Software required: auto back up usb flash drives

[sted]

Anyone know of any software (preferably free) that will allow me to plug in a usb drive and automatically back it up to the pcs's hard drive preferably regardless of whether the pc is logged in or not

[Uraken]

Synctoy may be able to help ( google it) And let us know how you get on.

[featured_spectre]

another vote for syntoy, i have it syncing to my drop box on my laptop and my PC. win win however if you have an autorun script, the PCs may recognise it as a virus...

[featured_spectre]

here is a typical autorun.inf I created for it...

 

OPEN="C:\Program Files\Microsoft\SyncToy\SyncToy.exe" -R
ACTION=SyncToy All Files

 

The synctoy program does the sync location for me as its predefined.

[sjatkn]

As mentioned by others synctoy is a good solution to the backup of a flash drive as is xcopy. Triggering it could be a problem, especially if like me you turn off autorun. Instead you could use USBDLM (USB Drive Letter Manager - USBDLM) on the machine. I see two problems with this:

 

1. Every flash drive inserted would backed up, to prevent this I would write a script to check for a file called, say backup, the file could contain the path to the backup destination if it was not the backup command itself.

 

2. Only the computer with the appropriately configured USBDLM install will cause the drive to be backed up.

 

A problem with using the standard autorun would be the drive attempting to back itself up which ever computer you plug it into.

[featured_spectre]

I think that's what he wants

[Arthur]

USBDLM (and then use the OnArrival event to run your favourite file copying program e.g. XCopy / VCopy / RoboCopy / SyncToy + SyncToyHidden etc.)

 

j0llydmper is another program that works in a similar way to USBDLM. You would need to compile it yourself using Visual C++ 2008 (or newer) though.

 

Edit. Didn't see sjatkn's post before posting mine.

Edited May 11, 2011 by Arthur

[Arthur]

1. Every flash drive inserted would backed up, to prevent this I would write a script to check for a file called, say backup, the file could contain the path to the backup destination if it was not the backup command itself.

Almost all events in USBDLM can have criteria set for them so this should be quite easy. e.g.

 

[OnArrival]
FileExists=%drive%\MyFlashDrive.tag
Open="%SystemRoot%\System32\RoboCopy.exe" %drive% \\Server\Backups /MIR /NP

 

[OnArrival] 
DeviceID=USB\VID_067B&PID_2517
Open="%drive%\Sync.cmd" %drive%\*.*

 

2. Only the computer with the appropriately configured USBDLM install will cause the drive to be backed up.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like Sted only wants to do this on one computer?

Edited May 11, 2011 by Arthur

[sted]

Almost all events in USBDLM can have criteria set for them so this should be quite easy. e.g.

 

[OnArrival]
FileExists=%drive%\MyFlashDrive.tag
Open="%SystemRoot%\System32\RoboCopy.exe" %drive% \\Server\Backups /MIR /NP

 

[OnArrival] 
DeviceID=USB\VID_067B&PID_2517
Open="%drive%\Sync.cmd" %drive%\*.*

 

 

I could be wrong, but it sounds like Sted only wants to do this on one computer?

 

probably just 1 computer yes im just terrible at backing up my flash drives though it may be something i roll out on teachers so i can look a hero when i restore data from their freshly laundered pen drive lol

 

hadnt actually thought of synctoy lol

[plexer]

Will those solutions work if no-one is logged on?

 

Ben

[sted]

cant get autoruns to work iirc they are disabled on win7 for pendrives all i get is open or speedboost

[tumbleweed]

USBDLM can certainly work 'unattended' - have peek at the online help USBDLM Help