Thread: Easily Backup Your Files Using Just a Few Kilobytes!

I've been using this technique for a while, and thought i'd share!

Basically this is the logic.
In the world of BT downloading files is easy.
We have a few options for backing up those files.
There's internet storage and redundancy (getting more storage just for backup), but both of these are expensive and often not worth it.

My method is this, with a simple command you can append the names of all of your folders/files into a single tiny txt file.



The point? It's free and a great way to keep track of all your files.
Next time you have a hard-drive failure or get drunk and accidentally wreak havoc on your data, theres no problem.
You open up the txt which you have stored on another hard-drive, and take a look at the catalog of things you had in the past, making it a breeze to rebuild.

Of course, this method could be temporary until you find a better solution to replicate your data.
For me though, it works wonders, especially on movies.
Reason being that movies are usually larger in file size (especially HD) and you usually have less of them than say songs.
Data that works best with this solution are Games, and Movies.
Songs, text-related content etc can be duplicated on another drive cause they don't take up much space.

Pros:

• Free
• You don't need to try and remember everything you had.
• Allows you to get a higher quality version every time your hard-drive fails
• Takes up a negligible amount of space.
• Makes rebuilding very quick, just look at what you had and bam.

So now for the actual procedure.

Windows:
Open command prompt, search for CMD, or go to run and type in CMD.
Next we need to go to the correct folder.
To switch drive letters type in X: replacing X with the drive letter you wish to switch to.
In my case, my movies are kept on the M: drive. So i type M: then enter like below.



Next you can use CD to switch to another folder on the current drive.
So

Code:

CD Folder

would switch to M:\Folder, as would

Code:

cd M:\Folder

Once you're in the right place type:

Code:

dir /S > bak.txt

which will recursively copy all filenames including subfolders, if you only want everything in that specific directory to be recorded do

Code:

dir > bak.txt

That's all, now simply find the bak.txt file we created, and you'll find everything in there.

Linux:
The linux code is very similar, except instead of dir it's ls, and instead of /S for recursion it's -R.

Code:

ls -R > bak.txt

Shortcut:
Here is a shortcut if you want to use this in the future
Open up notepad or similar and put in the code I gave you above for windows or linux depending on which one you're in.
Save a copy of the document in every folder where you have things you may want to backup.
In windows save the file as backup.bat (don't forget the bat!)
In linux save it as backup.sh
Theres an extra step in linux, you need to make the file executable.
You can do this with

Code:

chmod +x filename.sh

or right click it and go to permissions.

Now all you need to do to make a brand new updated backup is click that file!
If you want it to automatically save the output txt file somewhere else simply replace bak.txt with the location such as C:\Backups\MovieBackups.txt.

A very nice tut, will prove useful!

I love how you added the linux part--thanks for that!

Thank you. Especially for the linux. This will be very useful

I don't get it. This doesn't seem all that amazing to me. If it's simply for keeping a record of everything on your computer, this sounds like total overkill.

I mean, imagine having to manually parse through a bunch of crap in your bak.txt file, just to locate a program or two whose names you've forgotten. That's a waste of time.

Second, this is only useful for backing up the names of applications and folders, but not for documents. For instance, staring at "amazing-project-idea.txt" won't help me retrieve the contents of the text file I no longer have. It'll just make feel sad about not actually having it. XD

Hey alphaheart, did you miss the part in bold where I mentioned that this is best for games and movies?
The way I have things set up theres hardly anything to parse through except names of directories.
For each release I have 1 folder, and within that folder either an AVI or MKV for movies or an ISO file for games.
For me it's great, as i've had hard-drive issues aplenty, and i use the txt as a checklist.
I download a movie, and then I erase the portion in the txt for that movie.

This would never work properly for documents, and is a waste for pictures and other sorts of data that take up little space.

Your right about applications though, I forgot to mention that you can also do this in your program files directory.
That way you can remember the names of all those awesome progz you used.

I probably should have mentioned that it's a complete waste to do this to your entire C: drive.
If you're like me though, you keep games in one folder, movies in another folder etc.
So you run the command or the shortcut from within that folder and you get a small file with only necessary info.