How to use Image Backup for Windows 8
2012.09.07.11:44
Derek Schauland details the steps for using Image Backup for Windows 8 to create an image, create backup media, recover files, and transfer files.
Amanda chapter in Backup and Recovery
2011.03.18.18:40
For environments of all sizes and budgets, this unique book shows you how to ensure data protection without resorting to expensive commercial solutions. You will soon learn to:
Automate the backup of popular databases without a commercial utility;
Perform bare metal recovery of any popular open systems platform, including your PC or laptop;
Utilize valuable but often unknown open source backup products;
Understand the state of commercial backup software, including explanations of CDP and data de-duplication software; and
Access the current state of backup hardware, including Virtual Tape Libraries (VTLs).
Amanda Community Edition Version 3.3.2
Open Source Backup
Release Date: 2012.08.23
Freely downloadable and used by hundreds of thousands of sites around the world. Available in binary form for most common operating systems and distributions. Source code is also available. Amanda is the most popular open source backup and recovery software in the world. Amanda protects more than a million servers and desktops running various versions of Linux, UNIX, BSD, Mac OS-X and Microsoft Windows operating systems worldwide.
http://www.zmanda.com/download-amanda.php
Igor Pavlov 7-Zip (64-bit version) Version 9.20
Open Source Compression Utility Installer (Windows)
Release Date: 2011.08.03
Need to unzip an .exe file? Try 7-Zip, a free open source file archiver program. It handles almost every known archive format: .cab archives, .iso images, .vhds and most Unix-format archive (.tar, .gz). I particularly enjoy being able to unpack .isos, since it lets me pop individual files or folders out of an .iso image without needing another utility to mount the image. It also creates self-extracting archives and supports AES-256 encryption on 7-Zip and .zip archives. Additionally, it comes with a command-line version for easy integration into scripts and third-party packages. One problem: It doesn’t always handle repairing broken archives properly, but this is rarely an issue.
http://www.7-zip.org/
Zhorn Software Bart Version 2.16
Release Date: 2010.03.20
Portable Freeware Backup
Bart is a file and folder backup tool, which transfers changes from multiple source directory trees to destination trees. When run, it will copy any files which have changed since the last run, bringing the destination up to date with the source in an efficient way, copying only files required.
http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/bart
BauerApps Compare Advance Version 1.3.0
Release Date: 2012.01.09
Freeware Synchronization
Compare Advance makes comparing any two folders an easy job. The stylish interface highlights what’s different between the two folders and a powerful synchronisation dialog makes reconciling those differences easy too. Can be used to synchronise files and folders between 2 computers and to give you fine control over making a backup copy of your important data. Free for both personal and commercial use.
http://www.bauerapps.com/CompareAdvance.html
Create Synchronicity Version 6.0
Release Date: 2012.02.29
Portable Freeware Synchronization
This small, multi-lingual program can run locally or portably to back up or sync files you specify when you create a profile. A powerful and lightweight open source backup and synchronization program, available in many languages. Especially light: zipped, it weights about 220 kB (that’s 15 times less than an average MP3 file). It makes backing up your files extremely easy, while remainining fully customizable.
http://synchronicity.sourceforge.net
Dmitry Brant DiskDigger version 1.5.0.1200
2009.04.08
Portable Freeware Recovery
Restore Lost Files With DiskDigger. It goes “beneath the file system” (Dmitry’s line, which I plan to borrow regularly in the future) to recover data on a sector-by-sector basis from hard drives, thumb drives, etc. Think of these sectors as little boxes containing data that are arranged in tracks/circles on your hard drive. DiskDigger couldn’t be easier to use. Select a drive, select the types of files to be recovered (jpeg, mp3, documents, etc.) then click next.
http://diskdigger.org
YIWO Tech Ltd EaseUS Todo Backup Free Version 4.0
Release Date: 2012.01.09
Freeware Imaging Installation
Honestly, you don’t need to pay a dime to get a capable backup program. Easeus Todo Backup Free is a sterling backup suite that provides 90 percent of what you’d get with pay software–drive imaging, file and folder backup, mounting of backup images as virtual drives, scheduling, and a lot more. Todo Backup’s interface is a tad obtuse at times, but even the least technical user should be able to set up a backup without much fuss. The software provides full disaster-recovery features, including a Windows PE-based recovery boot disc. And unlike many for-pay competitors, it also supports Windows Dynamic disks and RAID.
http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/free-backup-software.htm
Hamstersoft Hamster Free Zip Archiver Version 2.0.0.25
Free Compression Installer
Release Date: 2012.02.21
It improves stamina and relieves you purchase sildenafil from sexual weakness problem. As this capsule cheap viagra without prescription boosts strength, vitality and vigor, it also delays ejaculation. Sexual impotence can significantly affect a slovak-republic.org acquisition de viagra man’s life. It will lead to speedy recovery of the weak lowest prices for cialis penile. Zip Archiver is a Very powerful tool, it works with Zip, WinZip, 7zip, WinRAR and other archive formats. The main advantage over other archivers is a new improved Zip algorithm for archiving, which reduces the time required to create an archive by more than 2-fold and it has multi-core processor support. New user-friendly interface and full integration with the operating system makes Free Download Zip Archiver indispensable for every day use and is recommended for use at both home and in the office.
http://www.hamstersoft.com/free-zip-archiver
IZArc
2012.04.02
Portable Archiver
The drag-and-drop interface of IZArc will get you started quickly packing and unpacking files in more than 45 formats, even peeking inside of disk image files to extract files as needed.
http://www.izarc.org
KNOPPIX
Release Date: 2011.10.31
A live Linux distribution that can fit on a flash drive. With it, you can boot into a full-blown Linux distribution that contains many helpful tools. You can recover data from an unbootable drive, troubleshoot various aspects of a non-booting Windows drive, remove corrupt files, and much more. Many people don’t realize just how valuable it is to have a full-blown, bootable Linux distribution with more than 2 GB of software ready and waiting.
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix
Paragon Backup & Recovery Free
For stand-alone Windows machines, and it does a great job of handling scheduled imaging. The free version is based on the powerful pro version, but it’s for personal use only. I highly recommend using the free version to try out the software. If it fits the bill, pony up for the full version (or even the server version). Paragon is also one of the few backup and recovery software titles already labeled as Windows 8 ready.
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free
PeaZip
Portable Freeware Archiver
Release Date: 2012.07.18.08:50
Another free tool that offers plenty of features and an easy-to-use GUI. It supports more than 150 file formats. PeaZip also offers strong encryption, two-factor authentication, an encrypted password manager, secure deletion, a duplicate finder, the ability to save backup scripts, and much more. Once you’ve installed it, you’ll notice seamless Explorer integration. PeaZip actually borrows some of the technology from 7 Zip. Add-ons give you new skins, the ability to search, and access to even more formats.
http://www.peazip.org
ReclaiMe
Release Date: 2012.02.21
Freeware Drive Recovery
Get a tool to recover RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID6, RAID 10 and 1E with variety of output options. ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery is absolutely free and easy-to-use RAID recovery software for most common RAID types: RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 0+1, RAID 1+0, and RAID 1E. The program recovers the following RAID parameters: start offset and block size, number of member disks, member disk and data order, parity position and rotation. Once you recovered the parameters using ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery, you can run ReclaiMe data recovery software to recover data from the array; create the array image file; write the array to disk; save layout to the XML file; get the instructions and recover data using other data recovery software. ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery works with hard drives (internal and external), disk image files, hardware and software RAIDs.
http://www.freeraidrecovery.com/?s=rd
Runtime’s Shadow Copy
Sacrifices in interface design for the sake of simplicity. With this tool there is little more to do than decide what you want to image and where you want to image it to. Shadow Copy makes use of VSS so you can even copy locked files on a running system. You can copy a single file or an entire system with the click of the mouse.
http://www.runtime.org/shadow-copy.htm
Tom Ehlert Software Drive SnapShot Version 1.40
Release Date: 2012.01.09
Portable Commercial 30 Day Trial Imager
A little known program but it works. It’s: Cheap; Tiny; Portable; Works like a charm; Works on every version of windows: XP to 2008 server. (Website says windows NT 4.0 SP3 or later, and it understands some linux partitions, so can back them up from windows as well). Also, it’s a snapshot image – so you run it, and then carry on working as normal, while it creates an image of your disk at the instant you pressed the start button. About the only downside is that it needs an OS – probably windows running to do a restore – which isn’t so awful. You can, I understand, run a restore from DOS, if you had to, or run a windows PE disk, or even a quick and dirty no-license-key install and then get the executable to over-the-top overwrite that install with your drive image. Oh, and you can mount old backups to a drive letter and dip into them to your heart’s content, or do faster incremental changes-since-last backup backups as well. It includes spliting output to file sizes and on the fly data compression. Not bad for a 280Kb executable. Awesome for leaving a copy on a usb stick.
http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en
SystemRescueCD Version 2.8.0
Release Date: 2012.06.11
Freeware Recovery ISO
Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of linux software such as system tools (parted, partimage, fstools, …) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It can be used for both Linux and windows computers, and on desktops as well as servers. This rescue system requires no installation as it can be booted from a CD/DVD drive or USB stick, but it can be installed on the hard disk if you wish. The kernel supports all important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, reiserfs, btrfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs). If you are interested in installing SystemRescueCd on an USB stick, you must download the CD-ROM version of the rescue disk, and copy several files yourself, as explained in the manual. Thus, there is only one file to download for both CD-ROM and USB versions of SystemRescueCd.
http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage
Universal Extractor
2012.04.02
Archiver Installation
Like the name suggests, Universal Extractor does one thing: it extracts. It doesn’t compress, pack, or encrypt; it only extracts. It does so from just about any archive file you could find.
http://legroom.net/software/uniextract
Skwire Empire Zero Zipper Version 1.0.6
Release Date: 2012.02.29
Portable Freeware Folder Backup
The Zero Zipper application was developed to be a small, easy to use tool that will allow you to duplicate a folder/file structure as zero-byte files and then create a zip from them.
http://skwire.dcmembers.com