Delete database for pc backup (1 Viewer)

[zilexa]

Hi all,
Now that I finally got my remote and everything working fine, I really want to make a full backup of my systemdrive.
BUT... it seems wise to wipe out the MovingPictures (and even Music and TVSeries database) database before I do so.

Because if I ever restore the backup, the database would always have to rebuild because I will have different movies (more movies, old movies copied to different location perhaps etc).

So to make sure my backup image isn't eating up space unnecessary... I thought of deleting the moving pictures database.
But I cannot find such an option... is it possible?
Or should I not do this at all?

 

[alank]

Playing around I've deleted the database before and it automatically recreates it and rebuilds it without problem. So if you want to do this it shouldn't be a problem. They are located here...

XP - C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Database
Vista - C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Database

But it also does a good job at "resyncing" itself so even if the database is way out of date, say after a restore, it should take care of itself. If you do delete then you would want to delete the fanart too. It's located at the same location as above except ...\MediaPortal\Thumbs\MovingPictures.

As far as backups go, I'll tell you what I do but I'm pretty anal when it comes to this. First I wipe the HD, install Windows from scratch, update Windows to current, cut an image. Then I make all my customizations to Windows, all the standard stuff that I would always do, then cut another image. Then I start installing all the software I use (obtaining the latest version), and cut another image. Then lastly I install MediaPortal vanilla and cut another image. This way I have number of clean starting points that I can choose from depending on the type of restore I want to do. Then I do all my MediaPortal plugin installs, customizations, etc but I don't make an image of that. Reason being is that if I ever restore back to the image with MP, I will want to install all the latest plug-ins anyway. Take a few extra minutes but I think it's worth it. This technique has worked nicely for me for many years. Anyway, just something for you to think about.

 

[zilexa]

Actually I do it a little bit like that
I made my own (universal) customized unattended Windows XP installer with all the software, drivers and settings and tweaks that I want. After installing that and modifying a few specific things for my htpc (and some extra software, fileserver, ftp, torrents), I cut an image.

Since my unattended xp setup already takes care of most of the stuff I don't cut that many images. But I also just want 1 image with Mediaportal.

So then I install Mediaportal and when MP works just as I want it to, I cut another image. Reason for this, if something does go wrong... even my girlfriend must be able to fix it by restoring the image and then continu watching tvseries or movies... she's definetely not going to figure out if there are new plugins etc. Thats something I do when I have time.

Thanks for sharing your info. Since I use Acronis True Image, I now realize it can make incremental backups. So the 2nd backup wont need that much space (it's saved on a seperate "Acronis Safe Zone" 2,5" partition at the end of my small internal hdd). So maybe I should just create the backup like this.