[Davrobin]

Looking for advice....
I have just bought a Freecom 250GB USB hard drive to back up my PC.
My PC is running XP Pro, and I have 4 different user accounts set up (one each or myself, my wife and 2 children).
The Freecom comes with some auto-synch software, which seems to set up as a named briefcase folder on the USB hard drive. The idea is that any files copied into the folder will be kept synchronised.

This is all well and good for a single user on the PC.... I can copy my own "My documents" folder into the briefcase & all is well. However, if I then try to copy "my wife's documents" folder into the briefcase, the system complains that "my documents" is there already.

My current work-around is to create separate briefcases - one for each user - and then copy each users's documents into it. this is a bit of a pain, as it is not automatic, and also requires that I do 4 separate synch operations.

However, does anyone have any suggestions for neater ways to run a backup?

Ideally it would be nice to simply create a ghost image of my PC's hard disk! (PC has only 110GB disk, so it should fit easily onto a 250GB external drive!)

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Well, I've found an answer to my own question..... there is a rather natty freeware application called AllwaySync (see http:\\allwasync.com for details)

This application can synchronise files between 2 directory structures either A>B, A<B or A<>B (i.e. one side is master over the other, or the two sides are synchronised)

The app keeps its own file index at the top of the directory. It has a tool to check how the 2 directories (A & B) are syncrhronised (i.e. lists the files that do & don't match) After the check, it will synchronise file. It does this by having several streams running simultaneously. The managabilty of the synchronisation knocks spots of the Microsoft briefcase, whilst offering the same sort of facility.

In my experience. certainly worth a look!

Dave R

[Davrobin]

Well, I've found an answer to my own question..... there is a rather natty freeware application called AllwaySync (see http:\\allwasync.com for details)

This application can synchronise files between 2 directory structures either A>B, A<B or A<>B (i.e. one side is master over the other, or the two sides are synchronised)

The app keeps its own file index at the top of the directory. It has a tool to check how the 2 directories (A & B) are syncrhronised (i.e. lists the files that do & don't match) After the check, it will synchronise file. It does this by having several streams running simultaneously. The managabilty of the synchronisation knocks spots of the Microsoft briefcase, whilst offering the same sort of facility.

In my experience. certainly worth a look!

Dave R