Whilst a proper Backup program may suit, my system for many years has been to duplicate data daily (on shutdown) by copying new and changed data files to a second drive on the basis that sooner or later a HDD will fail but hopefully two drives won't fail together. Being incremental it normally only adds a few seconds to shutdown and I don't need to watch.
Then I do the occasional archive to DVD.
In XP I used the freeware XXCopy in a batch file listing the data folders to incrementally copy, but it's thrown a wobbly with Vista SP1 and won't run unattended, so until the author fixes the Winversion check safeguard, I'm using Vista's
Robocopy, the MS recommended replacement for XCopy. Works fine, though lacking the full features of XXCopy.
A bit of the batch file, used as a "Shutdown" icon on the desktop
Quote:
:: Incremental backup
:: Email
robocopy "C:\Users\Howard\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Mexbro.co (cpm)" "E:\Backup\EMail\Mexbro.co (cpm)" /e
robocopy "C:\Users\Howard\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Storage Folders" "E:\Backup\EMail\Storage Folders" /e
robocopy "C:\Users\Howard\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Contacts\Default" "E:\Backup\EMail\Contacts\Default" /e
:: Docs
.........
.........
:: Shutdown
shutdown.exe -S -t 0