drive? There's no operating system on the fresh drive. Do I need to make some kind of boot disc?

Backing up is not something I've done on a big scale, but I can see the possible headaches if I don't get it sorted.

[spoot]

If you just wish to have a "snaphot" to restore when a drive dies you can look at Clonezilla.  It will make an image file to other hd, usb device, etc.  Then if want to restore.........boot cd......copy img to hd.

[BadMouth]

I use Acronis WD edition. 

With any of this software, to restore you create bootable media, either using a CD or flash drive.  This is done in the software by clicking on "create bootable media" or something like that. 
When the PC in need of restoring boots, select the bootable media as where to boot from.  The bootable media will load enough drivers to get by with (operate an external HD) and give you a point and click interface to restore from.  It's all pretty simple and self explanatory.
http://www.backup-utility.com/bootable-rescue-media-creator.html

I've had to restore quite a few times over the years.
I've never had any problems using backup images, but I was never worried about the wait.
The nice part is that you can get into the disc image and look at stuff or pull out files that you need.

[pbj]

Probably a good idea to replace all the capacitors and clearcoat the magnetic platters, too.

[yotsuya]

I just back up the MAME/Hyperspin/AtomicFE setup on a portable Hard Drive and don't worry about the system (though I try to keep a backup of the drivers). Setting up Windows is the easy part. 

[Vigo]

  Yeah, I just drag and drop the emulator directories in a portable drive. I can set up a new windows in my sleep, and don't use any emulators/games that are not portable. On my systems with very limited space, I copy over the roms as well, simply because I have a custom selected romset.  Those systems are under 8gb. Everything else I have just hinges on a master copy of all roms I keep, so there is a stupidly small amount of "custom" installed stuff on my Hard drive.

If my HD goes kabonk, I just do a new windows, then drag in the roms and emulator directory backup and I am back on the road.

[BobA]

I just back up the MAME/Hyperspin/AtomicFE setup on a portable Hard Drive and don't worry about the system (though I try to keep a backup of the drivers). Setting up Windows is the easy part. 

What type of clear coat do you suggest for the Platters 

Back to the original question.  I use Acronis to create t total image of the drive that I want to back up.

[BadMouth]

You guys obviously don't tweak windows as much as I do, especially XP.
Much easier just to recover a backup image which already includes drivers that work and has unnecessary services disabled.

Windows 7 has had it's own issues.  It takes a huge amount of time to download and install all the updates after reinstalling from scratch.

[retrogamedude]

I have an entire server rack in the basement that backs up entire drives once a night, I have complete images ready to go as well.  40TB in RAID drives for everything in the house.

[yotsuya]

I have an entire server rack in the basement that backs up entire drives once a night, I have complete images ready to go as well.  40TB in RAID drives for everything in the house.

You could save a ton of porn on there....

[DeLuSioNal29]

I use Acronis True Image.  I got tired of fiddling with boot discs based on HDD manufacturers.  This works on all models of Hard drives. 
What I like about it is that you can clone your hard drive and the re-store utility allows it to be restored onto new hardware.  This was important to me in case my motherboard died.  It also future proofs my MAME cab in case I need to upgrade in the future.

D

[horizon]

While I agree with Delunsional, I have been a fan of Seagate's disk wizard utility.  As long as a Seagate is somewhere in the process, either the to or from drive, you can use the software.  Although they aren't nearly as reliable as they were in the past, using it as a recovery tool has worked for me recently.  It also happens to be free, so there is that.

Good luck.

[gildahl]

I have three HDs.  C: is for Windows, D: is for the data drive (all emulators and their configs), and E: is a backup of D: (and a few select folders on C:).  I don't backup all of C: since I generally consider a system hard drive failure to be an "opportunity" to clean up my system and update my OS  :-)   Losing D: however, would be truly nasty.

To backup I use an AHK script that calls Robocopy.exe with its /mir option on each top level folder I need backed up.  The backup goes to E:.  I run this with a hotkey periodically as needed.  Robocopy.exe is built into most newer versions of Windows and is able to mirror arbitrarily deep directories extremely fast (it only copies deltas).  Backups are just ordinary folders, so restore is easy.   For example, if D: fails, simply renaming E: as D: will put me back in business.

[gsr18]

I also agree with Delunsional.  Acronis True Image is what I use.  Backs everything up to a backup drive, CDs or DVDs.  Very easy to use.

[pbj]

What's the best way to back up a back up?

[spoot]

What's the best way to back up a back up?

Is it possible for you not to shitpost several threads a day?

[pbj]

What's the best way to back up a back up?

Is it possible for you not to shitpost several threads a day?

Please stay on topic.