An easy Way to save your complete OFF incl. Campaign Pilots

[Olham 164]

Every now and then, an OFF flyer observes problems with his install.

Files may get corrupted in many possible ways, and it is often hard to find out what it was, that ruined your day.

 

A friend of mine recommended the use of a Back-up Program.

With such a program (in my case ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE) you can back-up a partition, or even a whole drive.

 

Now, although I usually have all games on D:Games, I put "Over Flanders Fields" on my C:Bootdrive.

The reason: OFF writes files into other Windows folders on C:, and so, if I want to back everything up, I need these data too.

 

Now I make a backup every three days or so, of the whole C: drive/partition.

After three backups, I delete the oldest one; so I always have 2 backups of C.

Whenever anything goes haywire (not only with OFF files - it also saved me, when I had Windows problems

after updates etc.) - I write the Backup back onto C: and the problem is solved.

 

The handling is very easy (my friend said, he recommended ACRONIS to me, because it was idiot proff - fine friends I have.

Edited June 10, 2012 by Olham

[Tamper 9]

Great idea Olham. Making backup drive "images" is an easy way to prevent loss of data (and the loss of hours or even days, spent re-installing everything, should your hard drive 'depart controlled flight')

 

These days, there are several free drive imaging products available (I have used Macrium Reflect click here many times without any problems). Also, Windows 7 itself has a drive image/restore functionality built in. It is not as flexible as some of the other means that are free, but it works, and is an 'integrated' MS product, FWIW.

[Rugbyfan1972 1]

Great idea Olham. Making backup drive "images" is an easy way to prevent loss of data (and the loss of hours or even days, spent re-installing everything, should your hard drive 'depart controlled flight')

 

These days, there are several free drive imaging products available (I have used Macrium Reflect click here many times without any problems). Also, Windows 7 itself has a drive image/restore functionality built in. It is not as flexible as some of the other means that are free, but it works, and is an 'integrated' MS product, FWIW.

 

Tamper,

 

Out of interest do you use the free one or one of the ones you have to pay for?

[Tamper 9]

Hi RugbyFan,

 

I've used both paid and free products historically. I use Norton Ghost (at work), and did use PowerQuest DriveImage at home (PQ is no longer in business; product rights bought and actually became the newer versions of Norton Ghost).

 

Currently, for any non-Windows 7 machine, I use Macrium Reflect free edition. It works well so far as I can tell, and offers an option to create rescue media (to boot/restore from a DVD; although it can be a little involved).

 

On the half-dozen or so W7 machines I've built over the past 6 months, I've used the free/built-in Windows image/restore and it has worked OK for me. It's fairly 'bare-bones', but you can't beat the price, and it seems to me it would do just fine for most people.

 

Even in my fairly complex boot arrangement, the W7 feature works perfectly to restore everything from scratch using only:

 

- a boot DVD (which it will create for you, but is only needed if you *don't* already have a Windows DVD)

- the backup image file (Windows walks you through making this)

- driver(s) if you happen to have any unusual hardware reqired for booting (I use a RAID controller, for example, but I imagine most wouldn't even need to worry about needing drivers).

 

You do need some sort of media to store the image file on - an external hard disk, for example, but even DVDs will work. Images will go roughly 0.5-1x the size of what you're backing up, so if you back up a machine with a drive loaded up with 100G of stuff on it, it's going to take a while and will use 50+G of storage for the image. OTOH, if you carefully just install Windows, update it, then only install a few programs you really need, you can create a decent "base" image that's not too large and will get you off the ground nicely if you ever suffer a drive crash.

 

TBH it's so easy and inexpensive to do drive imaging these days, there's really no reason not to. At home, I keep drive images for every single machine I build (which is a lot, counting friends and family; probably 25 a year). This has saved tons of agony and time; the hard disk restore can put a machine right in an hour (counting installing a drive physically), where re-installing from scratch can take hours or even days, depending.

 

I hope this helps

Edited June 10, 2012 by Tamper

[Olham 164]

HOW GAWD-DAMN STUPID CAN A MAN BE ?!?!?!

 

In this thread I give a good advice how to backup OFF.

Then I don't remember to do so myself, for two whole weeks!

And then I start messing with the Pilot Dossier - I wanted someone else to be my wingman.

My great wingman had fallen after 69 missions, and I got a new guy; but I wanted my previous

wingman No. 2 for the job. So I simply changed the order of the wingmen and put him first.

 

After that, I only received "error messages", when trying to start "Campaign".

So I thought, I change it back as it was - no way - still "error".

The only solution was: "Reset OFF Manager" - with the loss of all pilots.

A pilot with 69 hours in 71 missions; EK2, EK1 and House of the Hohenzollern Order.

I had flown more realistic than ever, and so I had "only" yet compiled 16 victories - almost believeable.

And then this! Dammit - I could bang my useless head against the wall!

 

Edited June 13, 2012 by Olham

[Tamper 9]

Awww, man...that does suck - try not to go to hard on yourself; it happens

 

At any rate, the advice you were kind enough to offer is still perfectly valid, and most helpful. So, now you've emphasized the point by illustrating what happens when you don't use some kind of backup scheme.

 

Here's hoping your new pilot enjoys twice the success as before!

[Olham 164]

Thanks, Tamper - I won't do that mistake twice again.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Although I am truly sorry for your misfortune, Olham, I want to thank you for reminding me that as soon as I get home, I must make a back up of all of my pilots and settings.