Automated File Backup to Flash Drive in XP

[Andy]

I purchased a cheap USB Flash Drive which seems handy to use for data backup. When connected to the PC it is seen as drive D:

This is what I did in windows XP:

Formatted the drive to use NTFS file system so the file names don't get shortened.
There is a tutorial on this here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/tips/advanced/ntfs.mspx

Then create folders on the flash drive to store the backup data.

Then create a batch file (backup.bat) with commands to copy the files you want to keep backed up. I used the XCOPY command for this. This is just a text file containing command lines.

For example:
rem copy individual files
xcopy "C:\Program Files\PasswordKeeper\password-file.pss" d:\XP-Desktop\Pass /d /r /y

rem copy document trees
xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\Me\bookmarkbackups" d:\XP-Desktop\Firefox\Profiles /d /i /s /r /y

XCOPY reference

Then save the batch file to c:\backup.bat

Test it works by opening a command console (run -> cmd)

Then the commands:
cd \
backup.bat

This should copy the files to the flash drive.

Then set up a scheduled task to run the batch file daily via Accessories->System Tools->Scheduled Tasks

[rachelbles]

I am already using this one... this may be helpful to other members here