Web Price:  $35 plus shipping.

Backup Plus Ver. 6.0

Hyman L. LaVere, LACS

Introduction

In real estate, there is a saying that the three most important facts are location, location, location. In computers, it’s backup, backup,  backup. Here is a program by Avantrix Inc. that makes this important job easy and almost pleasant. In my experience, I have found this type of software to be difficult to understand and use, and most users give up rather easily after a few tries.  This program is different in that it has an intuitive interface environment with wizard help to simplify most tasks in an easy to understand manner.  There is an extensive help file within the program that is also intuitive and simple to use. In addition, for the new user, there is an on line tutorial that demonstrates all aspects of making backups. Backup Plus offers a lot of easy to understand and use functions to facilitate your backup requirements.

Installation

The program comes on a CD with about 18 MB of material. Installation is conventional and simple. The program installed with a minimum of user intervention. Follow the menu instructions, and it takes about 5 minutes

Features and Operation

Once installed and running, the main window offers the choice of setting various options of the program. These options include, but are not limited to, initiating registry backups, testing and restoring previous backups. Also included is the option of opening the easy to use wizard to initiate a backup. This opens a simple window that asks you to name the backup and the location the backup is to be stored in. You select the files and folders from an explorer like tree. Media can be from Zip Drives, Jaz Drives, CDs, floppy drives, hard drives, or networked drives. I opted to make a backup up of my Windows 98 directory and to store it in the second partition, which is my “D” drive. I have a 366 processor and 160 MB Ram. This backup, which is approximately 438 MB, took a total time of 13 minutes. The backup tested, passed (5 Minutes), and restored flawlessly (3 Minutes). The backup file compressed, with the normal option chosen, to 295 MB. There are three types of backup procedures, depending on the media backed up to. There is single archive, no multiple disks or CD’s. The second option is multiple disks, all types except CD’s in a spanned mode. The third option is to CD’s, more than one. See the following paragraph with regard to backing up to CD’s. Clicking the finish button, after all the input information was inserted, completed this task. I do not have a  Jazz or Zip drive, however, since the storage medium is magnetic, there should not be any problem, and it should work.

This brings me to an area in which I did have a problem. When I attempted to make a backup of the same directory to my CD-RW disk, I received a “503” error message. Not knowing what this meant, I contacted Avantrix, and they informed me that this was an error encountered when the program cannot initiate the writing of the backup to the destination CD. Avantrix advised that the CD must be preformatted by packet writing software. They further indicated that the only program that can do this, at this time, is DirectCD by Adaptec (now Roxio). DirectCD will pre-format CD’s to enable files to be transferred to and erased from the CD in the same way as a hard drive or floppy disk, and is the only program for this purpose that has been tested to date by Avantrix.  My CDR/W is a Cendyne (Ricoh 7063A) using Ahead/Nero software, and probably does not have this capability. For this reason, I was unable to back up to my CDR/W.

Summary

The backup operation is supported on all of the current platforms, including Windows ME, NT and 2000 Professional. There are options, easily accessible in the program, for Registry and timed or dated backups. The registry backup operation includes the creation of a “Rescue Disk” and an automatic registry restore operation, Restore operations are easy and intuitive, and can be restored to their original locations or to other locations at the users choice.  This is especially helpful if you have partitioned your hard drive to more than one partition, and is an added safeguard to your backup, when backed up to a partition other than the boot partition.  Most important is the wizard, which simplifies the backup tasks and guides the user in a simple and easy to understand manner. I would recommend this program to all. It gives you great performance for a modest price, and is easy to learn and use. A web and e-mail address is provided for tech support. Aside from the failure to backup to my CD R/W, which is a fault with the software for my CD/R/W, I found this program worthwhile and useful.