[plehsdeen]

I was wondering how I could make a complete copy of my master drive to a separate drive weather it be internal or external.[preferably external] I need to know this because the drive has a special partition that I need to run my recovery CD. So if my drive fails I would still have an extra drive I could just replace the older one with.[BTW I just had to do a reinstall because the drive came up as an invalid system disk and wouldn't boot the OS so thats why I am trying to figure this out]

[Advertisements]

Purchase Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image - either will do exactly what you are looking to accomplish.

[Rockster2U]

Purchase Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image - either will do exactly what you are looking to accomplish.

[plehsdeen]

Thanks for giving back a reply Rockster2U. If I may ask another question will the special partition in my current master drive[FAT], size increase as it is only 40 GB while I will be moving it to a backup 120 GB.[I have read this might be a problem and not worth copying the special partition] Also is it a good idea to use the backup as an external as I already have a slave drive[for media files] in with the master.

Another thing I was wondering was if I could make a backup on the drive for the purpose of being prepared that the master fails but still make a daily backup to save data form being lost.

[Rockster2U]

Couple of comments - Ghost or True Image are going to make image files of your entire HDD in an image file format. They can be restored to any other sized drive and will give you an exact duplicate from that point in time. You can also set compression levels so they take up less space and they are not going to copy empty areas of your drive. These tools also permit one to clone a disk, but if you are looking for backups, this is waht I am recommending.

As to data backups, Acronis True image will make incremental backups also and you can read or extract files from this progrm without restoring an entire image (so I'm told - I use Ghost).

My recommendation re: data backups and things like documents, pst files, etc. is This Little Beauty.

[stuart813]

further to what Rockster2U says ghost is also able to split files into volumes so if you are storing large amounts of data you can span it across a couple of cd's and you can make the first disc bootable and autorebootable on restoration of data.. after all the disc have been used.

[plehsdeen]

Ok so I should get one of these programs to make a image file format that I can use and boot to. Then I should use the karenware to make complete backups everyday to the same drive. Correct?

[stuart813]

if you would like to backup on a daily basis you would not use ghost it makes an image that is restorable at a later date but will always restore to the condition it was when the image was made... yes use karenware to backup on a daily basis

[plehsdeen]

Can I make an Image to a drive and then also use the same drive for daily backups?

[stuart813]

yes if there is enough space on the drive

[stuart813]

the ghost image file usually has a .gho file extension the karenware does not

so each program wont interfere with the other

Edited by stuart813, 05 June 2005 - 03:14 PM.

[plehsdeen]

Ok the drive I will use is 120GB the image couldn't be bigger than 40 and the same goes for the backups. Can I use the rest of the space[other 40] for anything else? Do I need to reformat the drive[the one for backups] with data lifeguard tools or do these programs do it automatically?[I ask this because the drive for the image etc. has an OS on it because I had to copy/retrieve files over when the master wouldn't boot]

[stuart813]

ok when you make an image of an hdd using ghost you make a file that can be placed on any drive big enough to fit it.. you wont have used the full space on the 40 gig so you can put it on the 120 gig in an image (.gho) no probs and have plenty of room for backup from karenware and plenty of space to store other data..

[stuart813]

and u can just put the image straight onto the 120 gig as it has OS on it there is no need to format it

[plehsdeen]

Should I remove the the OS to free up for more space[around 23 GB as the OS really has no use anymore as the important files I copied to it have either been stored on CD-rs or to the slave drive for media] and if so how exactly do I delete the OS and existing files[Do i just hook it up as a slave and delete everything on it]

Two more things I would ask is if this process of the making image is alright by an external drive.[I will look for a caddy after I upgrade my connection ports to USB 2.0] and do I just copy paste files to the extra space on the external.

Also what do I need to set the drive as. slave?

Edited by plehsdeen, 05 June 2005 - 04:02 PM.

[stuart813]

if you are going to hook it up as a slave just select all the files and delete them or format it inside of windows....yes you can make an image to an external drive....which files to copy and paste ??.....also which drive as slave , that will only apply as long as the drive is in the pc or in an internal caddy