BackUp MyPC :: Education by Design Store

Editorial Review
There's no excuse for neglecting to create backups of your critical data. Now, Stomp's BackUp MyPC makes it even harder to find one. Its simple interface, trusty scheduling feature, and ability to work with all forms of media make it easy for backing up data to become second nature.

BackUp MyPC is built on the backup engine and interface created by Veritas, which is ubiquitous to almost anyone who's dealt with backup products (for example, BackUp MyPC is almost identical to Seagate Backup Exec, another Veritas-powered program that comes with most Seagate tape drives). But even if you've never even heard of Veritas, don't be daunted: its backup software is immensely popular for good reason. Balancing the power of a professional application with unmatched ease of use, Stomp has created a backup program for the masses.

Upon launching BackUp MyPC for the first time, users are prompted by a wizard that helps them set up scheduled, automated backups within minutes. The program sniffs out removable media devices and allows users to pick a target drive from among them. On our test PC, it recognized a CD burner, a SuperDisk drive, a floppy drive, and a SCSI tape drive without prompting.

Delving deeper into its interface, users are presented with the power to pick and choose files for backup from the contents of the host computer and from any accessible PC on a LAN. BackUp MyPC offers options to compress data to save space, to append or overwrite data on backup disks or tapes, to perform full, incremental, and/or differential backups, and more. If the terminology gets too daunting, check out the friendly, image-filled, comprehensive, 134-page manual.

We backed up and restored data using all of the media mentioned above except the floppy drive (large-format media is much more convenient for backing up large amounts of data). In each case, the process was painless. Automated backups ran right on schedule, and all of our backups proved reliable. Restore Wizard makes the task of pulling data from backup media quick and painless.

Customer Reviews

Compression information mismatch" error on Windows XP Home

2005-10-18
V6.0 of this software is buggy in both compression modes, posting the following error:
"Compression information mismatch [4886-1316]"

Make sure you Verify your backup with this product!

Very poor Support.

buggy software & lousy customer support

2005-02-22
BackupMyPC was unable to backup my 100 GB hard disk to a network drive. StompSoft customer's support said the problem was due to my machine even though I was able to use a competitors product to backup my system. I've deleted BackupMyPC from my system and will no longer do any business with StompSoft.

Freebie backup utilities can do a task that BackupMyPC cannot.

Just another dissapointment

2004-06-27
Another that claims it can do the job, i.e. backup all your files to any media.
First, it still reguires a floppy to make the "disaster recovery" set that they claim will recover a computer from disaster. Here in 2004, many, if not most computers, have moved away from that antique drive.
Second, they claim that you have a choice of drives, and of using compressed or uncompressed backup files. So I finally found a work around to back up to my spare external drive, but when I try for uncompressed backups, the backup file ("complete") for my computer is only 428 MB, whilst the main hard drive shows that 68GB are in use?
Third, proprietary files-Why cannot the backup file be in the same format that the rest of my computer uses? I am (...) enough, that I would like to be able to read, and verify that the files are actually what they purport to be, before trusting that this software that does not seem to accomplish any of the OTHER tasks it claims, has actually backed up my pc.
Then there is the contact page. Why do I need to provide them with my life story to ask a simple question,and why do they need to attempt to "check for updates" every single time I boot up? That's more like spyware, I think.
In short, I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

Poorly Designed and Poor Technical Support

2004-06-19
After backing up 16 DVDs and nearing the end I accidentally hit the eject button on the wrong drive. The program didn't ask me if that's what I meant to do--it simply ended! All tech support would say is they'd pass it to their programmers to consider in the future. Very shoddy design in my opinion. I tried to rebuild the catalog so I didn't have to redo hours of backup and after asking me to insert all 15 disks, it couldn't read the 16th--the one it shut down earlier, and so quit again. Tech support didn't even respond. I cannot get it to rename a DVD without reformatting and it insists on defaulting to its own naming system (though you can override it). Should have saved me time...instead cost me a LOT of time. I cannot recommend this program.

Be sure to thoroughly test eval copy

2004-06-05
I, too, initially thought some reviewers might be clueless after I downloaded the eval copy and tried it with my system. I ran the disaster recovery backup, and everything was working fine with my listed-as-supported LG cd burner using cd-rw discs--until I ran out. Then I tried a cd-r and it rejected it as already having data on it that needed to be rewritten by the program blah blah. Unable to find any reference to such a problem in the documentation or online support (which to me is worse than the problem itself when evaluating new software), I decided to start over with cd-r's in case it had some problem with switching media types while a backup was in progress. It still rejected every cd-r type I had. Makes me wonder who is clueless and who is lucky.

Big problems with WinXP SP1 and with some DVD drives

2004-04-11
There's no excuse for neglecting to create backups of your critical data. Now, Stomp's BackUp MyPC makes it even harder to find one. Its simple interface, trusty scheduling feature, and ability to work with all forms of media make it easy for backing up data to become second nature.

If you're not backing up your important data, you'll have no one but yourself to blame if you end up losing it. It's worth every cent to invest in a reliable backup system. With BackUp MyPC you can use any removable media device with ease. --Joel Durham, Jr.

Does the Job 2004-04-05
I too give it 5 stars partially to offset a couple of seemingly clueless reviews. Otherwise would give it 4 stars due to a couple of minor interface issues.

I've been using this software, in one form or another for several years (originally Veritas, now Stomp). Have used the Stomp version on 2 PC's for past couple of years. Love it. I simply do full and partial backups to 20gb Seagate Hornet tape drives. Works great. I'm typically backing up every couple of weeks.

I have also used it to backup to CD-R discs with no problem (just takes a lot of them for 10gb worth of data).

I have a couple of minor issues with the user interface and one major issue which is an annoyance, but something I can live with. The major issue (at least as of vers 4.71) is that when marking selected files/folders to be skipped on a backup job, it is hard to quickly find the list of files/folders you unselected. For example, I have a backup that backs up everything except media files (I skip the My Music folder, and My Pictures folder). I also skip a couple of other files that always give errors (because they are in use or have invalid file names). But when I simply look at the folders in the Stomp window at a high level, it is hard to figure out which ones contain the files I which will be skipped. It would be nice if the folders that would only be partially backed up were highlighted in someway. Of course I have named the job "Full C without MP3s" so I do know what the job does. I just don't know precisely which individual files I "deselected".

One nice feature is that you can name and save your backup "jobs". I have several with names like "Full C without MP3's", "Differential C", "MP3's and Photos Only". Just start the prog, select the job you wish from the pull down list, click Backup. All of the settings and selections you made when you saved the job are used in the backup.

I have not had to do a full restore yet (knock on wood). But occassionally I go back to earlier versions of files or databases. So I have restored full folders and individual files from backup (as much as 300meg of data at one time) with nary a problem.

With a 20gb tape I go to bed and wake up to a completed backup (it probably runs about 3 hours). A Seagate 10/20gb Travan (Hornet) drive and 3 20gb Travan tapes will do it for most people. I suggest you rotate one of the tapes in and out of a safe deposit box or friend's house. (An on-site copy of your backup protects you from a hard drive failure, but not from a fire or similar disaster).

The download of a 30day free trial from the Stomp website is probably worthwhile to evaluate the software for your particular situation.

Another review speaks about the time and effort involved in backing up an 80gb drive to a DVD-RW. Worth reading if you are considering it. He seems frustrated that the software can't change the DVD for him (?!). But the point is, takes a lot of DVDs (I think they each hold about 4gb uncompressed). Of course, once you've done a complete backup, you could probably do incremental or differential backups for a while before doing another full one.

Good piece of backup software 2004-02-29
First let me say two things to those who are complaining that it doesn't work with their CD burners:

o You should have checked the compatibilty list
o You should have downloaded the FREE 30-day trial

Some pros for it:
o It allows you to backup over networked drives (very cool)
o It allows you to password protect your backups (cool again)

A few cons:
o I don't love the interface, don't hate it, but don't love it
o The compression isn't "great", I also get about 1.3:1

Overall, I would have rated it 4-stars, but since I saw a few morons giving it 1-star for no good reasons, I wanted to defend it's honor a little.

I'm still using the 30-day trial, so far so good. I recommend you try it out first before you buy.

Also, BackupMyPC was associated with Veritas, which is a VERY good backup system for large servers and such, and the quaility is still with BackupMyPC.

My opinion.

Easier to simply type your files back on your computer 2004-02-21
Is the stuff America makes when the manufacturing jobs get shipped to China?? I presume it is designed and made in America... SHAME. First, I read that my TDK drive was supported, but the software wouldn't work. Alas, my drive would work if it was the external model, but not if it was the internal model???? I wanted my money back ... but they ignored my e-mail and the company I purchased it from wouldn't accept it back. I gave it to a friend ... he had a supported CD Drive. It made his Disaster Recovery Disks (to floppies), but won't write to his CD. First he was told it was bad media. We then bought expensive media ... still wouldn't work...then we were told it was a conflict with either his Roxio or CD Creator software (...well what writing software does the remainder of the world use??) Now he's mad at me for wasting several days of his time. My suggestion is that you use your inherent consumer capitalistic power and STOMP on this software.

Doesn't even support Dell drives!!! 2003-12-06
The software appeared not to be able to back up across multiple CDs, which is the only reason I had bought it. I then found in the documentation a line saying that some versions don't support this option, without any way to know whether mine did or not. Customer support via e-mail responded after 72 hours, with some suggestions that were irrelevant, such as running msconfig when they had already confirmed that I have Windows 2000, for which msconfig doesn't apply. Then I checked the list of supported drives and found that the Samsung CDRW/DVD that came standard with my Dell Latitude is NOT supported.

PLEASE, PLEASE check the list of supported drives BEFORE purchasing this software!!!!!