There is no guarantee my data will be on my Win98 forever if I have issues with it. I want to keep my data forever, so what would be the best form of back-up on an old OS like Win98?

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|There is no guarantee my data will be on my Win98 forever
|if I have issues with it.
| Mert
|
Y'know, you may be too smart for this forum.  8-)
Everyone else shows up AFTER their "precious" data is long gone.  8-(

|I want to keep my data forever,
|so what would be the best form of back-up on an old OS like Win98?
|
Well, it won't actually be **on Win98**.
It will be on external media; I recommend on FAT32.
(The only part of *the OS stuff* you should back up is the device drivers.)

The old standby was optical media (CD/DVD)--and it's still the cheapest.
The file format there is ISO 9660 and that limits the length of filenames
(more so than FAT32 does),
so some filenames (like some Favorites) get truncated in the transfer process.
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/1199557915

These days, USB thumbdrives are dirt cheap.
http://www.google.com/images?q=thumb-drive
Units up to 64GB are readily available AND they can use standard FAT32.
I don't think I even need to go deeply into the portability factor
about something that can go on your keychain.

When buying something to use with a 9 year old operating system,
READ THE SIDE OF THE PACKAGE and make sure that it says
"SUPPORTS WINDOWS 98SE".

An alternative to purchasing from a vendor WHO HAS MADE THE EFFORT TO SUPPORT YOU
is to get Nathan Lineback's generic (universal?) W98 USB device driver:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/1197047770
As you see there, I actually advise using ToastyTech's driver from the start;
the **read the side of the box and purchase from those folks** thing
is really a **quality of the company** thing.
We want to keep The Good Guys in business.

If you have much more than 64GB of files, an external USB hard drive is an option
but be advised A BACKUP IS *NOT* A BACKUP **UNTIL IT IS OFF-SITE**.
When backing up, do make multiple copies to facilitate this.

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I backup the the personal Digital Photos about 10 times, can't be to carefull, and other the other stuff like music, Documents I might want to keep at least 3 times, counting the original.

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Y'know, you may be too smart for this forum. 8-) Everyone else shows up AFTER their "precious" data is long gone. 8-(

Hey, you can't want to back up your data Before it's gone, that makes Too Much Sense!. >;^)

One very nice option for 'backup' nowadays is to put your old PC's hard drive into an external drive enclosure. Remove the hard drive, and sell or donate the old PC (this also eliminates any 'data recovery' concerns!). If your old PC is higher up the 'old PC ladder' (say >1 Ghz and 512+ of RAM), and you wish to sell it, consider installing a new hard drive and installing everything fresh. A new hard drive and a fresh OS/driver install is a good selling point! (My old Athlon 1.1. with a fresh install of XP Home on a new 80 GB hard drive, was gone an hour after I put it up for sale!) :^)

Install the old PC's hard drive into an external drive enclosure, and all your data is already on there and ready to copy to your new PC.

Windows 9x uses the FAT16 or FAT32 file systems, either of which are fully readable/writable on Windows 2000 and above, and on modern versions of Mac and Linux O.S'es.

Once your data is safely transferred to your new computer and backed up by other means, you can format your old hard drive and use it for miscellaneous 'non-critical' data transfer and backup (ex.: to take music or photo files with you while you're on vacation, without the risk of losing your 'critical backup' external hard drive!)

I use five external hard drives, three of which are 'critical backup' drives (new 500 GB eSATA drives) and the other two are 'non-critical' older IDE drives in USB 2.0 enclosures, if either of those break it's not the end of the world.

PS: Giving DVD±R's of your photos to friends and family (not living with you) does in fact qualify as 'off-site' backup!

----------------------------------------------------------

Athlon 3000+ 939 - 1GB RAM = 98SE (@768 MB RAM) & XP Pro SP2

Athlon 4000+X2 AM2 - 3GB RAM = 2000 SP4 & XP Pro SP2

IBM ThinkPad PIII 933 - 512 MB RAM = 98SE & XP Pro SP2

Windows 2000 Server in the basement

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I would use CD-R or DVD-+R.  Do not use re-writeable media like CD-RW or DVD-+RW. 
 They are less stable over time.  Keep all optical media in a dark place, and at 
normal room temperatures.  High temperatures can destroy them.

for long-term storage, avoid all magnetic media, like floppies, ZIP, external USB 
drives.  However, for a fast, convenient shorter-term backup, an external USB 2.0 
disk can be very handy.

Avoid USB flash drives.  These have a realtively short life, compared to even magnetic 
disks.

Think about an off-site backup, such as keeping backups of home PC files at work, 
with a trusted friend, or in a safe-desposit box.

I would not bother with ISO 9660 format.  Although that is a least-common denominator 
of DOS, UNIX, etc, most modern operating systems can read the normal data CD format 
called Joliet, which supposrts long file names.  For example, it is readable by MAC, 
LINUX (e.g., KNOPPIX, Ubuntu), Windows 95 and above.







On Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 8:38 am, Mert wrote:

>There is no guarantee my data will be on my Win98 forever if I have issues with 
it. 

>I want to keep my data forever, so what would be the best form of back-up on an 
old 

>OS like Win98?  

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(was: Transferring from Win98)

|I would use CD-R or DVD-+R.
|
|I would not bother with ISO 9660 format.
| Richard Harris
|
You just contradicted yourself.

|Although that is a least-common denominator of DOS, UNIX, etc,
|most modern operating systems can read the normal data CD format called Joliet,
|which [supports] long file names.
|
Joliet is an *extension* of ISO 9660.
and it's "long" file names are still limited to 128 characters (ASCII)
which translates to 64 characters of Unicode (if you use that character set).
This is why I said to stick to thumbdrives and FAT32.
There files and filenames get transferred across without a ripple.

In one of the posts to which I linked, there is a link to an article
about ISO 9660, Joliet, and RockRidge that describes these limitations.

|Do not use re-writeable media like CD-RW or DVD-+RW.
|
Agree.

|They are less stable over time.  Keep all optical media in a dark place,
|and at normal room temperatures.  High temperatures can destroy them.
|
Good advice *if* none of your filenames is really long (think: Favorites).
To get full-length filenames (>128 characters ASCII) to transfer to optical media,
you have to use a compression technique.
This makes an additional variable of *what happens with a scrambled zip file?*.

|for long-term storage, avoid [redacted] magnetic media, like floppies, ZIP,
|
Yes.  (That's Iomega's proprietary Zip devices.)

|external USB drives.
|
A bit paranoid.
Re-using OLD drives can be a bit of a gamble, proportional to their previous use.
DNA touched on this.

|However, for a fast, convenient shorter-term backup,
|an external USB 2.0 disk can be very handy.
|
Let's see:  Extremely fast write times while retaining all the original filenames
onto something that can be a key fob;
if you don't balk at the price, there is no downside.

|Avoid USB flash drives.
|These have a [relatively] short life, compared to even magnetic disks.
|
...if you try to use them like RAM--**constantly** overwriting old data.
Otherwise, this is paranoia again.
If you do a weekly backup to the same thumbdrive,
its rated lifetime is in excess of 190 years.
If you rotate between 2 thumbdrives (recommended), that goes up to 380 years.
Either way, if you're not a Galapagos tortise, it will outlive you.

Doing daily backups will bring this down to a lifetime in excess of 27 years.
(...and the rated lifetimes of flash media is improving all the time.)

|Think about an off-site backup, such as keeping backups of home PC files
|at work, with a trusted friend, or in a safe-desposit box.
|
Don't *think"; DO.
Something that stays in the same location as the computer is a *mirror*
--NOT a backup.
I pointed to Francis Ford Coppola's foolishness (again, a link within a link)
which cost him DECADES of work because he kept everything in one location.

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