No floppy drive available for backup

[Mike Blake]

When I attempt to use the "backup all data on this computer" option in the
WindowsXP, SP2, Backup utility it fails to complete because my laptop does
not have a floppy drive. Is it possible to have Backup create a boot CD
rather than a floppy? My WindowsXP (SP1) is an OEM version, provided by
eMachines, and I do not have a bootable XP disk with repair or other tools.
Emachines provides a Norton Ghost copy of the original image.

I would like to be able to use Backup to create a complete image of my
current OS version and all installed software.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

You cannot use Backup to create a complete image of your
OS version and all installed software. I would suggest purchasing
Norton Ghost for this task.

Norton Ghost 9.0
http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/features.html

Animated Shockwave Ghost tutorial with sound
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/tutorial/ghost_2002/2001032917165825_s.html

How to perform a disk-to-disk clone
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/pfdocs/2001032917165825

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Get Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxp/choose.mspx

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:

| When I attempt to use the "backup all data on this computer" option in the
| WindowsXP, SP2, Backup utility it fails to complete because my laptop does
| not have a floppy drive. Is it possible to have Backup create a boot CD
| rather than a floppy? My WindowsXP (SP1) is an OEM version, provided by
| eMachines, and I do not have a bootable XP disk with repair or other tools.
| Emachines provides a Norton Ghost copy of the original image.
|
| I would like to be able to use Backup to create a complete image of my
| current OS version and all installed software.

 

[Mike Blake]

Thank you.

 

[Bob Harris]

The XP backup utility has many limitations, one of which is that it can not
write to CDs.

Get a good third-party backup utility, one that runs from a bootable CD
(since you have no floppy drive). I suggest Acronis True Image version 8,
but GHOST version 9 should also work.

By the way, you may not want to backup to CDs, at last not on a routine
basis. Simple put, CDs are slow. Think instead about getting a USB 2.0
external drive. Backups to that can be almost as fast as from one internal
disk to another internal disk. However, occassionally you could mkae a
backup as a set of spanned images, meaning sized about 650Meg each. True
Image and GHOST can do this sort of thing. Then, copy the imgaes to CDs or
to a DVD. I have found writing to disk, verifying the image set, then
copying it to CDs or DVD to be safer than writing directly to CD.