I am going to format my hardrive and reinstall everything. I do not want to have to reinstall ALL of my poser stuff. What do I need to do to backup my files? Can I just copy my runtime folder to a cd, reinstall Poser, and then copy/paste my runtime folder back into the program directory? If not please advise me what to do. Thanks

copying to cd and paste back will work!

Yes, you can. That should work fine.

yep, but it's doubtful your runtime folder will fit on 1 cd so you'll have to decide how to split it up....:>)

Yep, I backup to an 80G drive until there is enough to write a DVD-R. Right now my Poser 5 Runtime is a measely 2.5GB. How many CD-Rs is that? ;0) BYS

Attached Link: http://www.dh.dk/zipbackup/

Well, that makes sense since .jpgs are already compressed (that's why it's a "lossy" format - exact information is lost in order to achieve the small size). But, see, that wouldn't help me. At 4:1 compression, my entire Poser 5 dir would still be over 700MB; at the edge of CD-R unless overburning. And again, I'm a small-timer when it comes to accumulating Poser files in the Runtime. Let's face it, CD-Rs are going away, for data backup anyway, like the tape cassette. You can get a thousand of them for like $2 ;0) - that should tell you something. DVD-Rs are the only way as programs and data explode in size. And I have a sneaking feeling that their storage size will be surpassed within the next three to five years. BYS

I use Winzip to zip up Geometries, libraries, etc separately. (currently around 6.5gig total). It's just a matter of putting all the pieces back together later. I have found CD-R to be a reliable medium. I have have some very flaky results using DVD-R/RW disks - they sometimes have difficulty with nested files giving a lot of zero byte folders. Until they are more reliable I should stick with CD-R's or invest in a second hard drive.

Zip backup to CD will span disks, my backups are currently 4 CDs.

Are textures and geometries in all poser runtimes? I thought P4 had one or the other elswhere. You're going to need those. = )

My reliability has been very good with DVD-Rs. They aren't as reliable because the burning software, hardware, and discs all play a part (and are not all "up to spec" yet AFAIAC). Sorry to say, I've had more problems with zipping files (with WinZip yet) than with DVD-R (or CD-R). Every so often, I get a shocking revelation when a zipped file on CD-R (or DVD-R) is corrupt. This could be due to the media, but makes one think since it only seems to occur on zips. Nonetheless, since these represent my permanent archives (much of the data having been "permanently" removed from my computers), this is a tragedy. And, considering that I compressed a 27 CD set of archives into 3 DVDs, I'll stick with DVDs. cainbrogan, Geometries and textures are in the Runtime directory (in 4 and 5). BYS