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FSX Backup advice

S

SirBenn21

Charter Member
Hi all.

Hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas.

I am due for a reinstall any time now and this normally drives me insane thinking of how long it's going to take me to fully install FSX and all my fav add-ons.
This time however I would like to get to a point at which I'm happy and then back it up on my new Christmas present 1 TB External HDD so that next time I just take it from the backup drive and Just "Paste" it back without all the ball-ache.
I'm pretty clueless when it comes to such matters. :isadizzy:

So please help. :wavey: I would really appreciate it.

Thanks :icon29:

Ben
 
Basically you will get your OS set the way you like it complets with antivirus and everything else...


Then get FSX reinstalled just as you like it...


Next depending on your OS you would connect the external drive, allow it to be discovered. then have your OS do a colplets system vback up...Be sure to include any extra drives where any FSX items might sit..


Thats basically it......But Operating system dictates how it is done....
If your OS does not have a back up feature like that, you can purchase software that will..like Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost...
 
Its not enough to make a backup of fsx, when you reinsatll the os you loose some regitry links and it wont work, requires a new install. just tried it. I made a backup copy of the new install so i have the original textuers / files avaliable if something goes wrong, i also have a backup of the last install so i can find those aircraft.cgf edits etc, in case i cant find them alsewhere.
 
Yup, I concur with Harleyman & jimjones. Once you've got your rig setup the way you want it and everything activated, do a clone image of the drive and stash that away as the backup.
If things puke, you can restore from that image and start with a "fresh" install...except everything is activated so you don't have to deal with all the phone calls to reactivate FSX.

In the past (with FS9 and older sims), I used to just packrat away my FS install into a zip. But this won't restore registry entries or activations.
I would do a clean install of FS into the folder where I wanted it located, then I would just unzip my "loaded" FS backup into that folder and I would be back up and running again.

I used to use Norton Ghost for my backups for many years too...worked okay but was kinda clunky. After that, I used the "dd" disk cloning procedure that many Linux distros and live CDs include but it was slow.
After seeing the good luck that others here have been having using Acronis True Image, I bought a copy but was skeptical...until I used it. Excellent program! Fast, not a resource hog, and lots of options if you want to do more than a basic backup/restore.

With Acronis, you can also do a "running backup" style of backup too and periodically update it so that you might not have to go all the way back to square one if you wind up corrupting your OS or FS install.
 
My FSX backup uses a slightly different approach.

I just zipped up a fresh FSX SP2 installation into various archives and burned them to DVDs. That way I have the original files at hand without wasting precious HDD space.

For a backup to another HDD just copy and paste your FSX folder.
In case you have to reinstall Windows, you'll however have to "fix" the FSX activation since it won't do squat without some registry entries.
But in my eyes you're free to do that as long as you're an owner of an original copy of FSX.
 
As Harleyman says, the W7 backup is fine. Recently, though, Newegg has been selling Acronis True Image Home 2010 for US$10 after $20 rebate: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832200012&Tpk=acronis amery. Very nice for INCREMENTAL backups that save your files and folders in VARIOUS states, not just the most recent.

Goes nicely with this Western Digital Elements 1.5TB external hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=western_element-_-22-136-505-_-Product. Things I like about this external drive: (1) it's biggish, (2) I've had good experiences with the brand, (3) it has a 5/5 rating at NewEgg (a must for me when purchasing hard drives), (4) it's silent from more than a few inches away. A year ago, I bought a 1TB external drive from Fantom and it was noisy; returned it. This one really is quiet, but not something I would run FSX from -- it's a low-power drive, which means its slower than the 7,200 or 10,000 RPM drive that you probably already have. I'm using mine exclusively for backups.
 
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