Topic: Backing up everything

[yousef]

My laptop's HD is likely to be approaching the end of its natural life and I'd like to back up the whole thing to my external drive and then copy it back to a new drive for the laptop.

That is to say, I want to reproduce the whole of the HD onto another drive: system files, registry, everything. Some of the free programs here would appear to be able to do this:

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml

But does anyone have any particular recommendations or know of any pitfalls to avoid when doing this?

[live2496]

Is this a windows XP laptop? If so I would recommend Bart's PE Builder. With it you can create a bootable CDROM or DVD that will restore your system.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

In addition to this I would backup all of your files to an external HD.

[jamroom]

Wouldn't you be better transferring the files you want to keep and just starting with a freshly formatted hdd and a fresh OS installation? You will likely have a bunch a junk in there.

[boojum]

^^^^^^  Good point.  But if you use Norton Ghost or some similar thing and install onto a new/larger drive you can then run your mother OS disc to repair the OS and then you should be cool.  Then you go to the MS site and DL the upgrades, etc., and you are good to go.

Would this not work as well as a fresh install???  I hate the the re-installing of some100+ programs.  Yecch.

[jamroom]

I hate the the re-installing of some100+ programs.  Yecch.

lol - I'm with you there. I keep my laptop light on apps, so it's not a great problem. The pc though? That's a nightmare. I look at everything on it and think I need it all, but when I think about it, I have only used 25% of the apps in the last year.

[yousef]

Thanks for the comments and advice. I've used Drive Image XML to make an image of the drive on an external HDD and am going to experiment with pasting this onto a fresh drive. I like the idea of a bootable CD for when disaster strikes, however, so I'll be giving Bart's PE Builder a go too.

I'm sure a fresh start would be the best solution in many ways but I don't fancy having to do things like restoring Outlook folders, IE and Firefox bookmarks and verious program preferences. Not to mention all the programs installed from magazine coverdiscs that I no longer have the activation codes for... Even if they generally only get used once every 18 months...

[live2496]

Related to this:
If you want to cleanup your registry and temporary internet files, and any broken links (for free), you can use CCleaner available here:

http://www.ccleaner.com/

This is a great utility. I have been using it for about a year. It keeps the system registry and file system cleaned up.

[Bullet1979]

I'll chime in...  If you're looking for an easy-to-use program that will make a backup that you can restore onto a new hard drive, the most user-friendly piece of software I've used would be Acronis True Image.  Ghost and other pieces of software can get the job done, but Acronis did it for me fast and easy with just 3-4 clicks.

As for registry cleaners, my advice would be to STAY AWAY!  Ccleaner is a pretty light piece of software so you may not experience too many issues but a system's registry is very unique so I could never get behind the idea of using a registry "cleaner" to try and fix issues.  I've seen these types of software cause more problems than fix honestly.

If you were happy with the performance of your machine before your hard drive failed, try to back up and restore the image.  Otherwise, if you thought the OS was sluggish or had problems, I would take the opportunity to start fresh.  In my experience, the thought of starting over is a lot worse than actually starting over - you'll find that you will only install what you still need as opposed to EVERYTHING you've installed in the past.  Also, it's good to point out that you should back up important files first before trying to back up the entire image just in case the drive fails completely while attempting the backup.

[Scooter123]

I use Norton Ghost.  You'll have to find the drivers for the software which can be a pain, then make a Ghost Boot Disk and offload the data to another computer or external drive.  Restoration is a snap, about a one hour project.