[gwen]

I just purchased an external hard drive and it came with Back Up My PC 7. I do want a program that will do both full and incremental back ups of my photos. However I want to be able to access the files in the back up the same as I do the originals. Is this possible without having to restore them first? If BUMP doesn't allow this do you know of any programs that do?
Thanks
gwen

[marlinsinger]

I just purchased an external hard drive and it came with Back Up My PC 7. I do want a program that will do both full and incremental back ups of my photos. However I want to be able to access the files in the back up the same as I do the originals. Is this possible without having to restore them first? If BUMP doesn't allow this do you know of any programs that do?
Thanks
gwen

No it does not, and most backup software will not as they do compression to save space and back up to their own file type. In BUMP case, a .QIC file.
If you feel the need to be able to get to the files without restoration, then I suggest you look for something that writes it's backup files in a ZIP format, even if it is a different file name extension. And can be accessed by programs like Winzip or Power Archiver. An example of this is Genie-Softs backup program.
The other option is to just copy the files to the hard drive. Then when you want to do an icremental, sort the files by date and copy those changed or added since the last copy. A pain, but to getexactly what you want, you may have to do this.
My suggestion is to live with having to restore or find something that does not have proprietary compression or file extensions.

[gwen]

Thanks, I was afraid of that. For the most part the files are jpg so are already compressed. The funny thing is I used BUMP to back up one folder which was 3.32 gb and the back up file it created was 3.33 - so much for saving disk space. I'll check out Genie-Soft. I want to be sure to be able to access the backups in the future and zip format at least has been consistent over the years as far as I know. I've been burned before with programs that creat their own file format (Easy CD Creator for one) and have the company change the program so much that it wouldn't read the last version's files. The real zinger on that one was that it wasn't compatible with XP either so when I had to get a new pc I had to either upgrade the program or delete the files. (By that time I was ticked so I opted to delete the files.)
gwen

[lynn98109]

Have you considered an external Hard Drive? You can get them for about $1 per GB these days. As long as you have the same kind of port to attach the cable, you can use them on any computer, and no compression is involved. (Iomega keeps sending me sales offers from their outlet store, which is even cheaper, like 320GB for $100.)

Online storage is another option.

Lynn

This post has been edited by lynn98109: 25 October 2007 - 07:37 AM

[tbrewst]

They have an external drive.That's how they got BUMP in the first place.

[lynn98109]

Ah. Yes, you're right - I missed that.

What I was thilnking of, tho, is simply copying the files to the drive, if it's just the kind of files that go in MyDocs rather than the entire system.

Lynn

[Brendon]

That suggestion is not even on the same page as what Gwen was asking, Lyn.

Still, C = C + 2.