FBackup overwrites new same name files with old files

[Awethentic]

Dear Admin,
For normal mirror backups, which is what I usually do, your program works fine, and I am very grateful for this free program. You have earned a lot of good karma, I would imagine.
However, sometimes I have a need to backup old files from old drives to new drives, for instance, as happened recently when my old computer crashed and I bought a new one and installed some of my old programs like MS Outlook, restored just my backed up .pst file and started using it again.
Later on, when I had more time, I decided to restore my mirror backup files from my old drive by actually using the backup and not restore function (as the drive letters and placements were all different anyway) so I had more control over the backup – so, I “backed up” the files from the old drives to the new drive, and did NOT use the “create full paths” option because the files would not have dropped into the correct folders on my new drive.
I knew that some files would be overwritten, like the outlook.pst file, but when testing FBackup some years ago when I first started using your program, I noticed that the program would check the “date created” attribute and it would only overwrite the file if the source file was NEWER than the destination file, which is exactly what I need, especially in the above example. As I believed this behaviour to be the case, I went ahead with the backup as described. However, to my horror, I found that my new Outlook.pst file had been replaced with the 3-month old file.
But what I found in the new version (I now use the latest version 4.8.276) is that no matter if the destination file is newer or older, it ALWAYS overwrites it, which is what I don’t want, especially in view of the fact one or more of your previous versions did not do that – it always maintained that your backup destination always had the newest file.
Is there any way this current version does this, WITHOUT having to waste hdd space by using the create full paths feature?
If not, could I please ask you put the following option on your wish list for FBackup –
“Please include the option somewhere in the mirror choices, maybe under the “create full paths” option a succinct version of the following (this text is long to explain what I am getting at) –
( )Only overwrite the same name destination file if the “date modified” (not date created, not date accessed) field shows that the destination file is OLDER than the source file. Otherwise do NOT overwrite the same name file (ie if the source is OLDER than the destination, then do NOT copy and overwrite the destination file.”
If people DO want to overwrite the new file with the old one (someone may have a reason to do this), then they have that option by not ticking this box.
Alternatively of course, you could do the above in reverse, by making the above the NORMAL behaviour of FBackup (as I believe it used to do), and they then need to tick the modified box if they WANT to overwrite new files with old.
In either case, we should have a choice, and I think it is a very necessary feature of this software that it does not have at the moment – there is no choice. With this choice, it would make the operation of the software a lot safer.
Also, in your latest manual, in your index, there are 2 references - “clear archive bit” on P43 and “archive bit” on P47. But when you go to these pages, there is NO reference or any text relating to these subjects. Please advise what these texts are.
Many thanks.
All the best, cheers and enjoy.
Michael

[Adrian (Softland)]

Hi,
FBackup will compare the source files with the information stored in the backup catalog, not with the manually modified files in destination. It is supposed you are not changing the files in destination manually.