[vicott]

Well, as many people realise, backup of Pocket PCs and also the Storage Cards can be rather important. So, it's a good idea to perform regular backups of the device as well the Storage Cards. Here are some solutions and software recommendations I have.

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Here, let me recommend some backup solutions and methods for Pocket PC users. Firstly, it is very useful to have a good Backup Manager installed on the Pocket PC. Although ActiveSync has a Backup/Restore function, it is terribly slow and not "portable". Imagine if you got a hard reset while you are not near your PC! That's why it's good to have a Backup Manager installed on the Pocket PC instead. You can then backup your device to your Storage Card and restore anytime and anywhere, as long as there is power left in your device.

Several Pocket PCs come with pre-installed Backup Managers. With the exception of iPAQ Backup (or Sprite Backup), I suppose most other Backup Managers that are preinstalled take very long time to backup/restore. Also, most of them do not support compression or encryption. So, it may be a good idea to look around for third party solutions if you do not have iPAQ Backup (or Sprite Backup) preinstalled on your device.

Backup Managers for Pocket PCs:
Sprite Backup
Sunnysoft Backup Manager
Spb Backup
Resco Backup

If you already have iPAQ Backup or Sprite Backup on your device, it's good enough. Otherwise, I would recommend either Sprite Backup or Spb Backup. Both have user-friendly UIs, fast backup, good compression ratio and encryption support. Sprite Backup costs more than Spb Backup, but only Spb Backup has a trial version. However, Sprite Backup also has more features, e.g. today plug-in and also ActiveSync component for backup (can also backup Storage Cards) to PC.

If you wish to use Sprite Backup on a WM5 device, do make sure u are using version 5.x. If your Pocket PC is running on older OS, you have to use earlier versions (before v5.x). It also seems that only v5.x does not have the SMS restore bug. Spb Backup also has no problems restoring SMS.

So, Spb Backup is highly and strongly recommended for Pocket PC Phones running on PPC2002/WM2003/WM2003SE. Sprite Backup is not recommended for these platforms because it has a SMS bug issue. For other platforms/OS, you have a choice between the 2.

It's also recommended to install such backup software to the Storage Card, as you can run the EXE file even though you have not re-installed the software after a hard reset.

It usually takes me around 2-4 minutes to backup my device (HP iPAQ h1940) of around 24MB. The resultant backup file is around 9-10MB with iPAQ Backup (Sprite Backup v1.1 on my device). In comparison, Spb Backup churns out a slightly smaller file at around 8-9MB. The speed of both software are close.

[vicott]

Next, is the backup of Storage Cards. There are several methods to do so:
1) Backup to PC using Sprite Backup.
2) Transfer files to PC using "Explore" in ActiveSync (from the PC)
3) Transfer files to PC using Card Reader (USB 2.0 for fastest speed)
4) Use software for making device act as USB card reader
5) Use software to sync PC with certain folders on PPC (in particular Storage Card folders)
6) Backup to Storage Card using Spb Backup

For solution (4), here are the apps available:
1) WM5torage - Only for WM5. Freeware.
2) Card Export II Pocket PC - More OS and processors supported.

For solution (5), here are the apps available:
1) MightySync - Doesn't work for me with ActiveSync 4.1 though.
2) MobSync - Latest Shareware Version. Works with ActiveSync 4.x.
3) MobSync 0.9.4 - Last Freeware Version. Tested it and found it unstable with ActiveSync 4.1.

For solution (6), you must make sure that at least 40% of your Storage Card must be empty. Otherwise, there may not be enough space to store the backup file. Actually, this is the least recommended method to backup the Storage Card. If you forgot to delete the older backup on your Storage Card, your next backup will also include the old backup file. That simply means an inflated backup which includes redundant files.

In conclusion for Storage Card backup solutions, it is fastest to use a USB 2.0 Card Reader for transferring the files. However, MobSync would be the best solution for automation. MobSync is very handy, especially if certain folder/files change pretty frequently. It's also useful if you download huge files overnight and wish to drop them to the Storage Card automatically. However, the downside of this method is that it is much slower than transferring files via a card reader.

For my full article (may be useful for newbies) on backup of PPC and Storage Cards, here's the link. This thread is basically a summarised and oragnised version of the article. Hope this is useful for all :smile:

[vicott]

PIM Backup solutions:
Contact Exporter - Export contacts from phone memory or SIM card
PIMExport
PIM Backup

SMS Backup solutions:
PowerSMS
SMS Exporter
smsCreative
smsBackup

Note that full backup solutions like Spb Backup, Sprite Backup, etc, also include SMS backup.

If you find any other PIM/SMS backup tools that are not mentioned here, please post the links here. :smile:

[Clound]

For Backup your Storage Card over the PC side,
Use Synctoy
http://www.microsoft...&displaylang=en
^2.0
This ensure you have a exact copy of your storage card on your PC.

[vicott]

Other ways to backup PIM:
1) Copy "pim.vol" file from root folder to another folder (using the default file explorer) on the device as a backup.
2) Sync regularly with Outlook

Other ways to backup SMS:
1) Use Jeyo Mobile Extender to sync SMS to Outlook