Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Rihgt, I'm sure I could puzzle this out but why do that when people here probably have the answers at their fingertips? :)
I want to completely back up Mandys laptops HDD onto another external drive.
I have purchased a small external drive and drive enclosure that connects via firewire. I need to create a complete ghost image every week so that if her HDD goes belly up I can just swap the external HD into her laptop and carry on as if nothing had happened.
Anyone have any ideas? :dunce:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Try Norton Ghost.

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

acronis do some nice software for this it will take an imagine then all u need to do is restore it using the img and a boot cd

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

here is a program i used, its a 30 day trial but fully functional, i backed up my pc drive with it.

http://www.farstone.com/home/ensite/...iveclone.shtml

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Like Sosages says, Acronis is quite a good program. The downside is that you have to install it in Windows and you can only run it in Windows.
On the other hand I would recommend making a boot cd with Image Pro 6 on it. You can then make an image of your disk or make a disk to disk copy. Image Pro 7 is out but I've found it to be quite unreliable. hope this helps.

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

I'll agree with that (& Nemesis will too ;) )

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Tnx all...will Norton Ghost or Acronis produce a fully functional HDD if I need to replace the the original with the one that has the (ghost) backup copy on it?
edit. just looked at them......it looks like they will do the job :tu: .....just got to choose one now....... :scratch:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

I know Norton Ghost will create an exact mirror of the drive so it'll function exactly the same as the original.

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Next question...........when I place the new HDD into the external drive bay and plug the whole thing into the laptop via firewire the external HDD lights light up (on the docking bay/box) and spins but I can't see it in 'my computer' :confused: :dunce: ..any ideas. :disturbd:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Have you formatted it?

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

ermmmm.....no......not been given the option to :erm:

Thing is.....when I plug it into te laptop via usb/firewire.......xp home says 'found new hardware' and names it correctly. If I click on 'safely remove hardware' it gives me the option to safely remove it........but I can't actually see it anywhere on the laptop. :confused: :disturbd:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

CAn i just butt in and ask if i were to take an 'image' (what is that exactly and how can it mimic/act like the original drive) of my hard drive could i then transfer it onto another disk and boot to Windows from the new drive. My ipod tracks are fillin up the original 40G quickly and at todays prices a much bigger disk makes alot of sense. i think i'm askin a v similar question here but u see me no understand.

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Do you see it in Disk Manager on the Laptop?

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Manage'.

In the Computer Management MMC, on the left you should see "Disk Management" under "Storage".

In the Disk Management window you should see the existing disk and and unformatted second disk. Right click on the second disk and select 'Create Partition' (or similar). Once you have a partiton you should be able to use it with Norton Ghost, or, if you format it, with XP.

HTH

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Strangely I can now see it in device manager. Apparently it is 'working correctly' when I use add new hardware (it's already there)
I just can't actually access the bluddy thing :confused:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

i had aproblem like this, it turned out that xp did not assign a drive letter.

if you go to control panel - administrative tools - computer management - storage - disk managment.

or it maybe in removable storage with no letter.

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Shouldn't be a problem as long as the new drive directly replaces the old one on the cable etc.
Eg. Clone C drive, remove (or move) C drive on the IDE cable and replace with newly cloned drive so that windows sees the new C drive in the same position as old one. If you don't change them over like that you may need to change your BIOS settings to boot from the correct drive ;)

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Yes, but why bother doing that. The cable inside your PC connecting to the existing HDD will have a second plug on it for a second HDD, and you should have a spare power plug close by.
To achieve what you want to do you are better buying a second HDD, setting it as secondary or slave and plugging it into the PC, then dragging iTunes etc onto that disk freeing up space on the C drive.
The next step is to move Documents and Settings and all other user created data onto that disk, then if the Windows disk corrupts, you can rebuild windows and won't lose all this data.
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Can this be done on schedule? If I leave a disk either in the machine or in a firewire caddy can I get my PC to extract files from certain locations on the windows file and printer sharing network and drop a copy onto this drive each night. Is it intelligent to do this on changed only files etc.

Looks like this will do the job
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing.../features.html
but it does not explain whether it can get these files from different PCs.

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Should I do a primary partition or an extended partition :disturbd:
edit......I'll do a primary partition...........I'm going in!........Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast! :D

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

:tu: SMHarman/Paul

i don't want to run two sets of post in one thread. I've a project planned for a new build, given the benchmark these days is 64bit OS/CPU+PCI Express.I've played CSSource and Hlf Life 2 and it'd be worth it for that alone :D The goal would be to do as little reistallin of apps etc to a new master(and bigger faster) disk.

Thanks all.

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Right..it's formatting the HDD atm... :tu:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

The first partition is the primary one, if you want to have more then one drive letter on the disk, then you create a primary and an extended partition. All drives must have a primary (logical) partition .
Amazing how quickly you pick this terminology up when trying to recover disks.
Oh and for those using SATA disks did you know you can plug an SATA cable into the jumper plug space, won't work, but you can (minor panic moment before I put the cables in the right place).

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Right Drive E :naughty:, is now 'partitioned' and apparently 'healthy' :D
Never had cause to do that before........learnt something new today :tu: :)


Downloading Norton Ghost atm........ :)
...........180MB :Yikes:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

:Yikes: indeed - my OEM version fits on a bootable floppy ;)

- but obviously only works in DOS ;) - although it says it supports winxp :)

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Now..........I downloaded Norton Ghost and unzipped it and all I could find was a CD creator and a read me that said to run the CD creator (which I did).......that simply recreated the cdcreator and readme on a cd.....what gives? :confused:
I'm stuck :disturbd:......and Symantec/nortons site is really unhelpful :(

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Where did you download it from?

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

The official website......

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Norton Ghost, I use that to clone my drive as a backup.

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

was it an .iso file you dl'ed ????? , if it was , then you need something like nero to burn it :)

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Thats nice..........please tell me how to install/run the fu*ker :dozey: :dunce:
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Yep, it was an .iso and her lappy has something called Roxio........is that the problem?

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

All Nortons helpful help site says is
If you downloaded a zipped .iso then you will probably need to unzip it to a folder and then burn the resulting file, is there anything in the unzipped file that you now have on your hard drive?
Download a trial of nero to burn the iso file or use another burning software to create the cd but windows XP won't do it on the built in Roxio software ;)

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

aint used roxio for a long time , i assume it has a 'burn image' option , the same as nero does , if not then try here for a demo :)


edit :- good grief , i wish i was as fast a typer as Paul is :D :D :D

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Yep, did all that....unzipped the d/l........ran the 'cd creator' file to burn the CD using 'Roxio'.....and then found that all I have on the CD is an identical copy of the unzipped info. (that already resides on my HD) :disturbd: & :confused:
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I'll give nero a try with the unzipped file and see if it results in something useful being burned onto the CD......tnx guys....I'll let you know how it goes :disturbd:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Having re-read the unhelpful nortons info it doesn't say you unzip the file so is it actually compressed or a full .iso for that software already :confused: have you tried Nero to see if it will burn the file before and/ or after unzipping??

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

It's worth a try .........but why would they d/l a zipped file and then not mean for me to unzip it? :banghead:
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Now burning (something not specified) directly from zipped folder using Roxio :disturbd:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Unspecified is better than nothing ;) Hope it doesn't create a zipped CD lol :p: Hopefully it will work for you this time, normally I check .iso files with daemon tools so that I know if they are going to burn properly.

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

I've actually heard of daemon tools! Don't know how :scratch:
btw....I now have a Cd with a copy of Norton Ghost waiting to install......tnx for all your help! :nworthy: I will doubtless be back tomorrow with questions about the setup :D
This site is the bees knees for getting help..........of just about any kind! :tu: :)

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Daemon tools comes in handy for making sure you aren't about to waste a CDR on a damaged file ;)
Glad you finally got a properly functioning CD out of it, Symantec work in very mysterious ways sometimes :p:

Re: Completely backing up hard drive?
 

Apparently so......I'll remember that if I ever consider buying their A/V and firewall :erm: