Backup Data tips: How to back up your data using XCOPY

There are a lot of free software and commercial software there to help you backup precious personal data. When it comes to restore, most of them are complicated and not easy to do when something really happened.

Here I am introduce a very simple way of backup and that is very easy to implement and easy to restore.

Features
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- Data in backup destination is just a copy of original file. Not saved in a special format, so you can just browse it as it as at your original place with using any tools.
- All folder structure is the same as original folder structures,its easy to find your file you want.
- Easy to restore. You can restore the folder or just some files by copy and paste.

How to do
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1. Create batch file use following command line.

Command line example

XCOPY C:\MyFolder\* N:\Backup\MyPCName\C\MyFolder\ /M /S /E /R /K /Y

This command will only copy files that have ARCHIVE attribute on.
It will reset ARCHIVE attribute to off.
If the file is modified later, the ARCHIVE attribute will automatically on.

2. Run your batch file.
The first time, it will copy (backup) all files to you destination specified in your batch file. Later on, each time your run the batch, it will only copy the files that are changed to your destination.

3. If you do the backup daily or at scheduled time automatically, you can use windows task scheduler. The task scheduler is very easy to use. You can access from

Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Schedule Task


For more information about XCOPY command please run "XCOPY /?" at DOS Command Window.
For More information about windows task scheduler, please check help on your windows help.