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newbie questions - 5.Nov.2009 2:48:52 PM

hopeful

Posts: 3
Joined: 5.Nov.2009
Status: offline

Please excuse the long post and basic questions but i have recently experience heartbreak with a paid for backup program and before i download i wish to clairfy some things as i am not that tech savvy. I have read the wonderful and detailed documentation and studied the screenshots on the website so my questions are:

1. basically I just wish to backup my documents and my picture files about 100gig to an exteranl usb hard drive and do this manually about once a week without having to leave the drive inserted in between backups.
If i choose options with no zip or encryting does this mean the program will copy files in "native format"? can i then just cut and copy these files back to my computer from the exteranl hard drive if need be? or do they still need to be restore in a more complex way?

2.Can i check mark BOTH incremental and differetial backups and would this mean after a large first backup future backups woulld be quick and leave me with an exact copy of my documents/my pictures file

3. The computer i have has three separate hard drives (not partitions). WIndows xp with sp2 and program files reside on c.
My docs/my pictures reside on another hard drive and on a thrid hard drive are some "storage files" i would wish to reinstall if system crashed (eg: downlaoded programs still in zip file) so i would need to backup files on this drive also (under 50 gig) . Will gti software work with this setup?

4. Lastly (a bit more fussy) would the program allow me to do an intial first backup of all my picture files in my pictures folder and then for futrue incremental backups let me specify not to backup particular folders in order to make the process quicker (as these folders are large files of photos from previous years that i would not be changing) BUT still check the my picture folder for new folders to backup

Apologies again for the long post. Thankyou in anticipation for your reply and bless you if this program can help me!

Post #: 1

RE: newbie questions - 6.Nov.2009 3:37:26 AM

Dumitru

Posts: 116
Joined: 24.Aug.2009
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: hopeful

Please excuse the long post and basic questions but i have recently experience heartbreak with a paid for backup program and before i download i wish to clairfy some things as i am not that tech savvy. I have read the wonderful and detailed documentation and studied the screenshots on the website so my questions are:

1. basically I just wish to backup my documents and my picture files about 100gig to an exteranl usb hard drive and do this manually about once a week without having to leave the drive inserted in between backups.
If i choose options with no zip or encryting does this mean the program will copy files in "native format"? can i then just cut and copy these files back to my computer from the exteranl hard drive if need be? or do they still need to be restore in a more complex way?

The program will copy files as they are.

quote:

2.Can i check mark BOTH incremental and differetial backups and would this mean after a large first backup future backups woulld be quick and leave me with an exact copy of my documents/my pictures file

Yes it will make a full backup when is run the first time. After-wards will copy only the increments, if incremental is checked, and will delete the files that have been deleted from the source, if differential is checked.

quote:

3. The computer i have has three separate hard drives (not partitions). WIndows xp with sp2 and program files reside on c.
My docs/my pictures reside on another hard drive and on a thrid hard drive are some "storage files" i would wish to reinstall if system crashed (eg: downlaoded programs still in zip file) so i would need to backup files on this drive also (under 50 gig) . Will gti software work with this setup?

After reinstalling you OS you can restore previous backups using the Restore function with the option Select from previous backup (.GBT file and archive on external media)

quote:

4. Lastly (a bit more fussy) would the program allow me to do an intial first backup of all my picture files in my pictures folder and then for futrue incremental backups let me specify not to backup particular folders in order to make the process quicker (as these folders are large files of photos from previous years that i would not be changing) BUT still check the my picture folder for new folders to backup

Apologies again for the long post. Thankyou in anticipation for your reply and bless you if this program can help me!

If you are using an Incremental backup task and you don't modify files from those folders, there is no need to deselect the folders as the program will automatically skip the unmodified files.

(in reply to hopeful)

Post #: 2

RE: newbie questions - 7.Nov.2009 3:56:00 AM

hopeful

Posts: 3
Joined: 5.Nov.2009
Status: offline

Thankyou so much for your reply. I have run a initial backup and was amazed at how fast the program managed this. The program is easy to set up as the documenatation is through. THis is the backup solution i have been searching for. It is true "the best things in life are free"!

(in reply to Dumitru)

Post #: 3