How to backup hard-drive?

[FM1382]

Windows XP Pro SP1:

I'm using the backup feature Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Backup. Two questions:

1) is this a reliable way to backup my hard drive

2) I have partitioned a 120gig drive into C,D,E. The C is the OS and the D are all my programs. Should I backup those two drives together? (My gut says 'yes')

 

[powerMarkymark]

Not the best solution.

Norton has released Ghost 9 and it has many new drive imaging features, also one can now boot directly from the Norton Ghost CD in order to access many recovery options, very cool.

HTH

Marc

 

[chocoruacal]

Originally posted by: powerMarkymark
Not the best solution.

Norton has released Ghost 9 and it has many new drive imaging features, also one can now boot directly from the Norton Ghost CD in order to access many recovery options, very cool.

HTH

Marc

To add to this...Norton Ghost is a program that creates images of your hard drive and lets you write them to CD or DVD. It really depends on how much the data is worth to you. The cheapest, and simplest method is to buy another hard drive and backup to that. A slightly more reliable method would be to buy a DVD burner and backup to DVD. I do a little bit of both. I would NEVER use Windows' built in backup feature, simply because I don't want my data in a proprietary format.

 

[Davegod75]

umm...isn't norton ghost a proprietary format as well? I think most programs use their own format create the backups.

only way to get around that is zip / tar / rar all your data up into one big file

 

[caz67]

Hi..

I have a spare 120Gb drive which i use for my backups..

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: FM1382
1) is this a reliable way to backup my hard drive

2) I have partitioned a 120gig drive into C,D,E. The C is the OS and the D are all my programs. Should I backup those two drives together? (My gut says 'yes')

You can use the XP backup utility to back up data (pictures, video, music, Word documents, PDF files, ....) in a reliable way.
To backup your XP drive, you are better off using an imaging utility like Ghost or Drive Image.

To get to the backup files made by XP, you need to boot into XP first. If something is wrong with your C drive and you cannot boot to it, you will not be able to get to the backed up files!
Even if you can, you cannot restore a damaged windows partition by just copying files. Some of the data can only be restored by imaging utilities.

 

[Zepper]

I also recommend using a second hard drive for backup (either in a mobile tray or external, USB2 or FW, enclosure) - most other reasonably priced media are just too small and/or too slow any more. Remember: "The only backup that will do you any good is the one that actually gets done." Anything that slows the process (like having to change media) increases the likelihood that backups won't get done..
. Programs like Ghost/DriveImage/TrueImage - are (obviously) drive imaging programs. Their image files are fragile in the fact that a one or two byte error can lose you either all your data or at least whatever data lies beyond the error in the file. Not suitable for secure backup - but fine for getting back up quickly when severe crashes occur - as long as the image file(s) is(are) intact. The ideal would be to use image software plus the following...
. For secure backup you should use a file-by-file method (such as Windows backup) with 'compare after write' feature. One program that seems to be in current favor for Win is Retrospect. And NTI's program (forget the name) can do both f-b-f and image types. The nice thing about f-b-f is that you can restore just the files you need and not have to restore the whole image...
. One of the trade magazine web sites has a current article on external, hard drive based backup systems and as a sidebar it has an article on some of the current softwares (I wonder why My Backup (successor to Backup Exec) is missing - has it died already?). I think it was on PCMAG.com . Of course, as an AT denizen, you know that you can build a USB/FW external drive (easily equal to any of those included in the tests) for much less than the prices listed in the article.
There are also several good Shareware backup programs that are quite good and inexpensive. Check http://www.majorgeeks.com or other shareware archive. Make sure whatever backup you choose has "Crash Protection" - which means it can recover even when you can't boot your main operating system. IOW, when you have to start from scratch with FDISK/Format, etc... IMO, anything less is worthless!!!
.bh.

Dont forget, you want to do regular Scandisks (with full surface test enabled) on your backup drive just as you do your internal drives. No sense backing up to a drive that is going TU...