{"id":3552,"date":"2012-10-29T00:01:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T07:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=3552"},"modified":"2012-10-28T09:07:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-28T16:07:27","slug":"doing-a-manual-backup-automatically-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=3552","title":{"rendered":"Doing a Manual Backup Automatically, Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even though I have a backup drive on my PC, and it backups files every so often, I enjoy having a second<\/em> backup copy, what I call a manual backup or mirror of my important work files.
\n
\nLast week’s blog posts (Monday<\/a>, Wednesday<\/a>, Friday<\/a>) detailed how you can setup a daily robocopy<\/code> of a single folder’s files to a thumb drive. I hope it’s working for you. Even so, there are still some modifications and tweaks you can perform to make the process work even better. Two items come to mind:<\/p>\n

First, you can add additional robocopy<\/code> commands to the task, which can further backup more of your stuff form different folders.<\/p>\n

Second, you can direct the Task Scheduler to display a message indicating that the backup has been completed.<\/p>\n

Start by opening Task Scheduler program:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Press Win+R to summon the Run dialog box.<\/li>\n
  2. Type taskschd.msc \/s<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    You need to modify your task, adding more activities. To modify an existing task, obey these steps:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Choose your task folder from the left side of the Task Scheduler window. You may need to open the Task Scheduler Library folder to find your task folder.<\/li>\n
    2. Choose the backup task from the list of tasks in the center portion of the window.<\/li>\n
    3. Choose the Properties item, found in the list of Actions on the right side of the window. A Properties dialog box appears, which lists all aspects of the task.<\/li>\n
    4. Click the Actions tab.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The Actions tab can hold more than a single action for a task. That’s how you can create duplicate robocopy<\/code> commands, one for each folder you want to “manually” backup to a thumb drive. So your task now would be to create additional robocopy<\/code> commands and place them into the same task.<\/p>\n

      To add another robocopy<\/code> command, click the New button. Work through the New Action dialog box to build the second robocopy<\/code> command. Refer to last Friday’s blog post<\/a> for step-by-step directions.<\/p>\n

      As a Tip: I highly recommend that you select a new folder on the thumb drive for each robocopy<\/code> action. Last Wednesday<\/a>, I suggested the work.bak<\/code> folder on the thumb drive. For the second robocopy<\/code> action, choose a new thumb drive folder name, such as mail.bak<\/code> or perhaps something simple like 2.bak<\/code>, or consider something more descriptive. Name the folder to go with the task and you’ll be more organized.<\/p>\n

      When you’re done adding the second command, you can add a third robocopy<\/code> action. Make one for each special folder you want to backup and synchronize.<\/p>\n

      The final thing you can do is to have the Task Scheduler display a dialog box that confirms the backup has taken place. Here’s how to add that feature to your task:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Follow the steps earlier in this post to add a new action to your existing backup task.<\/li>\n
      2. In the New Action dialog box, choose the item “Display a Message” from the Action menu button.<\/li>\n
      3. In the Title box, type “Daily Backup” or whatever text you want appearing on the dialog box’s title bar.<\/li>\n
      4. In the Message box, type the text you want to appear in the dialog box. I typed “Backup completed.”<\/li>\n
      5. Click the OK button.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Back in the task’s Properties dialog box, you’ll see the Display a Message task listed as the last task. If not, click to select that task, then click the down-arrow button to push the task to the bottom of the list. Click the OK button to save your task.<\/p>\n

        Thanks to your modification, when the task runs, you’ll see a dialog box displayed, similar to the one shown here:<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        That dialo box is your confirmation that the task ran. Of course, it’s not a confirmation that everything was backed up or that no errors occurred, but it’s something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Even though I have a backup drive on my PC, and it backups files every so often, I enjoy having a second backup copy, what I call a manual backup or mirror of my important work files.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3552"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3601,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3552\/revisions\/3601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}