Don't have a floppy drive to use with ASR

[All I Wanted Was a Pony....]

I'm trying to back up my ThinkPad T30 before installing XP Service Pack 3, as
the installation instructions suggest. Unfortunately, while I've been able
to back up the C: hard drive's files to a USB drive, I can't create a D:
recovery partition or an ASR "system settings" disk without a floppy drive.
(I also don't have a Windows XP Professional CD--it came pre-loaded on the
machine--but I think that creating D: would make the CD unnecessary?)

The only mentions I've been able to find about this problem state that,
since XP Pro's BIOS doesn't recognize anything but C: or a floppy disk drive
(E: I think??) as bootable, one can't use ASR to save the system settings to
a CD or USB drive, for example. I can't help but think this is obsolete;
after all, there were plenty of laptops and desktops shipped with XP Pro and
CD drives rather than floppy disk drives!

Can anyone point me to a solution to this problem? BIG bonus good karma
points for procedures or products that are free/cheap and really simple to
do/use. I've been unemployed for a while & this ThinkPad came to me by good
fortune, so upgrading to modern hardware or software really isn't an option.
I want to use it with as little chance of malware/microorganisms as possible,
but I don't have the OS background knowledge to understand anything technical
(yet).

Many thanks!

 

[Leonard Grey]

Don't use Microsoft Backup to backup your system...what you want is
proper disk imaging software. Which you'll want to use on a regular
basis. So you'll never worry about losing your system.

 

[Twayne]

"All I Wanted Was a Pony." <All I Wanted Was a
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message

I'm trying to back up my ThinkPad T30 before installing XP Service
Pack 3, as the installation instructions suggest. Unfortunately,
while I've been able to back up the C: hard drive's files to a USB
drive, I can't create a D: recovery partition or an ASR "system
settings" disk without a floppy drive. (I also don't have a Windows
XP Professional CD--it came pre-loaded on the machine--but I think
that creating D: would make the CD unnecessary?)

The only mentions I've been able to find about this problem state
that, since XP Pro's BIOS doesn't recognize anything but C: or a
floppy disk drive (E: I think??) as bootable, one can't use ASR to
save the system settings to a CD or USB drive, for example. I can't
help but think this is obsolete; after all, there were plenty of
laptops and desktops shipped with XP Pro and CD drives rather than
floppy disk drives!

Can anyone point me to a solution to this problem? BIG bonus good
karma points for procedures or products that are free/cheap and
really simple to do/use. I've been unemployed for a while & this
ThinkPad came to me by good fortune, so upgrading to modern hardware
or software really isn't an option. I want to use it with as little
chance of malware/microorganisms as possible, but I don't have the OS
background knowledge to understand anything technical (yet).

Many thanks!

I know you said money was tight, but ... an external floppy drive can be
had for around $10 online at quite a few places these days. Walmart here
carries them for $9.99. Any possibility there?

What is it you wish to back up? If it's only your own data that you've
created, you wouldn't need the ASR diskette.
But if you want to also back up the operating system, then you DO
need the ASR floppy. And AFAIK there isn't any way to fool the system
into thinking a CD drive is a floppy drive.
So, technically, without the ASR, you could back up all except the
OS. Sometimes that's enough for people because your own data is often a
lot of things that cannot be recreated, such as photographs,
correspondence, designs, etc. etc.. The Operating System can be
recreated easily but at the expense of a few hours work reinstalling it
and all of your applications and getting everything set back up and
customized as you want it.

There ARE freebie programs out there that will do full backups for you.
The biggest caveat with those is to be certain they use Volume Shadow
(Copy) Services, meaning they can back up files that are "in use", which
windows will not permit and which is necessary to back up the OS
(Operating System). I can't recommend any because I don't use them, but
they are available and people have discussed them here before.

Do you have antivirus and anti-spyware apps installed? Those will help
immensely in protecting yourself. A software firewall can be a huge
assistance too. I like ZoneAlarm but there are several more available
free such as Avast, AVG, and more.

HTH,

Twayne`

 

[All I Wanted Was a Pony....]

I know you said money was tight, but ... an external floppy drive can be
had for around $10 online at quite a few places these days....
But if you want to also back up the operating system, then you DO
need the ASR floppy. And AFAIK there isn't any way to fool the system
into thinking a CD drive is a floppy drive.

I did not know floppy drives were that inexpensive; I only learned all this
yesterday & today as I struggled through the ThinkPad's & Lenovo's &
Microsoft's "help" screens & articles. Yeah, as I mentioned, I don't have
any backup for the OS so I'm pretty nervous about that. Thank you very much
for this suggestion!!

There ARE freebie programs out there that will do full backups for you.
The biggest caveat with those is to be certain they use Volume Shadow
(Copy) Services, meaning they can back up files that are "in use", which
windows will not permit and which is necessary to back up the OS
(Operating System). I can't recommend any because I don't use them, but
they are available and people have discussed them here before.

Thank you, I'll try searching the forum for those terms.

Do you have antivirus and anti-spyware apps installed? Those will help
immensely in protecting yourself. A software firewall can be a huge
assistance too. I like ZoneAlarm but there are several more available
free such as Avast, AVG, and more.

While I've been searching for these answers I've used FireFox & avoided
loading Flash Player. I read e-mail (on other machines) through AOL & Gmail
& haven't been bothered by spam. I've just downloaded Windows Defender &
Avira from the official sites. I'll look into further protection after I
resolve this backup issue--my brain is full! ;-D

HTH,
Twayne`

It certainly did! Thanks very much.