[Ferrante]

Can someone tell me the best way to backup my computer (HD)? I have been using Mozy, but now that I have anothe computer, restoring is becomming a problem, not to mention the monthly cost. I have Win7. Is Ghost any good or is some other program better or should I go about it another way? Thanks.

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A disk-imaging application is the way to go but there are better alternatives to Ghost.

First off, Windows 7 has it's own built-in disk-imaging backup tool:
Control Panel >> Backup & Restore >> Create a system image.
The only downside to using that is it insists on writing the image file to the root of your chosen drive, not to a folder. This is so the Recovery tool can automatically find it if that drive is connected.

If you prefer a third-party solution, for technical reasons some disk-imaging software doesn't work properly with some Windows 7 installations, specifically those installations which have a separate partition for the boot manager. I've tested quite a few that don't restore properly
with that configuration.

The only one I can recommend is the one I use myself & which does restore Windows 7 properly even when there's a separate boot partition: Active@ Disk Image: http://www.disk-image.net/

Edited by phillipcorcoran, 23 February 2011 - 05:50 AM.

[phillipcorcoran]

A disk-imaging application is the way to go but there are better alternatives to Ghost.

First off, Windows 7 has it's own built-in disk-imaging backup tool:
Control Panel >> Backup & Restore >> Create a system image.
The only downside to using that is it insists on writing the image file to the root of your chosen drive, not to a folder. This is so the Recovery tool can automatically find it if that drive is connected.

If you prefer a third-party solution, for technical reasons some disk-imaging software doesn't work properly with some Windows 7 installations, specifically those installations which have a separate partition for the boot manager. I've tested quite a few that don't restore properly
with that configuration.

The only one I can recommend is the one I use myself & which does restore Windows 7 properly even when there's a separate boot partition: Active@ Disk Image: http://www.disk-image.net/

Edited by phillipcorcoran, 23 February 2011 - 05:50 AM.

[Spyderturbo007]

Genie Soft has some really nice programs. I personally use their software and don't have any complaints.

[123Runner]

Are you looking to backup the entire drive as a image or back up files and folders.
I use Ghost (because I own it). I also use DriveImage XML and Easeus TODO.

I use Syncback Free for my files and folders

[starjax]

Tekzilla has some information on backups: http://revision3.com...&highlight=mozy
they should have an upcoming episode once they complete their testing. taking a while to do full backups.

top runners to mozy: Carbonite (consistantly recommended). backblaze and crashplan. There is also dropbox. Dropbox doesn't do full backups like the others, but its what I use as I only care about specific data.

[Ferrante]

I would like to backup the whole drive in case I have to install everything due to a hard drive failure among other possible problems.

[starjax]

carbonite is one of the best backup software. the easiest is to clone our hard drive with something like Acronis or Symantec ghost (corp , not consumer). do to work, I use ghost enterprise for cloning and backups. just put the image/drive its one somewhere where it won't be damaged.