Backup,clone,drive image ?

[Gary]

I've just had to completely rebuild my computer for the second time in less
than a month! Luckily, I'm pretty good about backing things up so I didn't
lose any important data but I really hate having to reinstall everything and
having to reset all my preferences, etc. I'm looking for a simple yet
fairly inexpensive way of setting things up so everything is automatically
backed up regularly in such a way that I don't have to reinstall my OS and
all my apps. I like the idea of "Ghost" but I really don't want to install
anything by Norton on my system.

I'm running WinXP SP2 on a system with two internal hard drives and another
hard drive in a removable USB 2.0 case. The three hard drives are not
identical but everything I have loaded will fir on any one of the drives
with room to spare.

I'd appreciate any suggestions. TIA!

Gary

 

[peter]

Image your HD.........a complete bootable copy of your original HD.
When your HD fails to boot just swap drives...and your up and running....of
course you will need to keep the image up to date. Acronis true image is
good for this and other backup jobs as well as emergency recovery.
peter

 

[DL]

2nd rebuild in a month, you unlucky ?

 

[Gary]

LOL! I like to think that it was bad luck and not stupidity but the jury is
still out! Two hard drive failures! The first one happened with no warning
so I don't feel too bad about it. But then, instead of getting a brand new
drive I recycled one that I had. I thought that it was fine but obviously
there was a problem--it shot craps about two weeks after I got it all set
up.

Gary

 

[Gary]

Thanks for the reply! That's what I thought about doing. I've not tried
the Acronis True Image but I did look at Casper XP. It seems to have so
many issues with using it with av software that I didn't see how I could do
regular unattended backups, which is something that I'd like to do. Will
Acronis do that?

TIA

Gary

 

[DL]

I've not had any problems using True Image (with an AV)

 

[Sharon F]

I've just had to completely rebuild my computer for the second time in less
than a month! Luckily, I'm pretty good about backing things up so I didn't
lose any important data but I really hate having to reinstall everything and
having to reset all my preferences, etc. I'm looking for a simple yet
fairly inexpensive way of setting things up so everything is automatically
backed up regularly in such a way that I don't have to reinstall my OS and
all my apps. I like the idea of "Ghost" but I really don't want to install
anything by Norton on my system.

I'm running WinXP SP2 on a system with two internal hard drives and another
hard drive in a removable USB 2.0 case. The three hard drives are not
identical but everything I have loaded will fir on any one of the drives
with room to spare.

I'd appreciate any suggestions. TIA!

Gary

Gary, I use Acronis True Image and like it. Terabyte Unlimited's "Image for
Windows" is good too.

Any particular reason for these rebuilds? Don't ignore hardware issues -
failing drive or bad RAM. These issues can undermine (corrupt) even the
best methods of preserving any kind of data.

 

[nor]

I have been saved a few times with True Image. It seems to do a great job
for me and I am not technically inclined. I just recently bought a
replacement for my hard drive and another True Image program helped me out
with that also.

 

[BR549]

Image your HD.........a complete bootable copy of your original HD.
When your HD fails to boot just swap drives...and your up and
running....of course you will need to keep the image up to date. Acronis
true image is good for this and other backup jobs as well as emergency
recovery.
peter

If he images his hard drive he will just have an image that needs to be
restored, while there is no problem doing that, your suggestion of just
swapping hard drives to get up and running won't work. In order to do that
he would have to clone or copy his hard drive to a spare.

 

[peter]

sorry.......terminology was wrong
Clone the HD..............Image the Partition
peter

 

[peter]

sorry wrong terminology
Clone the HD to another HD or
Image the partition the OS is on to another HD to restore that image back to
the original HD...if the HD still works.
I have used Acronis for about 11/2 years and it has saved my bacon a few
times.
I have used it with AVG as well as Bitdefender anti virus
peter