I use FolderShare to keep backups of my important documents as well, and highly recommend it. I feel it’s one of the best solutions if you’re able to install it in more than one place, as John’s unfortunate story or a bad fire will defeat most backup solutions. I’m still based off of multiple desktops and have been working on a mobile solution though, which is why I follow your writings.

I have a simple but effective backup strategy. I use WinZip and set up backup “jobs” for My Documents, email directories, etc. The jobs nicely automate the process. I back up once a week to an external hard drive and once a month to a DVD. Haven’t had any problems (yet!)

Something like Alfresco running locally or remotely with and Windows Briefcase might work. Automatically version control is the key to easy backups for documents.

Currently I keep all my documents in subversion, but I’m planning to move to Alfresco shortly.

JK, ouch. I can relate, though. My solution is a 250GB Maxtor one-touch USB external, and running the included Dantz Retrospect HD software. It runs automatically at 3am every night, lays down new copies every time, and I’ve recovered from it more than once. It’s the most elegant solution I’ve ever had, and it’s truly “set it and forget it”. I’ve enthusiastically recommended this setup from the beginning to anyone who asks.

Man, post a link here to the happy ending!

James, good you have recovered from the disaster. Shadow copy is one of those things pushing me to reconsider Vista upgrade again…

You may also have a look at Microsoft’s SyncToy. Actually this is one of the most useful pieces of software coming from Redmond.

I blogged on this a while ago: http://headworx.slupik.com/2006/10/backup-strategy.html

James, sorry to hear about your nightmare. It must have been something in the air because three days ago I accidentally destroyed my entire backup archive as well. I wanted to clone a system partition using Acronis Workstation; however, the IDE cables of my disks weren’t correctly configured, causing Acronis to write the new partition simultaneously to all disks that were attached to the cable. Although I hit cancel five seconds later it was already too late: the partition tables were destroyed, leaving a hard drive behind with a bunch of useless unconnected bytes. Bummer.

I’ve been using the free version of Mozy for a few months and it’s AWESOME. It’s quick, very secure (448 bit BlowFish with my own key), and it has 30 day versioned copies. Interestingly enough, I found out about Mozy reading *your* website (granted, it was Kevin who wrote the article, but still). We wrote about it on STPC a couple weeks back (http://studenttabletpc.com/2007/02/mozy_online_backup.html).

OneNote should be a snap for this, James. I don’t know how the file structure works in Vista, but OneNote puts two recent backups in Documents and Settings, Your Name, Local Settings, Application Data, Microsoft, OneNote, 12.0, Backup. The obvious place to look!

Also, instead of backing up the OneNote files, OneNote 2007 works great if you close all your notebooks from your computer, move them to the external hard disk, and then from the computer open them, notebook by notebook, on the external drive location. You can leave the files on the hard disk at home, in a separate tree from what you back up. Then WHENEVER you plug in the external drive and open OneNote, it syncs all the folders you have opened on that computer and updates everything. You carry with you everything, but it thinks the notebooks are located on the external hard drive, and always syncs to it when you have it hooked up and OneNote open.

Bon chance!

When you travel, you have full copies of them with you, but then you sync to the hard drive. But keep it separate from the copying trees you run. I was confused by this at first, but it’s seriously better. Then you can open the same notebooks with another computer, or only a few (personal ones I don’t open on my desktop at work), and leave them on the external hard disk. I do this where the external hard disk is a flash drive or mini drive, and keep three computers synced, but all I have to do is plug in the drive, and open OneNote.

Confusing when I was used to copying files over, but much more useful as it syncs automattically when you just open the program.

As Jack points out, OneNote maintains backups. By default it’s once a day, but you can configure how frequently it’ll do them. At the very least, try opening your backups by using File->Open Backup. OneNote will show you the folder tree of the backups and for any section it will show dates next to the file name.

Pick the latest copy available, before the errant restore from disk. And then manually copy the sections back over into the right places. It’s a bit labor intensive, but a lot better than losing the data.

Next, configure backups in the options to occur more frequently.

Last, change your backup strategy so that a restore is something you’re not going to accidentally do. I don’t know anything about Replicator, but move those restore copy jobs miles away from the backup jobs.

It looks like you already got yourself out of this situation, but I am using Handy Backup with Windows Vista and Outlook 2007. So, yes, it does work with the two of them, just not as neatly as I had hoped it would – every time I reboot, the Handy Backup tray launcher does the Vista “Cancel or Allow” thing.

Windows Home Server will be the nirvana solution for this type of issue in the future.

Ryan, you are my new best friend! I’m writing a followup now that explains how I recovered abso-freaking-lutely everything using the shadow copies in Vista! You’re my hero!

I still need a good backup solution, though.

save everything to USB drive. Or email yourself. Gmail has over 2 gigs of storage.

sorry dude.

This is when my brother would say to me “See, I told you so. I use post it notes and they work fine for me”.

This is probably when you wish you did have a few Post-it notes James!

Seriously, I feel the frustration but still being relatively new to the tablet (and not spending enough time learning) is there not a backup solution in OneNote? I thought Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 automatically created backup files for you on a daily basis(so I assume 2007 does the same). Given a problem similar to what you had, you could restore a section that has been lost. (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/HP011171681033.aspx)

Of course I realize that you certainly are aware of this so clearly I am missing an importasnt piece. I will say that “stuff” that is too valuable for me to lose I save on a thumb drive as an extra step … I have lost too much too often.