OT - Period Windows 7 help

[Feltwell]

I can just picture it now......

"Houston, we have a problem."

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I can just picture it now......

"Houston, we have a problem."

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

Or phoning "Steve" in IT support in Bangalore.

 

[LadyArowana]

I can just picture it now......

"Houston, we have a problem."

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

Probably not far from the truth. Works with sulky 747's. I was not a particularly happy passenger sitting on the tarmac during an unscheduled stop and hearing that they needed to do this to get the navigation to work :shock:

 

[worms]

I can just picture it now......

"Houston, we have a problem."

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

Or phoning "Steve" in IT support in Bangalore.

The dark side of the moon is probably the only place you can get away from "Steve in Bangalore" 'phoning to convince you he is from Microsoft and if you just log in to his phishing website he'll sort out all your computer problems (despite the fact that you have told him you are on a Linux operating system)!

 

[Flyfisher]

I can just picture it now......

"Houston, we have a problem."

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

Probably not far from the truth. Works with sulky 747's. I was not a particularly happy passenger sitting on the tarmac during an unscheduled stop and hearing that they needed to do this to get the navigation to work :shock:

I've had a similar experience in a 747, except we weren't sitting on the tarmac. :shock:

A couple of hours into the flight, the pilot announced that there was a minor problem with one of the engines and he was going to shut down the engine for a few minutes and then restart it. He added that there was nothing to worry about and he wasn't expecting any problems and he would update us all again when the engine was up and running again.

He made no further announcements so I assumed we continued the flight on three engines.

 

[Penners]

I assumed we continued the flight on three engines.

Thus proving the old aeronautical adage: "Four engines good, two engines bad".

 

[Feltwell]

Hurrah!

I seem to have cracked it. The problem was backup software. About a year ago I bought a little Western Digital portable hard drive, to back up documents, pictures and music onto. It came complete with WD's own backup software which has worked fine until a few days ago.

On digging into Windows 7's rather useful Resource Monitor, I found a file called wdfme.exe was using up nearly all the total available RAM - a quick google found lots, and lots, and lots of complaints about this and about WD's inability to fix the problem. The weird thing was I hadn't updated the software in ages and it's only just become a problem. Upgrading to the latest release was supposed to fix the problem but didn't, so it's been uninstalled and all seems well

Now I need to work out how to reformat the portable hard drive and then find another way to back everything up onto it. Can anyone recommend any good backup software? I'm tempted just to try the built-in Windows 7 backup and restore function.

 

[eezageeza]

We use Memeo backup software that came with our outboard hard drive - free of charge bundled with the hard drive, but you can buy it separately. Seems to do exactly what it's supposed to!

 

[Penners]

Now I need to work out how to reformat the portable hard drive and then find another way to back everything up onto it. Can anyone recommend any good backup software? I'm tempted just to try the built-in Windows 7 backup and restore function.

Formatting the drive should be as simple as right-clicking on it in Windows Explorer, then clicking on Format and following the wizard. You'll probably need System Administrator privileges to do this.

For backups, my own view is that you can't beat Acronis True Image. It's not free, but it's a case of getting what you pay for. You can backup your data and/or create a full image of your system so that, in the event of blue smoke issuing from your hard drive, you can restore your entire system, OS, drivers, software, data and all, to a new drive. Or if a file gets corrupted you can restore just that file - and every shade of restoration in between those two extremes.

Windows 7 does contain backup and imaging sofyware too, but I've heard dubious reports about it. And so far as I'm concerned, you don't take risks with backups!

ATI is well worth the money.

http://www.acronis.co.uk/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

 

[Flyfisher]

And so far as I'm concerned, you don't take risks with backups!

I entirely agree, but I wonder how many people ever test their backup regime by actually trying to recover stuff?

A full test would be to remove the hard drive and replace it with a brand new one and then try to restore the PC to its previous state - though it won't simulate that horrible panicky feeling when your PC won't start up and you think you've lost all your stuff.

 

[Lime]

Hurrah!

I seem to have cracked it. The problem was backup software. About a year ago I bought a little Western Digital portable hard drive, to back up documents, pictures and music onto. It came complete with WD's own backup software which has worked fine until a few days ago.

On digging into Windows 7's rather useful Resource Monitor, I found a file called wdfme.exe was using up nearly all the total available RAM - a quick google found lots, and lots, and lots of complaints about this and about WD's inability to fix the problem. The weird thing was I hadn't updated the software in ages and it's only just become a problem. Upgrading to the latest release was supposed to fix the problem but didn't, so it's been uninstalled and all seems well

Now I need to work out how to reformat the portable hard drive and then find another way to back everything up onto it. Can anyone recommend any good backup software? I'm tempted just to try the built-in Windows 7 backup and restore function.

The original problem of wdfme.exe consuming all the available RAM is almost certainly caused by your statement " I hadn't updated the software in ages ".
When wdfme.exe runs it builds up an index of altered files since the last backup was performed and eventually the index under construction becomes so large it consumes as much RAM as you have installed.

..
Why do you want to erase the backups?
Isn't the sole purpose of a backup so that they may be used in the future?

I don't think any operating system is worth backing up.
I would much prefer a fresh install every time something went wrong.
IME Windows 7 is a very stable platform and storage mediums are getting huge.
Complete drive backups and drive images have become an ever-increasing onerous, cumbersome and space-consuming task and, as was alluded to earlier, often are of no use when needed.
Personal information that is irreplaceable I copy and store on several different types of media in a simple format.

 

[Feltwell]

The original problem of wdfme.exe consuming all the available RAM is almost certainly caused by your statement " I hadn't updated the software in ages ".
When wdfme.exe runs it builds up an index of altered files since the last backup was performed and eventually the index under construction becomes so large it consumes as much RAM as you have installed.

I do the backups regularly - it was the backup software itself that I hadn't updated. Lots of stuff on t'interweb about that wdfme file causing problems, WD themselves refer to the latest release as curing the problem - although it didn't for me and t'interweb forums reckoned the latest version caused as many problems as it cured.

Why do you want to erase the backups?
Isn't the sole purpose of a backup so that they may be used in the future?

I don't want to erase them, but I do want to use backup software that works to save all the hassle and tedium of copying files manually every time. Re-formatting the portable hard drive is simply to get rid of the WD backup system on it which appears to be not fit for purpose.

I don't think any operating system is worth backing up.
I would much prefer a fresh install every time something went wrong.
IME Windows 7 is a very stable platform and storage mediums are getting huge.
Complete drive backups and drive images have become an ever-increasing onerous, cumbersome and space-consuming task and, as was alluded to earlier, often are of no use when needed.
Personal information that is irreplaceable I copy and store on several different types of media in a simple format.

I'm not fussed about backing the OS up, if the PC died and I had to put a fresh copy of Windows 7 on it then that is an annoyance more than anything - you just buy another if all else fails. What I want to keep backed up is the irreplaceable files - pictures and videos especially, but documents and music also. If I lost all our pictures of the kids growing up I'd be mortified. That was the reason for buying the portable hard drive in the first place - I even keep it in a sealed bag in my garage, so if we ever (God forbid) had a house fire it should survive.

Mind you, USB memory sticks are getting cheaper and cheaper for more capacity all the time - being solid-state I would presume they should be inherently more robust than portable hard drives. I'm on my second portable hard drive now, the first one died after 18 months.

 

[Flyfisher]

. . . . but I do want to use backup software that works to save all the hassle and tedium of copying files manually every time.

There need be no hassle and tedium involved in copying files if it is set up correctly.

1. Store all the stuff you want to backup under a single directory (folder), e.g. "STUFF"
2. in a 'Command prompt' window, type 'xcopy c:\STUFF\*.* x:\STUFF*.* /v /e /y /r'

This will copy every file and sub-directory into a duplicate STUFF folder on another device with a drive letter 'x' (obviously this can be changed to suit). I use external USB hard drives as the storage media but it could just as easily be a USB memory stick or even a second internal hard drive.

Thus, one command to backup all your STUFF - where's the hassle and tedium in that?

But to make this process even simpler, that command can be typed into a text file using the Notepad text editor. Simply run Notepad, enter the required command, and save the file on your desktop, calling it BACKUP.TXT Now, right-click on the file icon and use the 'Rename' option to rename the file BACKUP.BAT This turns it into a 'batch file' that will automatically type the command for you when you double-click on the BACKUP.BAT icon.

Thus, two clicks to backup all your stuff - no hassle or tedium at all!

But to make the whole process even simpler than a simple thing, edit the BACKUP.BAT file to add the command 'shutdown -s' below the 'xcopy' command and save this as a new file on your desktop called SHUTDOWN.BAT When you run this batch file, it will automatically backup all your stuff and then shutdown the PC for you.

Thus, instead of manually shutting down your PC (and forgetting to backup your stuff in the process), just get into the habit of clicking on the SHUTDOWN.BAT icon on your desktop. You can then walk away knowing that all your STUFF will be safely backed up before the PC shuts itself down.

I don't pretend this is a sophisticated incremental backup scheme whereby you can recover past versions of files going back weeks or months - for that sort of thing you need a sophisticated (bug-ridden?) application. But it is a simple and reliable method for duplicating all your STUFF. Also, once you get the hang of 'batch programming' it's very easy to add additional commands for multiple backups and add comments to a logfile if you wish. My own version of this scheme copies all my stuff to a separate internal hard drive and two external hard drives as well as maintaining a log file of each time it runs. I also use the windows scheduler to automatically run the backup at 2am in the morning, just in case I forget to switch off the PC.

The other advantage of this simplicity is that if (when?) the PC breaks, I can immediately access all my STUFF by simply plugging in one of the USB hard drives into any other PC. No hassle, no worrying about how to use the backup software to recover my STUFF. It's all just there, exactly as it was on the now-defunct PC.

Anyway, food for thought.

 

[Flyfisher]

Mind you, USB memory sticks are getting cheaper and cheaper for more capacity all the time - being solid-state I would presume they should be inherently more robust than portable hard drives. I'm on my second portable hard drive now, the first one died after 18 months.

USB memory sticks are certainly more robust than portable hard drives, but they are way behind in terms of storage cost. If you only have a few GB of 'stuff' then memory sticks are fine, but once you start to backup music, photos, and videos then the 100s of GB required will be very expensive if using memory sticks. A mixture of the two can be convenient though - memory sticks for the frequently changing stuff (letters, records, emails etc) and hard drives for the generally static files such as photos, videos and music.

Having said that, I've found hard drives to be far more reliable than I expect them to be. Part of the problem with portable drives is their, er, portability. Always handle them with care, don't bang them about, don't subject them to vibration and never move them while they are operating - and this includes during their 'spin-down' time when switched off.

 

[Feltwell]

Thanks FF.

 

[AMc]

I entirely agree, but I wonder how many people ever test their backup regime by actually trying to recover stuff?.

In my experience almost no one until disaster strikes and then it seldom works.

I've been in several companies where enterprise level storage has experienced failures - usually as a too much trust in automated systems and too little knowledge of how to use them - and then watched the IT staff waste days trying to recover and rebuild using incremental backups and tape drives etc. I've also watched RAID storage arrays become unusable because the drives have been allowed to fail gracefully and no one noticed until the last one died. If you've ever seen the look on someone's face when they mirror a brand new blank drive over the existing data you'll never forget it! :shock:

I agree that if you you're going to use an automated backup then a blank drive recovery test is a very sensible idea, at the very least you should do it once to become familiar with how the software works. Don't forget to remove the original drive entirely - one company lost 2 weeks worth of email when the sys admin recovered a backup to the live email server not the hot standby.

I'm afraid I'm a lot more old school with backups...
I manually copy my digital pictures to a second internal drive, then on to another local PC once they're taken off my cameras. Any really good photos are uploaded to http://www.Photobox.co.uk for prints (another back up) which also creates a "cloud backup". I've recently begun to wonder if it would make sense to fill the memory cards on my cameras then replace them and keep the SD cards as another backup at my parents - they're so cheap these days, you can store 1000's of pictures for less than the tenner you used to pay to buy a 36 exposure film and get it printed.
My music collection is ripped from CDs so there is a physical disc backup and then the library is copied to multiple PCs and iPods.
My documents and other gubbins is copied to a portable drive and a second PC.
My email has been left on Yahoo!'s servers for years, I trust them to back up my correspondence and contacts more than I would and its survived me moving across 3 ISPs without changing my email address

I'd never recover the OS and software - given a catastrophic hard drive failure I'd always install afresh.

I think we're into the final generations of magnetic drives, If you look at the prices of SSD (solid state disks) they've been tumbling for months. They give you much faster access speeds which means quicker boot up and program loading.
I'm not sure how stable they are long term but I'd guess they're likely to be more durable than spinning platters?

 

[Penners]

I entirely agree, but I wonder how many people ever test their backup regime by actually trying to recover stuff?

In my experience almost no one until disaster strikes and then it seldom works.

I had such an "opportunity" a couple of months ago. My computer threw a complete fliddy and started grinding to a halt partway through loading Windows. I tried all the usual stuff - Safe Mode, System Restore, a repair installation; nothing worked. Fortunately I had imaged the drive only a few days previously.

I decided it wasn't worth risking a restore to the existing HDD, so I took the opportunity to fit a larger one. Then I restored from my newest Acronis image.

In about 2 hours my computer was back to the exact point where it had failed - bar a few unimportant files that I had save during the couple of days since the image was saved. Complete success.

 

[Flyfisher]

I'm afraid I'm a lot more old school with backups...

Me too, though Penners seems to have things under control.

Interesting points about SSDs vs HDDs. There's no doubt about SSD prices falling fast, or about their speed, but I'm not entirely convinced about their reliability. The memory technology used has a finite (though large) number of read/write cycles and so SSDs will certainly not last forever, whereas HDDs are more susceptible to mechanical shock-related failures but in their normal operating mode there is no actual wear to the discs themselves because the heads don't actually touch them.

But whatever their reliability, it won't be 100%, which means they WILL fail sometime, so the only safe approach is still to make multiple copies of any valuable data.

 

[Lime]

I entirely agree, but I wonder how many people ever test their backup regime by actually trying to recover stuff?

In my experience almost no one until disaster strikes and then it seldom works.

I had such an "opportunity" a couple of months ago. My computer threw a complete fliddy and started grinding to a halt partway through loading Windows. I tried all the usual stuff - Safe Mode, System Restore, a repair installation; nothing worked. Fortunately I had imaged the drive only a few days previously.

I decided it wasn't worth risking a restore to the existing HDD, so I took the opportunity to fit a larger one. Then I restored from my newest Acronis image.

In about 2 hours my computer was back to the exact point where it had failed - bar a few unimportant files that I had save during the couple of days since the image was saved. Complete success.

The Achilles’ heel with such methods is that the original cause of the problem may reside within the software of the imaged/copied/cloned backup.

 

[Lime]

I'm afraid I'm a lot more old school with backups...

Me too, though Penners seems to have things under control.

Interesting points about SSDs vs HDDs. There's no doubt about SSD prices falling fast, or about their speed, but I'm not entirely convinced about their reliability. The memory technology used has a finite (though large) number of read/write cycles and so SSDs will certainly not last forever, whereas HDDs are more susceptible to mechanical shock-related failures but in their normal operating mode there is no actual wear to the discs themselves because the heads don't actually touch them.

But whatever their reliability, it won't be 100%, which means they WILL fail sometime, so the only safe approach is still to make multiple copies of any valuable data.

I agree.
Also not all SSDs are the same and some may even be slower than modern HDDs in certain circumstances.