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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

How to Backup Files and Folders using Macrium Reflect

How to Backup Files and Folders
using Macrium Reflect

File and Folder Backup: A file and folder backup is a useful way to backup your working files, personal files and any precious data. Unlike many other backup solutions Macrium Reflect can even backup open/locked files by using Microsoft Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS).

In this tutorial I’ll take you through the steps to create a full backup of your ‘Outlook pst file’ (an e-mail file) and save the backup definition as an XML file for easy re-running and scheduling.

Note: If you wish to backup your Operating System, Do Not use a File & Folder Backup, you must use an Image Backup. You cannot restore Windows Operating System files using a file and folder restore. A File/Folder backup is not suitable for Windows Operating System files.

1.	Start Macrium Reflect and within the 'Backup Tasks' options select ‘Backup files and folders into a…’ to start the backup wizard. The backup Wizard starts. Click on ‘Next’.
2.	In the next window leave the option as ‘Full’ (the other options are Incremental and Differential, but these are covered later). Click on ‘Next’.
3.	You can now choose the folders(s) you wish to back up. Note: Folder selections are recursive. This means that all folders underneath the selected folder are included and any new folders in the future will be automatically included. So, if you backup your 'Documents' folder then any new folders you add underneath 'Documents' will be included when you run the backup again. You can select multiple folders, in this example I have just selected my outlook data folder. Click on ‘Next’ after making selection.
	Note: in selecting the Outlook folder I had to show hidden folders before I could find the Outlook folder as it was hidden. To show hidden folders: Open Windows Explorer: then in Windows 7 or Vista select '*Folders and Search Option' in the Organize* Tab or in Windows XP select '*Folder Options' in the Tools* menu. Now select the View Tab and scroll down if necessary so you can select 'Show hidden files folders (and Drives)'. While you are in this Tab it may help later if you also display file extensions :- Remove the tick against '*Hide extensions for known file types'. Click on 'Apply' and then 'OK' (just 'OK' in XP). Close 'Windows Explorer*'.
4.	Having selected the folders, in the next window we select the files needing to be backed up within the folders. You can use standard DOS wildcard formatting to select files to include and exclude. Multiple selections must be separated by a semi colon. e.g, .doc; .xls Other examples are shown below:

Example	Meaning	Example	Meaning
*.doc	All .doc WORD files	*.jpg	All jpg files
*.xls	All .xls Excel files	.	All files
Letter2010C.doc	File name: *Letter2010C.doc*	.doc; .xls; *.jpg	WORD, EXCEL and jpg pictures
*.pst	Outlook e-mail file	.doc; .docx	All WORD files

	See here for a list of most common file extensions. In wizard window below all .pst files were chosen by entering '.pst'. Normally we leave exclusions and ticks unchanged at defaults but in this case remove the tick against 'Exclude Hidden Files and Folders*' as .pst files were within hidden folders. Click on ‘Next’
5.	The next window enables the destination of the backup to be selected, you need to select one of three options (a), (b) or (c):
(a)	If you select ‘Local Hard Drive’ click on ▼ to get a drop down menu where you can search partitions, external hard drives, memory sticks (flash drives) etc to save your backup, you can also create a new folder there if needed.
(b)	If you select ‘Network’ you can search for another PC or Network Attached Storage etc. to save the backup.
(c)	If you select ‘CD/DVD Burner’ you can select which Drive to save the backup. Leave the Backup file name unchanged. Click on ‘Next’ to finalise backup process.
6.	The next window shows backup selection. Click on ‘Finish’ to start backup. If you have chosen CD/DVD burner you will be prompted to insert disk.
7.	In the next window you should enter an XML file name for the backup definition. Using this XML filename you can easily find it the XML Tab if you either want to re-run the backup without going through the wizard again or want to schedule the backup. Now click on ‘OK’.
8.	The next window below shows progress while backing up the file(s) and folders. When backup is complete click OK to close the small completion window and also close the progress window.
	*File & Folder Backup now Complete* *Now the Task is Complete,* if you wish, you can look at the log, there is a 'Log' Tab in the main Reflect window to check what you have done. In the next tutorial I'll show you how to backup only the files that have changed since this full backup was made, by creating an 'Incremental Backup'. References: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Show-hidden-files http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/hiddenfiles.mspx

Evan Tringham Tuesday, February 09, 2010 9:33:07 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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