backing up system without installation CD?

[deluca2b]

My laptop only came with a recovery CD. How do I backup (to hard drive)
without this CD? I'd like to backup to an outside source too...but I only
have a CD drive. I do have another PC...could I send it over there somehow?

I'm running XP Home SP3
Thanks!

 

[Leonard Grey]

First - about the recovery CD: It will erase your hard disk and
reinstall the software that was on the computer when it left the
factory. That's what recovery CDs do.

Do you have a USB port? (Rhetorical question.) Backing up to an external
hard drive is much easier and more reliable than backing up to a CD or DVD.
---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

"A Day in the Life of a Web 2.0 Hacker" - PC Magazine
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2330952,00.asp

 

[Jim]

My laptop only came with a recovery CD. How do I backup (to hard drive)
without this CD? I'd like to backup to an outside source too...but I only
have a CD drive. I do have another PC...could I send it over there
somehow?

I'm running XP Home SP3
Thanks!

I solved the backup problem by buying Acronis True Image. However, I must
tell you that backing up to a CD can become a nightmare because it takes so
many of them.
I use a double layer DVD to solve this second problem. If you want to keep
backup archives online, you should buy another disk drive. Suitably sized
USB drives are quite inexpensive these days.

Jim

 

[Patrick Keenan]

My laptop only came with a recovery CD. How do I backup (to hard drive)
without this CD? I'd like to backup to an outside source too...but I only
have a CD drive. I do have another PC...could I send it over there
somehow?

I'm running XP Home SP3
Thanks!

First you need to understand what exactly you want to back up and why.

If you have a recovery CD, you don't need to worry about backing up the OS
itself.
If you have to use the recovery CD and it wipes the disk, you *will* have to
reinstall applications. So, there's no point in backing those up either.

In your User account folder, will be most of the data you do want to back
up. But there's also a lot that you don't want, such as Temporary Files
and Temporary Internet File folders. This can amount to gigabytes of data.

Generally, people specifically want to back up documents, mail, address
books, pictures, and music. The rest you have reinstall disks for.

Documents are often stored in the My Documents folder, but are frequently
also stored on Desktop folders.

You need to be aware of where exactly your mail and addresses are stored,
and this varies depending on what email client you are using. If you're
only using a Web mail interface, there's nothing for you to back up.

Once you've figured out what you actually need to back up, you can look at
tools for it. I use with great results Acronis TrueImage, which isn't
expensive and works quite well. It can also make a full image of your
complete system as it is. It can do "incremental" backups, so that there's
an original large backup and then regular small ones that are just the
changes. It's a good idea to have more than one copy, and you *must*
verify that the backups worked and can be opened.

Finally, if you only have a CD drive, you need to be very careful about what
you back up due to size limitations. You can also buy or assemble external
hard disks, and then back up to that; where I am 500 gig drives are around
$70 and cases start around $25. You can also buy cases to hold DVD
burners - again where I am bare DVD burner drives are around $30, and you'd
need a case.

HTH
-pk

 

[Tecknomage]

My laptop only came with a recovery CD. How do I backup (to hard drive)
without this CD? I'd like to backup to an outside source too...but I only
have a CD drive. I do have another PC...could I send it over there somehow?

I'm running XP Home SP3
Thanks!

If your Laptop has a USB port, and it is *** USB2 *** (check both BIOS
Setup AND if you have USB2 drivers loaded under "Universal Serial Bus
controllers" in Device Manager. You must have the USB2 support in
BIOS before drivers can be loaded.

You can use an external USB hard drive. That is what I do on my home
desktop (but use Firewire interface vs USB).

Then what you need is a really good Hard Drive *Imaging* software, the
makes an exact image of your hard drive.

I use, and highly recommend "O&O DiskImage"...
http://www.oo-software.com/home/en/products/oodiskimage/

....which is worth every dime. Recovered my PC twice.

What you get, when you buy, is an ISO file (you can download this plus
request a CD which I recommend) that you write to CD and it is
BOOTABLE that will run the FULL O&O DiskImage program (backup +
recovery) and should see your external hard drive.

The CD will also install O&O DiskImage on your Laptop, which MAY
required to run the boot CD (if I remember correctly) so the CD sees
it as a licensed version.

You create an image of your full hard drive periodically.

I highly suggest booting to the CD to do image backups so you get the
FULL contents of your hard drive. Running O&O DiskImage from your
Laptop will not backup files that are "in use" which is a drawback of
most backup software ran from the Win Desktop.

You can recover the full image and write it to your hard drive
(loosing only those things added AFTER you made the image, of course).

You can recover to a new blank hard drive if needs be.

Also, you can mount the image file as a logical drive that you can
copy/paste individual files as desired.