I've tried many of the backup solutions available, both freeware and commercial. None of them worked for me.

I finally decided to write a simple backup script to backup files using RAR and NTBackup.

It's available here.

Instead of trying to explain it, I'll let bu.cmd speak for itself:

C:\>bu
Syntax:

  bu.cmd [options] <sources ...> <destination>

  <sources ...> is one or more filespecs to backup.
  If <sources> is a single letter (c, d, etc.), then assume c:\, d:\, etc.
  NTBackup also accepts 'systemstate'.

  <destination> is the directory to store the backup file to.

  Options:

-t | --type type          Backup type
                            full:        Full backup (default)
                            diff:        Differential backup
                            incr:        Incremental backup
                            copy:        Full copy backup

-f | --filename filename  Use filename.[rar|bkf|zip] as backup file name

-u | --unique             Use unique backup file name (1.rar, 2.rar, etc)

-l | --label "label"      Assign "label" as a comment for this backup
                           (incompatible with --password)

-d | --date               Save backup in a directory named yy-mm-dd

-i | --time               Save backup in a directory name hh_mm_ss

-y | --sysdir             Save backup in a directory of the system's name

-s | --system systemname  Use systemname instead of %COMPUTERNAME%

-b | --method             Set backup method
                             rar:      Use WinRar   (default)
                             ntbackup: Use NTBackup
                             zip:      Use WinZip   (unimplemented)

-c | --compress mode      Compression method (ntbackup method only)
                             rar:  Use WinRar on NTBackup .bkf file
                             zip:  Use WinZip on NTBackup .bkf file (unimplement
ed)
                             none: Do not compress (default)

-x | --exclude filespec   Filename or path to exclude (rar only)

-p | --password password  Encrypt backup with password (rar only)

-v | --maxsize megabytes  Maximum backup file size (rar only)
                             (limit: 1 source per drive)

-m | --compressionlevel n Set commpression level (1-5) (default=3) (rar only)

-o | --option option      Pass option to backup program (ntbackup, rar, etc.)

Examples (on a system named durga)

bu c z:\
  Backup c:\ to z:\durga_full_03-03-08_12-34-56_c.rar

bu -t diff -f root c d z:\ex
  Backup c:\ to z:\ex\root_c.rar and d:\ to z:\ex\root_d.rar

bu -t diff -f bin c:\bin d:\bin z:\backups
  Backup c:\bin to z:\backups\bin_c.rar and d:\bin to z:\backups\bin_d.rar

bu -d -f root c d z:\
  Backup c:\ to z:\03-03-08\root_c.rar and d:\ to z:\03-03-08\root_d.rar

bu -d -i -f root c z:\
  Backup c:\ to z:\03-03-08\12_34_56\root_c.rar

bu -d -i -y -f root c z:\
  Backup c:\ to z:\03-03-08\12_34_56\DURGA\root_c.rar

bu -y c z:\
  Backup c:\ to z:\DURGA\durga_full_03-03-08_12-34-56_c.rar

bu -b ntbackup c d systemstate z:\
  Backup c:\, d:\ and systemstate to z:\durga_full_03-03-08_12-34-56.bkf

bu -b ntbackup -c rar c z:\
  Backup c:\ and compress to z:\durga_full_03-03-08_12-34-56.bkf.rar