Computer backup

[Matt D]

Well let me start out saying i have learned my lesion!!!  I was on the computer late Weds. night surfing and checking e mails (all was good).  I got up Thurs. morning and my 4yo said something was wrong w/ the computer.  I could not figure it out and called DELL.  Was on the phone for 4-5 hrs and did not get it fixed.  I final got it booted up in safe mode and used my jump drive to get my odds and end copied to my laptop.  I went that night to walmart and got a 500gig hard drive for backups.  how here is where i need help. 

How is the best way to do a backup?? 

Copy and Paste to the exteral drive?  use software??  If so what kind?? 

Thanks
Matt D

P.S.  I got up this morning and started up my computer and it worked!!  i have copied "my doc's" to the external HD so i am just waiting on the next crash!!!

[Jigger]

The basic thing you should do is copy all important files, if you have the new hard drive in place it is very simple to do.
Select the files you want to copy, with xp you get an option on the left to copy etc, select copy and a window will open asking you where you want to copy to, your new drive should show up click on it and away you go.
There are back up programs available that will give you plenty of options.

[Apnea53]

Windows XP and Vista have good, functional backup and restore functions built in, however if you lose your drive, you might have to re-install your OS before doing the restore.

I prefer creating a clone of my drive using Norton Ghost, the idea being that if my drive goes belly-up, I can swap in the clone within minutes and be back up and running.  Of course, everything you did since the last time you cloned the drive is lost, but you don't have to spend time restoring your operating system etc. to a new drive.  I run a Ghost clone operation nightly whilst I sleep so the worst I'm out is a day's worth of activity/data.

[Lane]

I also recommend Norton Ghost (2003 version).

Straight file backups are done well with a program called filesync (you can google for it).  I consider that more thorough than a drag and drop.

If it's a physical problem with the drive, here's what I recommend you do.  Put the new drive in as a slave drive, and run norton ghost.  Clone one drive to the other.  You may also wish to clone to DVD's if you have a dvd burner, just for an extra backup.  After you have your cloned drive, take out the original and put it away somewhere safe, switch the new one to master, and start the computer back up.  If you're lucky, it will work right away, but even then, I recommend reinstalling windows on your new drive over the old info.  The important thing here is that you are free to experiment on the *copy* of your original drive.

If you can't even clone the original, all is not lost.  Another excellent utility that has saved the bacon of countless people is SpinRite.  http://www.grc.com  It's not free, but it succeeds where other utilities fail.  Also, be warned, it can take a long time to do it's analysis and repair. If this utility repairs your drive, then make a clone/backup immediately.

I don't actually know what your problem is.  Is it a physical problem with the drive? Or is it merely that you've been infected with malware etc. In the past year or so, malware has become so insidious, it's now close to impossible to be sure you have gotten rid of it once you've been infected. If this is your issue, it's now commonly recommended you reformat your drive (after you have a backup first), and reinstall windows from scratch, and then all of your programs from original installation disks or fresh downloads.

Even the experts are now conceding that malware has become so insidious, that they are encountering some that they can no longer guarantee they can eliminate.  It can appear that you have, yet after a time, it will reassert itself. After you're up and running again, get yourself a router, change it's passwords, turn of wifi or turn it on to wpa with a strong pass phrase, disable it's responding to wan pings etc.  Put all of your machines behind that router.  Of course, do all the usual virus/malware protection things.  For periodic backups of your entire machine, Norton Ghost 2003 is great.  To backup just your music etc., filesync can be run more often.

[Bryan Durio]

As I've said elsewhere, FileSync (http://www.fileware.com) is my synchronization tool of choice. I also use GRC's SpinRite but it did not help me when my HD crashed a few months ago. According to SpinRite, the disk was readable, but to Windows XP it was dead.

Well let me start out saying i have learned my lesion!!!

But I hope your lesion heals up soon! (Sorry... I couldn't resist!)

[Lane]

I also use GRC's SpinRite but it did not help me when my HD crashed a few months ago. According to SpinRite, the disk was readable, but to Windows XP it was dead.

sorry to hear that Bryan!  was this after a level 2 scan?

[Bryan Durio]

I think I gave it a level 4 scan.

[MicMike]

Was it a Cheetah drive? I hear a cat scan works on those - couldn't resist either!

[Bryan Durio]

Ouch!

[Matt D]

i guess a band-aid could help cover the problem

Thanks for the advice, i have just got my windows disk in from dell.  i think the plan is to try to boot w/ the disk and see what happends.  Like i said i got most of my personal folders copied and pasted onto the ext. HD.  so if all is lost that is ok. 

Next question... Can i use that Ext. HD to back both my home machine ( the one that is down now) and my Laptop up?  The lap is the one that i run OTS on.

Thanks
Matt D

[Apnea53]

Absolutely, as long as the disk has enough capacity to support the two machines.

[milky]

Assuming that the drive has enough capacity, you can fit numerous drive images on it. If you use Ghost as suggested, the trick is to save each drive as an image. If you need to restore, you simply select the correct image, so it makes sense to name them something logical, including the date they were made. I keep three generations of images of each of my drives, dropping off the oldest before backing up.