My Wife and I had a pretty bad scare with losing all of our important information this past week.

Looks like everything is okay, but I'd like to avoid the stress of anything like that ever happening again. I've always taken a "it'll never happen to me" attitude about losing my hard drive, so I never learned how to back it up.

What's the best way to back up my hard drive?

TIA

havent tried it yet but here is what ive found. its up to you to test if it you can
http://free-backup.info/

Best way is buy an external HD or an HD pocket and regularly copy all your important documents.

I'll agree with ZFR. I picked up a 320GB external hard drive and backed up the important stuff there.

'Course, I waited to do that until my machine blue-screened on me a couple of times, couldn't find the OS, and wouldn't boot...

It does help to keep the important data in one spot... I've got a personal documents folder (not My Documents, one *I* control) and an install folder. All installation source (downloads, etc.) goes into the install folder and gets run from there... very handy having it all in one spot.

How much does one of these external hard drives cost? BTW, 320 GB is a lot more than my computer has (I believe it's only about 80 GB), so a smaller (ie: cheaper) one would probably work just as well for me.

I'll try that when I get home Harky!

I picked mine up at the CompUSA closing-down-the-store sale for around $150. I think it was normally $200 or so.

As for it being a lot bigger than your current HD, probably true. The laptop I needed it for only had an 80GB hard drive.

My new laptop, however, has a 250GB hard drive... so buy it not just for today, but for tomorrow as well. 320GB could keep several copies of your hard drive if needed...

Yep, 320 Gig would be a little ridiculous if your regular harddrive is only 80, but the choice is yours of course. An external harddrive costs pretty much the same as a regular one, or not much more anyway. Below is a link to a site with different brands which is good for price comparison.

http://www.superwarehouse.com/extern...rives/c2b/2361

Thanks again guys. How do you go about actually copying a hard drive? Do you have to copy a file at a time, or can I choose to copy the entire thing all at once?

You can choose to copy the whole thing at once... but if you actually mean the entire hard drive it probably won't work. You can copy whole folders at a time though... :D

To back up the entire thing, windows has a backup tool (under accessories > system tools).

There are a few imagin programs that will create a full image of your HDD backing up everything (System Setting, files etc)

Click here for info on the solutions that the company I work for (Symantec) offer.

There is also a product called BackupExec System Recovery for Desktops that is quite good as well but this is aimed at out Corporate Customers (I still use it at home though)

All of this can be backed up to a external HDD or DVD.

Windows backup doesn't.

As usual, Bungleau offers some of the most useful advice.

Keeping your important documentation in one place so it's easier to backup is not only easy, but incredibly smart.

I've also followed his "install folder" idea, but instead I've always kept and windows recovery CD-R (now a DVD-R) with most of my indispensable software, patches, and drivers off the net, so even if I lose the entire disk I'll still have everything at my fingertips.

One thing to remember is that Windows XP (and presumably Vista) wonn't work, generally speaking, if you back it up.

(*Exact* images, such as those made by Ghost, would probably work)

<font color=8fbc8f>First of all, I would like to clarify a small issue that no-one else mentioned. If I'm understanding what you are typing, you will *not* get a 100% copy. For instance you boot to that drive and tell it to re-create system. That *will not* happen. Just in case you have your hopes up on that. Just one of those MS things!

However, there are many ways to .iso your entire HDD to a DVD-RW-R or external HDD. BUT, it is not easy, nor is restoring it easy. Just another annoyance from the OS out of Redmond.

However, what you can so is as 'B' suggested. Make yourself a couple folders, and place all of your stuff that life will never be the same without in those folders and make a set point for backup. Set points for me are, I have not put anything in there lately, no need. Or, wow, I just put in the tax backups, and the daughter elements latest hoopla, it needs to be backed up type of schedule.

In the not to distant past the price for a HDD was about $1.00 to the gig. However today, the price for external HDD is roughly $.50 to 1.00, with a moderate $.25 per gig coupled with faster speeds for internal carriages.

Brands are as always a personal preference and we all have our own. However, I would like to point out one thing here. It the near past the forums traveling bard ran into much difficulty with a particular brand, and I remember the havoc that ensued. So, I will sya this, LaCie is a well known brand, however, it has lost respect over the most recent past.

Over the years I have become a firm 'newegg' shopper. Here is a link to their external HDD page. Wow.
http://e3wwwtest.newegg.com/Store/Su...al-Hard-Drives

The reason folks are using the external HDD is two fold.
1. It does not always need to be under power or load, and therefore not subjected to daily use.
2. From above, this eliminates it from being affected by MSs long arm of destruction should a total castrophe happen to the system. I have experienced losing a secondary back-up HDD from a total system crash. However the data was recoverable, just not easy!</font>

I do this with my NWN's module, when I'm actually working on it:

I back it up to CD/DVD about once a week. If you have a rewriteable supported system, with rewriteable CD/DVD's, this is a very cost effective system. Which reminds me, that is what I was supposed to add to the gaming rig, since it has been forced into service in other areas as well.

Get an external HDD. Get Symantec's "Ghost" program. Follow the directions.

Ghost will make an exact, functioning duplicate of your HDD. This is the way to back up, IMO.

I do it the same way Bungleau does. Have a partition for my important documents, that gets backed up reguralry, rather than making an image of the whole HD. I find it much less hassle to spend 4 hours to simply reformat and reinstall everything should the need arise rather than hoping your restored image works properly.

btw, it might be a good idea not to keep your back up disc next to the PC. Better in a different room altogether.

Doesn't what? Back up everything? Or work at all? I've never had to reload data from a backup before... so if it doesn't work... I might need to change my back up methods [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Though I do have all important documents on two computers anyway.

Elf is correct, there are ways to copy your hard drive completely.

Ghost will do the job (Ghost 9 is the easiest version I have ever used) but as T-D-C said, backup exec is perfect, and probably exactly what you need ;)

However, certain versions of Windows Vista can also do everything you want as well, but I'm not sure if you have it.

Also, it never really hurts to get a decent sized external hard drive, you never know what else you mihgt want to store on there ;)

Windows backup often fails to restore properly. Maybe it's improved, but I've found it's best to go third party.

As I've mentioned, trying to backup an entire system under windows is a crapshoot, anyways.

winzip and a 100 pack of diskettes ;)

No, but seriously, when installing windows( not sure about recent editions like vista) it prompts you to make a boot disk. This is a good idea as some CD drives cannot boot from, and even cannot be read until drivers are loaded.
Sadly, windows as I know it (XP) didn't have the foresight to include the CD drivers on the boot disk, so you might need that on a disk, too.

SilentThief

Hmm, in recent weeks, just prior to getting this rig, I did 5 installs of XP, 3 on my PC, and two for people that needed help with it, and I never had a problem with CDRom drivers.

Dude, Windows 95 had CDROM drivers...... XP certainly does too ;)