What operating systems does BackMaster 4.01 support?
Currently, BackMaster is supported on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows XP Meda Center Edition.

What kind of backup devices should I use with BackMaster?
Because of the affordable price and speed of hard drives, we recommend purchasing an external or internal drive that equals or surpasses the storage space of your primary drive. Since you don’t need to swap out disks, your backups can be performed without your constant supervision.

What optical drives does BackMaster 4.01 support?
BackMaster supports optical drives that backup to CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW media.

Does BackMaster compress the data before it backs it up?
Yes. When you have initiated a backup, a dialog window will appear which gives you the option of compressing your data before it is stored on your backup device. Typically, you should be able to store twice as much data on your backup media unless you are backing up a lot of videos or image files that have already been compressed.

Does BackMaster span multiple disks when doing a backup? What happens if I lose one of my disks?
Yes. BackMaster will backup your entire system and will utilize as many disks as necessary in order to accomplish this. It is very important that you store your media in a safe place because BackMaster will need all of your discs in order to restore all of your backed up data. However, selective restores will only require the first and last disc as well as the disc that contains the backed up files that are being restored.

What are the advantages of backing up to an external hard drive?
Mainly speed. No other backup media, including tape or optical drives can read or write data as fast as a SCSI, IDE, or SATA hard drive. Also, having one large storage volume, which is typically attached to your system, makes it easier to quickly access your files in the event that you need to restore something quickly.

What is the flashing target icon used for?
In order to guide first time users of BackMaster through their first backup, we provide a handy and easy to follow help guide on the right side of the user interface. The flashing target is called the BackMaster Beacon and it is used to call attention to elements of the user interface that need to be pressed in order to perform an operation.

If I already know how to use BackMaster, how can I turn off the flashing target?
It is easy to turn off the BackMaster Beacon. Simply press the toolbar button located on the main menu toolbar and the Beacon should immediately turn itself off.

What is the difference between an incremental and differential backup?
Incremental and differential backups should be performed after you have made your first full backup of the system. In order to conserve space on your backup media, you can select one of these options, which will let BackMaster know that you only want to backup files that have been changed recently. An incremental backup will only backup the files that have been changed since the last full backup, incremental backup, or differential backup. The differential backup will only backup files that have been changes since the last full backup.

Should I always verify my backup volume after every backup?
The only way to know for certain that your files have been backed up properly, is to perform an auto-verify during the backup operation or to do a manual compare after the backup is complete.

What should I do after creating a Boot Recovery CD?
We recommend that you test your boot recover CD immediately. In the event of a system failure, you do not want to have a boot CD that fails to boot or restore your data. A good test to make sure you can recover from a system failure is to boot from the CD and restore some data from your backup media to an alternate path on the hard drive.

Can I backup my system from the Boot Recovery CD? Are there any advantages to doing so?
Yes. BackMaster is able to backup, restore, or compare data when it is running from the bootable disaster recovery CD. Because the system is not currently booted from your primary hard drive, you can be sure that all of your data has been properly saved to the hard drive. Some advanced applications such as database servers, can store vital information in the systems main memory. This unsaved data cannot be accessed and saved during the backup process.

If I create a partition using the BackMaster Partition Manager, do I have to reboot before formatting the drive?
We recommend that you reboot after partitioning your hard drive. This will ensure that the correct drive letter is assigned so you can be certain that you are formatting the correct system drive.

When I backup to an internal hard drive, I am getting less than 5 megabytes per minute. What can I do to speed this up?
If you have not defragmented your hard drive lately, you might notice some poor performance while backing up to or from the drive. Defragmenting your data will organize your files better and allow the system to access the data more quickly.

When I backup to my C: drive, why is it slower than backing up to another internal hard drive like my D: drive?
During a backup to the same drive, the system has to switch back and forth between reading data and writing data to the drive. Since the source data resides on another section of the system drive, the drive heads need to be repositioned more often that when the data is being written to another drive on the system.

When I check the option to compress my backups, my system uses more of the CPU. Why is that?
Compressing data requires some complicated algorithms to provide the best data compression possible. The CPU works much harder to perform this task than when data is simply being copied to another location.

When I compare a backup volume, I have several files that fail to compare. Is this a problem?
Your applications as well as the system are constantly updating your files. Many times, these are simply log files, which are used to document actions, or events that occurred on your system. These files are expected to change and if they are restored to a prior state, this will not usually effect the system in a negative way. However, there are many files on the system that do not changes, such as application executables, device drivers, pictures or video that you have saved. Anytime these types of files fail to compare correctly, then you should assume that your backup volume is no longer trustworthy. This can often happen because of poor media or faulty hardware.