PC Backup Issue (Win10 & USB HDD)

[TomsFocus]

So, the laptop keeps cutting out recently, it is nearly 6 years old and on its 2nd battery so may look into replacing the whole thing later this year rather than buying just another expensive genuine battery.

For now though, it has reminded me to update the back-up HDD just in case it fails altogether without warning.  I only want to back up the pictures and documents folders to an external HDD.  I last did this over a year ago...but here's the issue - there doesn't seem to be an option to only copy new or altered files to the HDD, so it wants to copy 6 years worth instead of just 1 which is obviously time consuming!  Not sure if I'm just being thick here but I'm sure there used to be a pop-up that gave the option to overwrite OR SKIP existing files with the same name.  Obviously I want to skip them but not getting the pop up now and cant find a manual option either. 

Any ideas?

[Anthonybanni]

Have you got a screenshot, might help ?


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[Stoney871]

Back up parameters can be modified in the settings section.

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[TomsFocus]

10 hours ago, Stoney871 said:

Back up parameters can be modified in the settings section.

Sent from my SM-G965F (S9+)
 

It's not a 'proper' backup so I don't have any settings like that.  With it being a laptop constantly on the move, I only plug the HDD in occasionally and literally copy & paste stuff across to it rather than having a daily backup. 

The laptop has its own partitioned back up but I can't really see the point of that - surely if the laptop fails to the point of not switching on it won't be any easier to retrieve files from there than the main drive? 

[Anthonybanni]

Aslong as it’s the laptop and not the hard drive what’s failing I’ll be able to buy a external HDD caddy off eBay and be able to get the files off that way.




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[TomsFocus]

32 minutes ago, Anthonybanni said:

Aslong as it’s the laptop and not the hard drive what’s failing I’ll be able to buy a external HDD caddy off eBay and be able to get the files off that way.




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Ah that's a good idea, tbh I think it's both though lol!  The laptop drive has been making clicking and scraping noises for the past year or so...  

 

[Nick Y]

27 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Ah that's a good idea, tbh I think it's both though lol!  The laptop drive has been making clicking and scraping noises for the past year or so...  

In that case, I'd buy a new laptop, then get a USB cradle for your 2.5" laptop HDD and transfer the data asap. If you do buy a cradle, you'll need to make sure it's for the correct type of hard drive you need to recover as older ones don't use the same connectors (older ones use IDE and newer ones are SATA).
I've had several HDDs fail within hours or days of them making the scraping/clicking sound. Some of those which failed were brand new installed by the laptop manufacturer under warranty. 

[TomsFocus]

I know it's not ideal lol, but it's mostly used for internet surfing and car diags so I don't save a huge amount of stuff and it's not a huge issue if it does die.  It'll probably be xmas before I can get a new laptop so just want to back this up once a month until then in case it does fail altogether.  The question is why I can't seem to ONLY copy new or changed files across to the external HDD, instead of the whole 6 years worth which will take over a day each time.

[Anthonybanni]

Clicking will either be the bearing in the fan or the HDD there the only 2 moving parts really in the laptop .. in regards to you coping it all depends on the location of where from and where too whether the file/folder name match up..

To make sure you back up most thing of your laptop id just suggest to back to c:/user/ (username). Might take a while but at least everything in your account is backed up.


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[TomsFocus]

8 minutes ago, Anthonybanni said:

Clicking will either be the bearing in the fan or the HDD there the only 2 moving parts really in the laptop .. in regards to you coping it all depends on the location of where from and where too whether the file/folder name match up..

To make sure you back up most thing of your laptop id just suggest to back to c:/user/ (username). Might take a while but at least everything in your account is backed up.


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I'm literally copying the whole 'pictures' folder and 'documents' folder across.  I now have 3 copies of those on the HDD roughly a year apart each time.  But now you say that, they are coming up as 'copy 2' etc on the folder name instead of being an identical folder.  Is that something I've accidentally done?  I'm not choosing to save it as another folder as far as I'm aware!

If I backup everything on C wont that waste loads of space copying programmes?  I only save stuff in documents or pictures so assumed that's all I wanted to backup?

 

[Anthonybanni]

On windows 10 you only get 2 options i think which is replace and skip so shouldn’t really create a copy.. try renaming them (removing “copy 2” so it’s the original name and then try to move them over..

C:/user/(username) is basically your home directory (not ur entire C drive) the only reason I’d suggest it is because all ur bookmarks, links, desktop and all ur other document ( picture, music, downloads) so when you get ur new laptop all you do in copy ur main folder into c:/user and save you copying each individual folder


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[Anthonybanni]

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[TomsFocus]

Thanks Anthony, I think I'm getting it now.  

This is what's happening with the copies.

And slightly worryingly, the recovery drive doesn't seem to be backing up anymore looking at the dates? 

I'm now in the process of waiting to see how big the C directory is...  5 minutes in it's at 4GB and still rising...  Any idea how long it takes to copy per GB or is it not as simple as that?  I'd assume it's the older style 'slow' USB ports.

Edit - Read speed seems to be ridiculously slow doing that, only now on 9GB...  Just checked pictures alone and that's 50GB lol!!

[Anthonybanni]

Sorry about the delay

So the D drive is a recovery partition - so if there is ever a problem with the OS on the laptop you will be able to enter a hot key on start up and be able to reinstall windows 10 from the D drive.... I normally delete the partition..

In regards to speed I’m guessing your using usb 2.0 not the quickest but I’d suggest to to change your power setting to never turn off and leave it to do the backup.

Something for you to maybe look at is buying a cloud drive ( google drive or iCloud Drive) think I pay like 0.79P a month for 50GB automatically backs up all my photos every time i take/upload another one.


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[TomsFocus]

10 hours ago, Anthonybanni said:

Sorry about the delay

So the D drive is a recovery partition - so if there is ever a problem with the OS on the laptop you will be able to enter a hot key on start up and be able to reinstall windows 10 from the D drive.... I normally delete the partition..

In regards to speed I’m guessing your using usb 2.0 not the quickest but I’d suggest to to change your power setting to never turn off and leave it to do the backup.

Something for you to maybe look at is buying a cloud drive ( google drive or iCloud Drive) think I pay like 0.79P a month for 50GB automatically backs up all my photos every time i take/upload another one.


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Thanks again.  

Not sure what the issue was with copying the C directory but it was unbearably slow so I gave up with that!  Just did what I've done previously and copied the folders across - documents, downloads, pictures, videos and music.  About 100GB's worth I think, took under 2 hours to copy that lot across so wasn't too bad.  

This is possibly a daft question, but is there any way of 'testing' the previously copied folders to check if there are any files/folders in them that have been missed from the latest copy?  I want to delete the previous copies to free up space on the external HDD but just want to double check I wont be losing anything before doing so really.

My new phone is linked to Google Photos so I think that's backing up automatically when I open Wifi?

[Anthonybanni]

Not really an easy way to check ... you could open the old and new on the same screen and just have a quick check.
So every time you take a photo and connect to WiFi it should back up... easy way to check just take a photo and log onto your google on the laptop to check its there

I’m running out of space [emoji23]




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[TomsFocus]

3 hours ago, Anthonybanni said:

Not really an easy way to check ... you could open the old and new on the same screen and just have a quick check.
So every time you take a photo and connect to WiFi it should back up... easy way to check just take a photo and log onto your google on the laptop to check its there

I’m running out of space




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Good point!  Just logged into Google Photo's on the laptop, all the phone images are there.  Apparently I get 15GB of free 'original quality' photos.  Or could downsize to 'high quality' for unlimited free space...  

[Anthonybanni]

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6193313?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

Might come in handy if you want to put all your photos of your pc to google aswell. 15Gb free and then you can upgrade to 100gb for £1.59 per month


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