I need some tips on backing up a HDD

[Powermoloch]

Well guys, I'm worried about the my maxtor diamondmax plus 9 Hard drive might flipped out on me someday (usually a hard click once in a blue moon). What should I do to prepare to copy the whole data (OS, everything) to a newer better HDD? I really don't want reinstall everything :roll:

Will Norton Ghost ( I have a copy) do any help at all?

AHHHHHHHH

:thumbsup:

 

[Yakomo]

I highly recommend Acronis True Image, I recently upgraded my HD and cloned my old HD to the new one without any problems.

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: Yakomo
I highly recommend Acronis True Image, I recently upgraded my HD and cloned my old HD to the new one without any problems.

Oh, is there a link for that fella ?

 

[WildHorse]

Powermoloch,

Since you have a Maxtor HDD, that means you can use the free Maxblast application to clone a HDD to another HDD for backup.

As long as just one of your HDDs is Maxtor brand, Maxblast still works fine with a HDD of another brand.

If Maxblast didn't come on a CD-ROM with your HDD, then simply download it from here and run it. It's easy as pie.

Just create a folder on the HDD you'll use for backups, and then run Maxblast.

In Maxblast, copy "From" your C: drive or whatever you're backing up, and "To" the folder you made on your backup drive.

It's extremely easy, and pretty fast, faster than burning backup DVDs (I do both).

 

[furballi]

Invest in a cheap imaging/partitioning/bootloading software...BootitNG!

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: scott
Powermoloch,

Since you have a Maxtor HDD, that means you can use the free Maxblast application to clone a HDD to another HDD for backup.

As long as just one of your HDDs is Maxtor brand, Maxblast still works fine with a HDD of another brand.

If Maxblast didn't come on a CD-ROM with your HDD, then simply download it from here and run it. It's easy as pie.

Just create a folder on the HDD you'll use for backups, and then run Maxblast.

In Maxblast, copy "From" your C: drive or whatever you're backing up, and "To" the folder you made on your backup drive.

It's extremely easy, and pretty fast, faster than burning backup DVDs (I do both).

:thumbsup:

 

[Luckyboy1]

Well, it depends on what specifically you wish to accomplish here. If you just wanna save data, then Norton ghosty thingy is fine although it is bloated and slows everything down by constantly keeping up with checking this and that to see even if you added something to each and every possible file.

The acronis program is just so nice. It is very configurable for what you want it to do and more importantly, when you want it to do it or even if at all! On top of that, it allows you to do a much more complete and secure whipe of the hard drive in question. It does the overwriting routine in 0's and 1's back and forht again and again to make sure the whipe is complete and no ghosts left at all. It also has a function that allows you greater flexibility when striping and chunking your hard drive at format time. I ferget which one it was, but Cousin Billy doesn't allow you currently to go beyond... was it stripe or chunk here?... my old timer's disease keeps me from remembering... but with my Forgotten Battles/Ace Expansion Pack/Pacific Fighters combined install, I think it was the chunk size that is ;imited to 2 instead of 4 or greater and yes, it is best for that program to have it chunked to 4. does it make for as great improvement? No! However, Acronis ans also Diskeeper Pro 9.0 and such are programs that will benfit you from build to buld and should be looked upon as long term investments in programming.

 

[swamyg1]

Another vote for Acronis TrueImage... that program is a LIFESAVER, and much better than any other program of its' kind. PEACEOUT!

 

[Trey22]

Here's a vote for Acronis True Image. Other than the imaging and cloning features, what sold me is the ability to mount an image, explore it and retrieve files. You can also create an image while you're in Windows.

Maybe Norton or other imaging software now have this ability, but they didn't when I bought True Image v7.

 

[Luckyboy1]

Originally posted by: Trey22
Here's a vote for Acronis True Image. Other than the imaging and cloning features, what sold me is the ability to mount an image, explore it and retrieve files. You can also create an image while you're in Windows.

Maybe Norton or other imaging software now have this ability, but they didn't when I bought True Image v7.

Which should make us all ask why Norton didn't have that ability then. It's not as if these were unknown issues! To top it all off, when Norton finally got around to doing it, it did so in a much more bloated, less configurable and as a result, less beneficial way. Don't let the fact that Norton is a well known brand and Acronis may or may not be programming you've never heard of before stop you.

And remember, there are still some Norton Products I reccomend, so calling me a fanboi of this or that won't stick here!

 

[johnnyMon]

Is Acronis True Image trustworthy for making an image backup of a WinXP system while Windows is running? If I lose my system drive (knock wood), can I load the image to a replacement drive and bring it up just as it was? Or do I need to clone the drive from its bootable CD in order to have that level of security?

 

[Chunkee]

try it...works great

acronis that is

jC