NWA-PCUG 10/99 NewsLetter Article 18861 N. Hwy 112, Springdale, AR 72762-9303 DataKeeper from PowerQuest By Doug Agee, SWIPCC From 07/99 SWIPCC Throughput Copyright 1999 by the SouthWest International Personal Computer Club (SWIPCC). All rights reserved. Permission to reprint this article is granted to other non-profit computer user groups for non-commercial use, provided credit is given to the author, SWIPCC THROUGHPUT, and one copy of the publication containing the reprinted article is sent to SWIPCC's Newsletter Editor. SWIPCC Editor P.O. Box 371236 El Paso, Texas 79937-1236 Voice: (915) 593-8416 e-mail: editor@swipcc.org I was musing the other day about my good luck with computers. In the last eleven years, I've owned three computers and four hard drives and never experienced a hard drive failure! Nor have I lost any files as a result of a virus infection. I attribute this good fortune to the following factors: I maintain a dust and grit-free environment in my computer room; I systematically update my virus protection program and routinely check files for viral infections; I protect my system from lightning strikes with one of those surge-arresting power strips; and, before I turn my computer "on" or "off," I say three "Hail Marys" and recite a few Eastern incantations. Also -- and most important -- I keep my dogs away from the power strip! But now, after publicly proclaiming my good fortune, I know I'm tempting fate. I'm about to experience the digital photography geek's equivalent of Armageddon -- the catastrophic corruption of my picture files, induced by a surreptitious, here-to-fore unknown viral infection that will make Michael Crichton's infamous Andromeda strain seem benign! Now that I'm seized with this strange new phobia (read that "rampant paranoia"), what can I do? Well, I've opted to install and use DataKeeper. DataKeeper is a versatile software utility for backing up and restoring files on your computer. You can set it up to continually monitor the activities of your computer and automatically back files, folders or drives. That is, you can back-up data from any valid drive (hard, floppy or removable) to virtually any other drive except a tape drive. This includes a second hard drive, a floppy disk drive or other removable media drive. DataKeeper's menu consists essentially of two selectable tabs -- Backup and Restore. What a concept! The Backup tab allows you to select (with a few clicks of the mouse) the files, folders or drives you need to backup, as well as the destination folders or drives. The tab has an "advanced options" area where you can specify various backup parameters. For example, you can opt to: ú continuously backup specified files whenever the files change; ú keep daily/weekly/monthly archive copies of the files; ú select the storage format (i.e., compressed or uncompressed); ú implement password protection for your backup files; ú allow backup files to be segmented and stored on multiple disks; ú set filtering parameters (i.e., filter by file name, file extension, etc.) The Restore tab is essentially the mirror image of the Backup tab. You can select the files, folders or drives to restore as well as the destination folder or drive. The Restore tab also has an area where you can select one of three overwrite options: overwrite if the backup is newer; never overwrite; or always overwrite. The beauty of DataKeeper is its simplicity. Once set up, it automatically backs up specified files, folders or drives according to the parameters you've selected and requires virtually no further intervention. Also, its menus are straightforward and easy to use, including the indexed help menu, which covers everything from Archiving Schedules to using Wildcards. Now, let me share with you some of my experiences with DataKeeper. Over the past few weeks, I've used it to backup and archive my picture files to a Zip drive. Since the beginning of the year, I've created dozens of picture files in a variety of formats and file sizes using programs like Paint Shop Pro, Image Expert, Adobe PhotoDeluxe and Corel Photo-Paint. The files are located in a couple of folders on my C: drive, and backing them up to Zip disks was easy. I backed up all of my picture files by selectively setting filter parameters using a few wildcard extensions (e.g., *.jpg, *.bmp, *.tif, etc.). I also opted to compress the files to conserve space on the Zip disk. The compressed files averaged about one-fourth the size of the original files. To checkout DataKeeper's Restore capability, I selectively restored some of the backup picture files to a floppy disk. I then opened the restored files and manipulated them in Paint Shop Pro and other photo programs and experienced no problems. It's of interest to note that DataKeeper adds characters to file extensions to indicate the file type and version. For example, in backing up a file named "family.jpg," DataKeeper adds a four-character extension such as ".zvab," creating the backup file "family.jpg.zvab." The first character, the "z," indicates the file type, in this case, a compressed file. The second character indicates the version of the file. The third and fourth characters are arbitrarily assigned by DataKeeper to ensure a unique name for each file in the backup directory. In the short time I've been using DataKeeper, I've had only one problem. It occurred just after I had backed up a number of files from C-drive to the destination drive (i.e., D-drive, my Zip disk). I clicked on the Backup tab's Browse button to see if the files had in fact been backed up to D-drive. Instead of browsing D-drive as expected, the system locked up and had to be reset. I'm not sure what caused the problem. DataKeeper has one serious shortcoming that limits its utility -- it is incompatible with tape drives and thus cannot conveniently be used to back up large capacity hard drives. If you're looking for a back up utility for a large hard drive, opt for another software program. DataKeeper retails for $49.95 and is available for download from the PowerQuest website (www.powerquest.com). Presently, it is available at a promotional price of $29.95. System requirements for DataKeeper include a 486/66 or higher processor, 8 or 16 MB of RAM (for Windows 95 and 98 respectively), 4 MB of hard drive space, Windows 95a (or later) or Windows 98, and a monitor with VGA or higher resolution.