full backup on xp home?

[plh]

I am trying to find out how to do a full backup on my daughter's Toshiba
Satellite A45-S151 that came with xp home loaded. The reason is in case I have
to take it in for warranty work, and it comes back at square one, we would not
have to reload everything. By this time, about 2 years since purchase, that
would be quite a chore.
I don't have an xp home disk, but I do have and xp professional disk. That is
the license loaded on my wife's PC. Is it legal for me to use the disk for my
wife's license to load the backup utility on the Toshiba? Would it even work? If
the answer to either question is "no", then what recourse do I have? The
install/restore disk that came with the Toshiba does not have the backup program
on it -- I checked.
Thank You,
-plh

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

I am trying to find out how to do a full backup on my daughter's Toshiba
Satellite A45-S151 that came with xp home loaded. The reason is in case I
have
to take it in for warranty work, and it comes back at square one, we would
not
have to reload everything. By this time, about 2 years since purchase,
that
would be quite a chore.
I don't have an xp home disk, but I do have and xp professional disk. That
is
the license loaded on my wife's PC. Is it legal for me to use the disk for
my
wife's license to load the backup utility on the Toshiba? Would it even
work? If
the answer to either question is "no", then what recourse do I have? The
install/restore disk that came with the Toshiba does not have the backup
program
on it -- I checked.
Thank You,
-plh

I'm pretty sure you can legally install NTBackup from your own CD, but if
you're really interested in completely backing up everything for later
recovery, you might look into something like Acronis True Image (cloning
software).

 

[R. McCarty]

Imaging/Backing up a notebook is never easy. You said "Full" backup
did you mean an Image (100%) or just her data and settings ? If a full
image, what is the C: drive's total used space ? If it has a burner, you
can get a Imaging program such as Ghost or True Image and burn the
saveset directly to CD-R/DVD-R. Would Toshiba still do the work if
just removed the drive prior to sending it in for repair work ? You can
also get a notebook drive adapter that allows you to install in a desktop
PC, where you could clone/image it to a drive and then reverse the
process when the notebook is returned. One issue with young people's
notebooks is the amount of Multimedia content they normally have on
it. (iTunes, Videos...) I'm encountering more and more notebooks that
have a large dollar amount of DRM material on them that is not backed
up. I suppose the answer depends on what level of coverage you're
trying to achieve.

 

[Anna]

Imaging/Backing up a notebook is never easy. You said "Full" backup
did you mean an Image (100%) or just her data and settings ? If a full
image, what is the C: drive's total used space ? If it has a burner, you
can get a Imaging program such as Ghost or True Image and burn the
saveset directly to CD-R/DVD-R. Would Toshiba still do the work if
just removed the drive prior to sending it in for repair work ? You can
also get a notebook drive adapter that allows you to install in a desktop
PC, where you could clone/image it to a drive and then reverse the
process when the notebook is returned. One issue with young people's
notebooks is the amount of Multimedia content they normally have on
it. (iTunes, Videos...) I'm encountering more and more notebooks that
have a large dollar amount of DRM material on them that is not backed
up. I suppose the answer depends on what level of coverage you're
trying to achieve.

plh:
As R. McCarty suggests, consider a disk imaging program such as Symantec's
Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. Through the use of this type of program
it's a relatively simple & effective way establish & maintain a routine
backup system by "cloning" the contents of your daughter's laptop to another
HD. So for all practical purposes, she'll have an exact copy of her laptop's
working HD, including the operating system, all programs & applications, her
created data - in short, everything that's on her day-to-day HD.

I would suggest purchasing a USB external HD that will be used routinely to
be the recipient of the "clone". The cost of these devices has fallen
dramatically over the past few years. If & when the time comes for a
restoration of her working HD she would simply clone back the contents of
the USBEHD to her internal HD (assuming the HD is non-defective of course).

Figure on a data transfer rate of about 450 Mb/min - roughly 1 GB every two
minutes. As I mentioned, the process is relatively simple and should present
no problems.
Anna

 

[NoStop]

I am trying to find out how to do a full backup on my daughter's Toshiba
Satellite A45-S151 that came with xp home loaded. The reason is in case I
have to take it in for warranty work, and it comes back at square one, we
would not have to reload everything. By this time, about 2 years since
purchase, that would be quite a chore.
I don't have an xp home disk, but I do have and xp professional disk. That
is the license loaded on my wife's PC. Is it legal for me to use the disk
for my wife's license to load the backup utility on the Toshiba? Would it
even work? If the answer to either question is "no", then what recourse do
I have? The install/restore disk that came with the Toshiba does not have
the backup program on it -- I checked.
Thank You,
-plh

Don't even bother with the effort. Windows backup is just a toy and
something you wouldn't want to depend on. Get Acronis TrueImage and you can
then backup to an external usb hard drive, across your LAN or to CD-RW.

 

[KG]

I am trying to find out how to do a full backup on my daughter's Toshiba
Satellite A45-S151 that came with xp home loaded. The reason is in case I have
to take it in for warranty work, and it comes back at square one, we would not
have to reload everything. By this time, about 2 years since purchase, that
would be quite a chore.
I don't have an xp home disk, but I do have and xp professional disk. That is
the license loaded on my wife's PC. Is it legal for me to use the disk for my
wife's license to load the backup utility on the Toshiba? Would it even work? If
the answer to either question is "no", then what recourse do I have? The
install/restore disk that came with the Toshiba does not have the backup program
on it -- I checked.
Thank You,
-plh

You received some very good suggestions but most of them require the laptop to be operational to
reload, the only way to totally clone back a drive is to use the laptop HD to Pc HD converter. I
routinely use the adapter or our network to clone the our laptops to the main home desktop, which
has 100s of gig of HD. Each laptop has it's own folder. And to reload the laptop HD we just
install it on the desktop using the adapter and clone it back, the laptop may need to be fdisk's &
formatted if needed. It has saver our butt more than once.
*****************
Santose for PRESIDENT !!!!

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