Dave, Why don't you let the Backup utility that comes with windows handle the backup of the documents. The backup is not the prettiest program but it will work. I use it to backup my documents a lot and have never had problems restoring individual documents. Greg B. Greg L. Bobo Customer Service Matrix Systems, Inc. 7550 Paragon Rd. Dayton, OH 45459 937.438.9033 x2228 office 937.438.0900 fax www.matrixsys.com -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 4:02 PM To: 'blind-sysadmins' Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] backing up a windows box with system rescue Hello, With my ongoing saga of the laptop i'm now having to back it up prior to a reinstall. I've got system restore which has mounted both the laptop's ntfs hd and an external usb hd also ntfs read/write using ntfs-3g. We're doing a cp -R source destination. My problem that i just thought of is that some of the files and folders the microsoft ones under documents and settings have special characters in them, braces. I need a complete backup of this system, so am thinking this copy is eventually going to error out. I need an alternative. Suggestions welcome! Some urgency! Thanks. Dave. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins