chrissssss.......... said:
Chris:
By now I'm sure you've received a number of responses to your query , each
one touting this or that backup program and each one having advantages and
disadvantages when compared to each other. I believe one of the
recommendations has been to consider a disk imaging program such as
Symantec's Norton Ghost as your backup system and by and large it's the
system I prefer. The great advantage of using a disk imaging program is that
for all practical purposes you're making an exact copy of your working
internal hard drive, in effect a clone of that drive. So everything is
"backed up" - your operating system, registry, programs & applications,
configuration settings, your data files - everything.
I use the Ghost 2003 program to accomplish all this. You can perform the
cloning operation either from Ghost's Windows interface or through DOS-like
screens using a Ghost bootable floppy disk. I prefer the floppy disk method.
It's simple, straightforward, and effective.
You create the Ghost bootable floppy disk (a one-time affair) from the Ghost
program, as follows...
1. Insert a blank floppy disk in your floppy drive. It need not be
formatted.
2. Access your Ghost program. Make sure you have the latest version
2003.793. You can use the LiveUpdate feature in the Ghost program to update
the program if necessary.
3. Click on Ghost Utilities and select Norton Ghost Boot Wizard.
4. Select Standard Ghost Boot Disk. On the following dialog box (assuming
you have USB 2.0 capability), select "USB 2.0 Support" and check "Assign DOS
drive letters". Click Next.
5. Select the "Use PC-DOS" option in the next dialog box.
6. Complete the process following the screen prompts.
7. Remove floppy and label accordingly.
With the USB external hard drive connected, boot up with the Ghost floppy
and perform the cloning operation. You should be able to easily perform this
operation by stepping through Ghost's informative dialog boxes. Just
remember that when you're cloning from the internal hard drive to the USB
external hard drive, the source disk is your internal hard drive and the
destination disk is your USB external hard drive. Also remember to
disconnect any other storage devices you may have connected to your computer
(ZIP drives, flash/jump drives, etc.) before you begin the cloning
operation.
With a reasonably fast processor, your cloning speed (data transfer) should
be about 400 to 500 MB/min. Should you be using a USB 1.0/1.1 connection,
your cloning speed will be about 40 to 50 MB/min.
So when you've finished with the cloning process you will, in effect, have a
bit-for-bit copy of your hard drive on your USB external hard drive. And
when the time comes that you want to restore your working internal HD, you
perform the cloning operation in reverse, i.e., from the external HD to the
internal one resulting in a restored drive that is bootable.
Some cautionary notes...
1. In some cases, connecting the USB external hard drive to a USB hub
prevents the cloning process. In those situations, the external drive should
bypass the hub and be directly connected to one of the computer's USB ports.
2. Remember to disconnect any storage devices connected to your computer
before undertaking the cloning operation.
3. Ghost's screens are fairly simple to understand and self-explanatory.
Just remember to correctly identify your source disk (the drive you're
cloning from) and your destination disk (the drive you're cloning to). More
than one person (including myself!) has mis-identified them on occasion with
very distasteful results to say the least.
So consider a disk imaging program as your backup system.
Art
