full backup & restore for w95

how big is your hard drive?

One program that we use to "image" our hard drives is a program called ghost...it works really well!!

you can get it at www.ghostsoft.com

Hope this helps..

Conan

Are you expecting to back up your whole system on floppies??  If you are going to use tape, the backup software included with it should easily do the job.  If you want to back it up to another disk, it is a bit more involved.

Hy hard drive is 2.5Gb
The data on it (which I want to freeze) is about 750Mb

I have iomega ZIP and Fujitsu MO 230Mb. I also have a CD-R drive.
I could save the image on a CD-ROM if the program saved the image
on another hard disk (or on the unused part of the same hd)
I don't like and won't save anything on floppies! :)

Thank you ckezema for your advice. I'll look for that just now.

pablocosta,
You can copy your hard drive to a CD using software that came with your recorder.
If it is a Win95 program with an Explorer-type interface, it's easy because you can use drag 'n drop to copy all files to the CD.
First, from the Explorer view menu/options, select "Show all files".
It isn't necessary to copy the large swap file.  Windows will create another.
Let me know if you need more.
Regards,
Ralph

I am afraid of just copying every file on the hard disk.
I tried that long time ago and it didn't work (I believe that. It was long time ago and I'm not sure.)
I think if I get every file including the registry it should work but I'm not sure.
Also I should do it booting from another copy of windows 95 because the system files might be locked because they will be 'in use' won't it?

Please tell me what you think.

ckezema 'conan' please be patient I am trying ghost just now. I'm a little busy. sorry 4 the delay.

thank you all

no problem...take your time..

well I downloaded the lastest version of Ghost
It hangs up with a clean boot
I read some users were having problems so the older version
was offered to me when downloading.
I will download old version and try again

Well what do you think about the locked (in use) files and writing a CD with all my hard disk files (proposed by Ralph 'rmarotta'; please give your own oppinion Ralph)?

Thank you again for your support

pablocosta,
Using Windows, it is possible to copy all files necessary for transferring your Windows setup to another hard drive.  I just thought you might be interested in trying that proceedure for recording your system on a CD.
I think that as long as the total data size doesn't exceed the capacity of a single CD, it should work for you.
Let me know.
Ralph

please excuse me for those delays. I am very busy by now and I am not able to test every advice you give me.

Ghost worked 1 time only!! I do not know if it is usual but I won't buy it because I need to use it on that machine. It worked from within Windows 95, but I would like to restore the partition image without having to install a W95 before.
What do you think Conan?

Well I thinked as you Ralph adviced of saving every file on another hard disk. That would work if I could transfer them back where they were from the msdos command line.

I found a utility on the W95 OSR2 CD-ROM which saves the long filenames and then converts them to short. You are expected to xcopy the files (or something alike) and the same utility will restore the long filenames whenever you feel like.

I'll try that because I have enough free hard disk. That machine have 4 hard drives permanently connected and I can borrow some space while I try the things I want to try

thank you again
please let me know if you have something to say

Do you want the procedure for copying your present Win95 hard drive's contents to another hard drive, without having to re-install Windows?
Ralph

Ghost is about the best one that i have found.

Ghost works really well, if you have an image stored on a network, and with using a boot disk, the machine that needs the image can then access the network and install the image...

If you are only using one machine...you can store the ghost program on a floppy, and store the image file on either a second hard drive or a zip disk...(assuming that your image is of your C drive and wont fit on a floppy)

You should then have no problems reinstalling using the ghost program...

If this helps you, just let me know, and I will repost my comment as an answer..

Conan

> please point me at a program able to backup my full w95
> partition just as it is now, and to restore it later
> leaving the system working so fine as it is working now.

PowerQuest's "Drive Image" creates a "compressed" copy.

See: http://WWW.PowerQuest.com/product/di/

Thanks otta but Conan gave me such a response long time ago and I rejected his answer.

I wanted to test DriveImage but our friends at PowerQuest did not want to let me download his demo and then Conan pointed me at Ghost. So Ghost is a better choice for me than DriveImage. I cannot spend the money of my company whithout knowing if that will be useful for me.

Conan I like Ghost but it used to hang too often on the machine I want to save and I am unable to test it now more than ever because the demo period has expired. I can't run the new or the old versions of Ghost now. I should had tried it a little quicker :(

Please repost your advice as an answer so I can accept it.
One day I'll have to completely reinstall the system on that or other machine and then I will give Ghost another chance.

I'm trying today to do the backup with xcopy and so...

Ralph thanks for your advice too. I want to have two hard disks with the same windows 95 installation and same apps and so. I don't want both hard disks running on different machines. I wanted one of them as a backup, to come back to the "installation day" when everything worked fine. Because I spend too much time re-installing the system when it starts to do strange things.

thanks to you all

pablo,
Drag and drop in Explorer is simpler than using xcopy, which is not foolproof.
You can use Windows95 to make a copy of that drive suitable for recovering your system without re-installing.
Once again, just let me know if you want the details on how to do it.
Ralph

ok Ralph. Please give me details for doing so.
I know how to drag'n'drop! ;)
Just I don't rely on copying the running system "with himself".
One day I did and it did not work. It was by the starts of 95 and by that time W95 was not what it is now but...

If you think it'll work, I'll try it.

ok Ralph. Please give me details for doing so.
I know how to drag'n'drop! ;)
Just I don't rely on copying the running system "with himself".
One day I did and it did not work. It was by the starts of 95 and by that time W95 was not what it is now but...

If you think it'll work, I'll try it.

ok Ralph. Please give me details for doing so.
I know how to drag'n'drop! ;)
Just I don't rely on copying the running system "with himself".
One day I did and it did not work. It was by the starts of 95 and by that time W95 was not what it is now but...

If you think it'll work, I'll try it.

Pablo, ???
Did you have a look at the proposed answer?
Ralph

Excuse me Ralph 'rmarotta'
I like your answer but I was not able to try it until now. Maybe this week I am doing one backup.
I can't remember if I answered the question before leaving or if the question got auto-answered. Anyway I promised 100+ points. Please tell me how to give you the points. If necessary I will re-ask the question or something alike.

Excuse me infinite times for abandoning you all for nearly one month but
my exams were very important to me and I was not well prepared. Hope it won't happen again.

Pablo,
I understand about the exams.  Don't worry about it.
Questions are autograded here after about a three week period of inactivity.
If you want, you can ask a new question for me to answer if you have problems using the method I gave you.
It isn't necessary though, as the points aren't an issue with me.  We can continue in this thread if you prefer.
Let me know how it goes.
Regards,
Ralph