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FreshCrop MediaBACKUP - How do I....

Back up files that in use or locked?

FreshCrop MediaBACKUP can backup files that are locked or in use by other applications. In order for FreshCrop MediaBACKUP to backup locked files it makes use of MS VSS. If you have files that you want to backup but which are always in use then we suggest that you create a special folder and enable the MS VSS for that special folder only.

Back up to a network drive?

Apart from internal and external hard drives, FreshCrop MediaBACKUP can also backup to a network drive such as a server or a NAS drive.

* In order to backup to a network drive you need to first map it to a drive letter on the machine where FreshCrop MediaBACKUP is installed.
* Once you map the drive follow this tutorial to start backing up to migrate your backups to a network drive.

Enter my FreshCrop MediaBACKUP license key?

Once you order FreshCrop MediaBACKUP you will receive an email containing your unique FreshCrop MediaBACKUP License Key. The License Key is a block of letters as shown below.

* Right-click on the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP icon in the tray. Click 'Enter your License Key...' from the menu.

If you purchased the software at a retail store you will receive an activation code with a name/code combination or just a code; examples:

Once you click on 'Enter License Key…' a window like the one below will appear.

Now open the email that contains your FreshCrop MediaBACKUP License Key. Select the License Key as shown in the image below. Once you select the License Key, right-click on it and select Copy. 

Go back to the License Key window, right-click on the white text box and select Paste   Once you do this the License Key will show up in the white box as shown in the image below.

Click the button Verify License Key to verify your License Key. Once verified the window will change to confirm that the License Key was accepted by thanking you for purchasing the product.
Congratulations – You just licensed your copy of FreshCrop MediaBACKUP. Click 'Continue' to start using FreshCrop MediaBACKUP.

Go back in time to restore an old version of a file?

Open the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Quick Launch by clicking the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP tray icon.

Click on the Go BackInTime™ and Restore link.

Once the BackInTime™ browser comes up it will show the main folders that are being backed up.

The main folders will typically have many sub-folders inside them so click the main folder which contains the file that you wish to restore, or browse previous versions of.

In this how-to we will restore a file called Thesis 2.doc that was saved in the Documents folder.

Click the Documents folder to view the files and sub folders that are being backed up. Find the file (Thesis 2.doc) that you would like to restore.

Once the file is found, double-click on the file to open it in preview mode which allows you to see the different versions of that file over time.
On the right of the Oops! Backup window a list of dates will be displayed in green. This list shows the different versions available.

Using the Timeline on the right of the BackInTime browser find the version required by expanding a date group and then selecting the actual time.

Find the version that you would like to restore and click it. Once clicked the document preview in the center of the browser will change to display the first page of that version of the document. If you want to open the file before restoring it, simply click on the Full Preview button located on the left of the browser.

When you open a Full Preview, a read only version of the document will open. Once the document opens check whether it is the version required.

To restore the document click the Restore File button on the left of the screen.

Your document is now restored.  Open it from your computer to continue working on the document.

Make sure that a particular file/folder is being backed up?

If you want to make sure that a file or folder is being backed up use the BackInTime browser restore instructions for an example on how to use the BackInTime browser. The instructions on how to restore a file can be found here.

Search for a file I have in my backup?

Open the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Quick Launch by clicking on the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP tray icon.

Click on Go BackInTime™ and Restore to open the BackInTime browser link.  

Type the file name in the search box located in the top right of the BackInTime browser; just beside the magnifying glass. Press Enter after typing the file name that you would like to search for.

Once you press the Enter key, FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will start searching for your file and will list all the different versions of files that match the text you searched for.

Multiple versions (from different times) of the same file will be listed under each other in the search results.

Double-Click on the file that you wish to view and a preview will be displayed in the BackInTime browser.

If your file does not show up in the search results then it could be that it is not configured to be backed up – follow these instructions to start backing up the folder that contains your file.

Set different backup frequencies for different folders?

Although by default when you install FreshCrop MediaBACKUP all the folders configured for backup and versioning have the same settings, you can still configure different settings for specific folders by using FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Special Folders.

By using FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Special Folders you can create different configurations per folder: for example a particular folder can be configured to be backed up every 5 minutes, while all other folders continue to be backed up every hour.

To create a special folder follow the instructions below:

Open the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Quick Launch by clicking on the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP tray icon

Click on 'Manage ...' to open the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Manager

Click Add / Remove Backup Folders on the left of the screen. 

In this how-to we will assign a 5 minute backup frequency to a folder called Website

Once you click the Set as Special Folder menu item a window will be displayed. In this window you can configure the backup frequency for this folder.  Since this folder changes frequently we will set this folder to backup a version of files that changed every 5 minutes.

Apart from the frequency you can also set other settings such as Plug and Protect, ReverseDelta and handling of locked files. In this example we will leave all the settings on default and only modify the backup frequency. Configure the frequency to 5 minutes and click the Create button.

When you click the Create button the folder icon in the folder view will change to a star, Click Save to confirm the settings

To view your new Special Folder open the BackInTime browser and browse to the respective folder.

Start backing up a new folder?

Open the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Quick Launch by clicking on the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP tray icon

* Click on the Manage ... link to open the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Manager

Click on the Add / Remove Backup Folders text on the left of the screen.

Once the button is clicked, the panel under the button will change to show all the hard drives and folders on your computer.

Navigate to the folder you want to backup and once found tick the box on the left side of that folder.

If the box is already ticked, it means that the folder is already being backed up.

If you have more folders to backup then repeat this step for each folder. 

Once you've chosen all your folders click the Save button just below the Add / Remove Backup Folders.

You are done! If you want to confirm that your folders are backed up then click here.

Start backing up to a new drive?

There are times when a user needs to start backing up to a new drive due to various reasons, for example lack of free space on your old backup drive or changing over to a mapped network drive.

This can be done using the "Migrate Backup" feature in FreshCrop MediaBACKUP.

Open the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Quick Launch by clicking on the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP tray icon

Click on 'Choose a new Drive...' to open the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Change Drive Wizard.  

When you click this link, a small window will show up notifying you that the disk space required is being calculated. This window will close automatically once the calculation is complete. If you know for sure that there is enough space, click on "Proceed without calculating size" to dismiss that window and continue.

A window showing the list of available drives will appear.  If your drive is not showing make sure that it's connected and then click the Refresh Drive List link.

Choose the drive to which you would like to start backing up. In this example we will start backing up to a removable hard drive with the drive letter "H:". Check the check-box near the drive and click the Select Backup Drive button on the bottom right of the window

At this point a window will prompt you to choose whether you want to migrate all your backup data to the new drive or if you would rather start your backups from scratch.

If you choose to Migrate then FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will copy all your backed up versions to the new drive. With this option you will still be able to access and restore all your past backups.

If you choose to Restart backup from scratch then FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will start backing up to your new drive without copying all your old backup versions. Using this option means that you will not be able to access your old versions.

In this example we will choose to Migrate the backup data to a new hard drive.

The Migrate option will take time since all your backup versions will be copied to the new drive. Choose the option and click on the Change Drive button to start the migration.

If during the migration you decide to click the Stop Migrating button, the migration process will be stoped and FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will continue archiving to the original drive. You can then go through this process at a later stage to retry the migration.

Once the process is ready FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will start backing up to the new drive.

Limit my backup size?

The only way to limit the backup size in the current release of FreshCrop MediaBACKUP is to limit the age of the oldest point-in-time snapshot stored on the backup drive. As shown in the image below, the BackInTime browser shows the backup history on the right hand side:

FreshCrop MediaBACKUP gives you the possibility of restoring a file, a folder or indeed an entire backup set to the exact state it was at the specified time stamp. For example if a deleted file was still present at the selected point in time, it will show up in the folder view. Each snapshot in the timeline contributes to the size of the total backup set on the backup drive. This increase in size is dependent on the nature of the changes that occurred between that backup and the previous one. The way FreshCrop MediaBACKUP controls the increase in size is by referencing unchanged files across snapshots to the same data on the disk, and also by making use of delta technology in order to store only the changes within a file from one backup to the next.

Snapshots may be deleted from the backup set, with the limitation that snapshots can only be deleted contiguously starting from the oldest available snapshot.

This can be configured to be taken care of automatically by setting a Maintenance Schedule. Click on the "Manage" button and then select the "Advanced Settings" tab as shown below. The bottom of the settings window shows the maintenance configuration option, that may be set independently for Special Folders.

As an example, let's say today's date is the 15th January 2010 and I set my Maintenance Schedule at 2 months. This would mean that any backups older than the 15th November 2009 will be deleted from the backup drive. This does not happen immediately, but will be done by a maintenance routine within FreshCrop MediaBACKUP that performs house-keeping operations. These are more likely to take place when you are idle or away from your PC.

Continuing on the previous example, all snapshots that are older than 14th November will be deleted:

Please note that in this case, if a file was deleted before the 15th November, it will no longer be retrievable using FreshCrop MediaBACKUP, since that file was not present at any of the points in time displayed on the timeline!

What is the result of this setting being activated?

The result of all of the above is that, assuming that the changes to your data are more or less similar between one backup and another, this will result in the backup size levelling off as shown in the image below. This is because as one backup is added to the stack on the timeline, and older one falls off, so your backup window is always the same size (2 months in the example above), moving forwards one day at a time. This levelling off is of course only seen when the oldest backup hits the limit set by the maintenance schedule.

Please note that if you have no Maintenance Schedule for quite a while, and then set the cut-off point to a point in time that is considerably "younger" than your oldest backup, you will see a dip in the size in the graph above, as several backups in the timeline are purged simultaneously. You should then start seeing some levelling off in size thereafter.

Remember that the levelling off assumes that daily changes are fairly similar. If you add substantial amounts of data, or rename a large folder (which would cause the "old" name to be replicated in the backup history) then you will still see an increase in the size of the graph. With regards to the renaming of folders, deleting of files etc. the files will remain in the backup history until they are flushed out by the Maintenance Schedule.

How do I find the right setting for my Maintenance Schedule?

Sometimes, trial and error is required in finding the right balance between available disk space and age of versions to keep.
Altaro recommends that if drive space on your backup drive becomes an issue, start with a high setting, that is just below the age of your oldest backup. For example, if you have versions going back 3 months, set the setting at 2 months and wait until your backup size is maintained and you see a dip in size in the graph.
If after a few days you realise that drive space is still an issue, reset the Maintenance Schedule to a shorter time-window, and keep going until you achieve the desired balance.
In the case of any questions, please contact us on support@altaro.com. We'd be happy to help you achieve the most out of this application.

Pause my backup schedule?

The backup schedule can be paused if you do not want any backups to take place for a period of time. The backups will not take place until you manually resume the schedule.

This is also done automatically when you are choosing a new drive, migrating drives, or you have just restored your FreshCrop MediaBACKUP profile to a new PC.

1. How to Pause Your Backup Schedule:

To pause your backup schedule, simply open the Manager window, and right click on one of the folders in the "Backup Folders" panel at the bottom right:

On the context menu that pops up, select "Pause backups for this Folder".

2. All folders are paused at once, except for Special Folders (if you don't know what a Special Folder is, click here). This image shows how a Special Folder can be paused independently of all the other selected folders. This user has three standard selected folders and one Special Folder called "Error Reports":

All folders paused except special folders:           Special Folder paused independently:

3. Resuming the backup schedule:
To resume the backup schedule, simply right click on the folders again and select "Resume Backups for this Folder".
All standard folders will be resumed at once. Special Folders however need to be resumed one at a time:

Restore my data and my backup plan onto a new PC?

When you need to restore all your data from your backup drive to a new PC, whether it's because of a hard disk failure or (more happily) because you bought a new PC, the procedure is really simple.

Download the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP installer from http://www.freshcrop.com/mediabackup.exe on your new PC, and double click it to start the installation process. Once the installation is complete, the FreshCrop MediaBACKUP Setup Wizard will appear as shown below. Choose the second option, "Users migrating to a new PC" and click "Next".

Connect the drive containing your backup data. If it is a USB drive, just plug it into the new PC. If it is a network drive, make sure that the network drive is mapped to a drive letter and is currently connected.

FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will scan your drives for all existing backup profiles and list what it finds. If you reached this screen before you plugged in your drive, then simply click "Refresh Backup Plan List".

As shown in the image below, you may see more than one backup profile. This may be because the backup drive contains the backups of more than one user and it also may contain old backup profiles that you no longer use. The arrow in the image below shows where to look to see the time each profile was last used. In this way you can easily locate the most recent one. Select the backup profile and click "Next".

Note: If you were backing up to a custom folder and not to the root of the drive (for example X:\CustomFolder\OopsBackup), then you will have to click on "Choose a subfolder containing your FreshCrop MediaBACKUP backup" and locate the backup folder.

The next screen will show you what folders the backup contains. These may not match the folders on the new PC, but don't worry about this for now. Just click "Next":

Congratulations! Your backup profile has been transferred to your new PC. Now the next step is to restore your data (if necessary) and re-configure any changes in folder locations. When you see the screen below, just click "Next".

Please note that your data will be restored to its original path unless you specify differently. For example if your Pictures folder was previously on C:\Users\John\Pictures, it will be restored to that path on your new PC, even if your new Pictures path is for example C:\Users\John Doe\Pictures. Before restoring though, you may specify the new location to restore. Please apply a bit of care at this stage so that you restore your data to its proper new location.

If your original paths no longer exist, you will need to click on "Manage" and select your new paths from the treeview.
To see how to do that, please click here.

Understand my backup schedule?

Backup schedules in FreshCrop MediaBACKUP are fairly simple, but certain ground rules must be understood first:
Rule 1) If you set your backup to take place every X hours or every X days, FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will align your backup to the next top of the hour. So even if the backup is already due at 11:30 for example, FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will wait till 12:00, so that subsequent backups will all be at the top of the hour (for example 12:00, 13:00, 14:00 etc... if the schedule is every 1 hour). This does not apply to schedules that are selected with a "minutes" interval.
Rule 2) Manual backups and "Plug & Protect" backups (that take place when you plug in your drive), are considered "out of band" and do not affect the next backup according to your backup schedule. In other words, the next backup time is calculated according to the last automatic backup only.
Now that these rules are out of the way, let's move on to a more detailed desription... At the top of all windows in FreshCrop MediaBACKUP, you can see a status as follows:

How is this time calculated? Take this example, related to the image above: Our schedule is set to backup every 3 hours. The last backup was at 09:34, which was our first backup. The three hours from the first backup will elapse at 12:34. However, as described above in Rule 1, FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will align your backups to the hour, so the next backup will take place at 13:00.

It is now 11:35, so the text will show us that the next backup is in 1 hour and 25 minutes, as shown above. The backup after that will be at 16:00, three hours after the backup of 13:00. If I take a manual backup at 14:20, for example, this will not affect the 16:00 backup, since it is out of band (see Rule 2 above).

What if there are no changes yet?
If there are no changes at the point at which the backup time elapses, then no backup will be taken. In fact, if there are no changes, then you will not see the time remaining, but that there are no changes yet. Let's assume in the example above that there are no changes between 13:00 and 16:00. The backup will not take place at 16:00. The first change to a file or folder marked for backup occurs at 16:25. The backup will now take place at the next top of the hour, namely at 17:00.

Although the schedule is set at every 3 hours, the interval between backups in this case will be 4 hours, because there were no changes in the first three hours after 13:00.


What about "minutes" schedules?
If your schedule is set at "every 30 minutes", for example, then the top of the hour is not taken into consideration. After the 09:34 backup in the example above, the next backup will be at 10:04. Let's assume that there are no changes yet at 10:04.

If the first change occurs at 10:17, then the backup will be taken very soon after 10:17, because the backup time would have elapsed and no attempt is made to align the backup times to any particular point in the hour.

Assuming there are changes, the next backup will then take place at 10:47, which is 30 minutes after 10:17.

What happens if my PC is off at the time of the next backup? Continuing on the original example: a backup schedule every 3 hours, with the last automatic backup at 13:00. There are 5 changed files pending backup. That means the next backup is to take place at 16:00. Let's say the PC is turned off at 15:45 so the 16:00 backup cannot take place. The PC is then turned back on at 17:30. FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will detect that there are changes pending and the backup is overdue. The next available backup time on the hour is 18:00, so the backup will be taken at 18:00 (see Rule 1 above). The backup after that will be taken at 21:00, assuming there are changes to back up.


If my schedule was set every 30 minutes, for example, then an overdue backup would be taken shortly after the PC is turned back on. Please note that this also applies to PCs in hibernation or standby.

What happens if my backup drive is disconnected at the time of the next backup? In this case, the same logic as described above is followed (see "What happens if my PC is off at the time of the next backup"). In a nutshell, the next backup will be taken place after the drive is next available, either immediately (if you have a "minutes" schedule) or at the next top of the hour (if you have an "every x hours" or "every x days" schedule).

What about special folders?
When you have special folders (for example your Outlook PST file) backing up at different schedules, then things may get a bit more tricky. If you don't know what special folders are, then please click here: http://wiki.altaro.com/oops-backup-how-tos/configure-different-backup-frequency-and-settings-for-different-folders

Let's assume your main schedule is to backup changes every hour. Your Outlook PST folder is set to back up once a day.

There are no changes in your main folders, but your Outlook files have changed. The next backup time will be shown for the Outlook PST folder only. For this reason, you may see "next backup in 22 hours 15 minutes". This may be at first confusing, since the schedule is set on an hourly basis. However this simply means that there are no changes for the other folders.

As a general rule, the next backup time is shown as the nearest backup time for the folders with at least one pending change. In the example above, the second a change occurs in one of the main folders marked for backup, the text will promptly change to "next backup in 20 minutes" or whatever the case may be. After that backup, if there are no more changes pending in your main folders, the text will probably go back to "next backup in 21 hours etc.." signalling that the Outlook folder is the only one with changes.

What does "Full check still pending" mean?
When FreshCrop MediaBACKUP is started up, or when you make changes to settings or changes to the treeview selections, FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will make a full comparison on the source and destination files to make sure all pending changes are caught, including the ones that may have occurred when FreshCrop MediaBACKUP was not running. If you see the text "No changes yet. Full check still pending" it simply means that the next backup time can only be determined after FreshCrop MediaBACKUP does a full check for changes. This is usually done right before the next backup time, or maybe even before if your PC is idle and the backup drive is available.

What if a backup fails or I abort a backup? I
If an automatic (scheduled) backup fails, it will be retried after 5 minutes for up to three times. If the third attempt also fails, then no further retries will take place. The next attempt to back up will then be when the backup interval elapses again from the time of the original failed backup.

If any backup, manual or scheduled, is aborted by the user, then the next backup will take place after the backup interval has elapsed from the time the backup was aborted.

The first backup cannot be aborted, but it can be postponed. If you click the "Postpone" button, then the next backup will take place at the next available backup slot, namely at the next top of the hour, or if you set a "minutes" schedule, when the interval in minutes elapses from the start time of the postponed backup.

There is still something I can't understand...
We know that every user has his or her particular set up. It is impossible to cover all possibilities in this wiki entry.
If you have any questions about what you are seeing in the user interface, or you would like to know how FreshCrop MediaBACKUP will work for your set up, we'd be glad to help. Just send us an email to suppor@altaro.com and we'll take it from there.