Building a back up boot drive

[Tom H]

I want to have a back up drive that I can just plug in and boot if my
primary drive C fails. So I guess what I want to do is copy my existing
drive C in the form of a mirror image. Can anyone advise me on the steps
involved and the software I would need to copy all the files, including
system files and boot tracks onto the back up drive. Is Norton Ghost a
good choice? Any pitfalls to avoid?

What I'm hoping to do is avoid reinstalling the O/S and all the programs.
This is basically all that drive C is used for.

All tips appreciated...

 

[Malke]

I want to have a back up drive that I can just plug in and boot if my
primary drive C fails. So I guess what I want to do is copy my
existing
drive C in the form of a mirror image. Can anyone advise me on the
steps involved and the software I would need to copy all the files,
including
system files and boot tracks onto the back up drive. Is Norton Ghost
a
good choice? Any pitfalls to avoid?

What I'm hoping to do is avoid reinstalling the O/S and all the
programs. This is basically all that drive C is used for.

All tips appreciated...

Imaging your drive is exactly what you want to do. There are various
programs that will do this - Acronis TrueImage, Symantec Ghost, BootIT
NG (and also Imaging for Windows from the BING people). The basics are
that you create an image and store it somewhere other than the drive
that would be restored. It depends on the program whether the image can
be on a cd-r, a network drive, or a second hard drive. I always put two
hard drives in my machines - one for the operating system and one for
data and an image of the os after I get it set the way I want. You can
periodically image your os drive as things change, too. Then if you
need to restore, you will use a bootable cd or floppy made with your
imaging program (it varies from program to program) and point it to
your image file for restoration.

Malke

 

[Tom H]

Thanks - appreciate your help -- sounds pretty straight forward

Tom