Question About Backing Up Hard Drive

[patetc]

I have purchase a very large external hard drive and want to backup
the entire hard drive on my laptop for security purposes.

Will this cause a conflict if I have Windows on the external HD as
well as on the laptop?

Should I put everything into a new directory on the external called
"Backup"?

Pat

 

[Big_Al]

I have purchase a very large external hard drive and want to backup
the entire hard drive on my laptop for security purposes.

Will this cause a conflict if I have Windows on the external HD as
well as on the laptop?

Should I put everything into a new directory on the external called
"Backup"?

Pat

Use software like Acronis True Image to make an *image* of your laptop.
This can then be restored later and will reset everything back to the
way it was the day you made the backup.

A "copy" of files is not a backup (so to say), better than nothing but
not what you think. Great, you'll be able to restore individual files,
but that's about it.

 

[patetc]

If I copy everything on the laptop to an external drive, why isn't it
a true backup?

If I create the "image", can I add to it as I add documents, pictures,
etc?

Pat

 

[Tim Slattery]

I have purchase a very large external hard drive and want to backup
the entire hard drive on my laptop for security purposes.

Will this cause a conflict if I have Windows on the external HD as
well as on the laptop?

No. The bootup sequence in your computer goes to a certain place
(almost always on the C: drive) to boot the installed version of
Windows. Once booted up, it knows where it was booted from. It will
not be confused by another "Windows" directory on another partition.

Should I put everything into a new directory on the external called
"Backup"?

Name it whatever you want.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

If I copy everything on the laptop to an external drive, why isn't it
a true backup?

If I create the "image", can I add to it as I add documents, pictures,
etc?

Most "backup" utilities offer "incremental" backups wherein
only the changes made since the last backup are recorded along
with the original backup. These usually involve incremental changes
to the files comprising an "image" of the backed-up files, although
Casper also offers incremental backups for clones (which are
sector-for-sector copies of an entire partition or of the entire
hard drive). For Casper, see http://www.fssdev.com/ .

*TimDaniels*

 

[Big_Al]

If I copy everything on the laptop to an external drive, why isn't it
a true backup?

If I create the "image", can I add to it as I add documents, pictures,
etc?

Pat

When I say its not a true backup, what I mean is: If your C: drive
dies, you won't be able to restore the entire drive from that backup.
As I said, you can copy files back, like your wallpaper etc, but you
can't get minor settings or the OS. I guess the word "true backup"
needed to be quantified. Acronis and other backup programs allow for
incremental changes to be written to a second file. And you can restore
single files.

If you are looking for a copy of files, look at things like second copy,
allway, goodsync, synctoy and other file copy/backup programs. I use
allway to make copies of my "tools" folder that has all my downloads.

 

[Anna]

I have purchase a very large external hard drive and want to backup
the entire hard drive on my laptop for security purposes.

Will this cause a conflict if I have Windows on the external HD as
well as on the laptop?

Should I put everything into a new directory on the external called
"Backup"?

Pat

Pat:
I see you've rec'd a number of responses to your query and I hope they've
been helpful to you in determining a course of action to meet your needs.

Let me add just a few thoughts which may be nothing more than a reiteration
of the info you've already rec'd, but perhaps it may help to clarify things
for you...

First of all, when you say you want to "backup the entire hard drive on my
laptop for security purposes", I assume that when you use the phrase
"security purposes", you mean that you desire to have a backup of your
entire system, including the XP operating system, your programs &
applications, your user-created data - in short, *everything* that's on your
laptop's HDD. So that in the event your system becomes dysfunctional for one
reason or another, e.g., a defective HDD or a corrupted OS, etc., you will
have the means to restore your laptop to a bootable, functional system in a
relatively easy way. Furthermore, you would plan to maintain this "backup"
in a routine way so that you would always have at hand a reasonably
"up-to-date" backup of your system at all times. That's what your goal is,
right?

If it is, one of the ways you can achieve your objective is to use a program
to "clone" the contents of your internal laptop's HDD to your USB (I assume
it's a USB device) external HDD and do so on a routine basis. In Tim
Daniel's response to your query he mentioned the Casper program. That
program is our favorite disk-to-disk cloning program as well. There are
other disk-cloning (and disk-imaging) programs available of course, but the
Casper program is one that we strongly recommend. A trial version of the
program is available at http://www.fssdev.com . I believe some other
responders to your query mentioned the Acronis True Image program. A trial
version of that program is also available at the Acronis site.
Anna

 

[Patrick Keenan]

If I copy everything on the laptop to an external drive, why isn't it
a true backup?

In the first instance, it's a waste of time and space.

Suppose your existing drive fails and you need to use that backup, and you
copy all the files back to the new replacement drive.

Surprise! You still have to reinstall Windows and all the applications.

Simply copying the files back to the new drive *will not work*, the drive
will not be bootable and you will not have a running Windows install with
installed applications. You have just wasted perhaps a full day, and
aggravated yourself in the process.

An image, on the other hand, can be restored to the new bare drive and you
can be up and running again in under an hour.

If I create the "image", can I add to it as I add documents, pictures,
etc?

Sort of. The imaging software allows for incremental images, just the
changed files, which can be restored as needed.

A better idea is to make an image of the complete drive as it is, then use
the imaging software to back up the files you use - documents, mail, etc.
Refresh the drive image if you install new applications.

At first look, doing a straight file copy sounds like a good idea, but when
you look at the implications and use, it rapidly loses lustre.

Finally, it's never a good idea to have only one backup set. You should
make an extra copy on some other media, such as DVD, and preferably store a
copy offsite. Many places I've set up use a separate DVD for each day of
the week, set to do incremental backups of working files. Once a week, a
copy goes home with somebody.

HTH
-pk

 

[Frank-FL]

It will not copy any files that are in use. Most quality backup software
will copy from a different environment from windows.

 

[ShadowTek]

Surprise! You still have to reinstall Windows and all the applications.
Why will you have to reinstall anything? Exactly what doesn't get
copied when you manually copy files?


Is this the only reason that causes you to say that manual backups are
not successful? Or are there other reasons?