DarkChip Data

Automating Backups using Scripts

In the Making your First Backup section, I showed you how to backup your system by going
through a series of steps that ultimately created a backup image of your operating system.
Given that you should backup your system regularly, going through that many steps on a
frequent basis begins to be a real chore. One of the biggest challenges people face is
forgetting to backup their PCs. No matter how easy the backup software is, unless the process
is automated and scheduled in some way, most people will forget to backup their systems,
putting their data at risk.

Fortunately, DriveImage XML makes it easy to automate and schedule backups. In this section,
I will walk you through how to create a backup script which, when used with scheduling software
(such as Windows Task Scheduler), greatly offloads the work you had to do in the Making your
First Backup section. After you complete this section you will have a working backup script.
Once the script is created click Scheduling the Backup Process on the menu for detailed a
step by step guide on how to schedule the running of the backup script.

Let me explain what this code means :)

"C:\Program Files\Runtime Software\DriveImage XML\dixml.exe"

Is simply the location of the main executable for DriveImage XML (this is the default location).
Please note that you need to ensure the path and executable are within double quotes. You will
see a double quote at the start of the line and a double quote at the end of the line.

/bc

The letter after the /b (in this case the letter c) is the drive letter you want to backup

/te:\drive_c

The drive letter and path after the /t (in this case e:\) is the location where you wish to store your
backup image. The drive_c is the file name the image will use when DriveImage XML creates
a backup image

/r-

This tells DriveImage XML not to use Raw mode when backing up

/s-

This tells DriveImage XML not to use Splitting mode when backing up

/c

This tells DriveImage XML to use compressing when backing up

/v

This tells DriveImage XML to try Volume Shadow Services first when backing up

Once the code is typed into notepad (please double check all typing and spacing), save the file
by clicking File, and then selecting Save. Once the file is saved, you may click the 'X' button in
the upper right hand corner to close Windows Notepad.

Once the backup is complete,
you will again see two dialog
boxes popup informing you that
the backup is complete. Leave
them time out, and when they
disappear, you will return back to
the command window from which
you originally launched the
backup.bat script.

To confirm that the backup
actually wrote something to Drive
E: simply type dir e:\ and take
note of the output. You should see
two files named Drive_C.dat and
Drive_C.xml. If you see both of
these files with a current date
stamp, the backup was
successful. Type exit to close the
command window.