Advice on backing up HDD of my laptop

[Porn crackers]

I thought about buying an external Seagate 250GB HDD from Maplin for ?90, But how would I be able to use it to copy the entire HDD contents. Someone mentioned Norton Ghost would do this.

So how do I copy this entire content from the external HDD back to my Laptops HDD? if the Laptops op system is nackered. I don't have a floppy drive to boot up from, with a start up disk.

It would be great if an external HDD had the intelegence built in to transfer "ALL to" or "ALL from", a simple push button exercise, or is there such a thing? if so I won't going the Maplin's route.

Any advice greatfully received.

PC

[Jacques]

Have a look at Norton Save and Restore

[Porn crackers]

Thanks Jacques,

The bit I worried about "Recovers your system and data even when you can't restart your operating system." appears to be covered by this product. But I would be happier if they explained how. Because if it is too dam technical then that would be me stuffed.
I did have to format this HDD and reload everything, but what a day that was..... so really looking for a simple way to do it next time!!!!.

Thanks again

PC

[Cenobitez]

Porn Crackers,

Do u have a desktop or just a laptop ?

If you dont have a desktop use one of these methods

Buy a new large hard disk for your laptop, and a 2.5inch caddy USB (?8), pop the old hard drive out of the lappy, slam the new one in. install your OS then while thats doig, put your own hard drive into the caddy, once the other OS installed on the new drive, plug the caddy into the USB port and copy what ya need

End Result, a new bigger hard drive in yoru laptop and a external hard drive that works on USB alone, and isnt much bigger than a few packs of fags, that u can take anywhere.,

The one in maplin HAS to be plugged into the mains, as well as the PC but USB 2.5's dont need the Mains power they can power off the USB

The other option is visit bootdisk.com and download a CD image of a boot disk to goto a cmd line that way.

Another optin is reinstall your Os into a new directory, like now if its in c:/winxp install it to c:/win and that way it dont lose everything, but i go with the option thet gives u a new big drive, and an external back up device thats truely mobile

If ya need more advice shoot me an email and il send ya my number and see what i can help ya with

[sparky]

If you can not boot from the HDD and don't have a floppy drive you can boot from a bootable CD. Worth creating one just in case, if necessary on another PC.

If your laptop has a CD-RW or better still DVD-RW drive Ghost will burn a set of CD's / DVD's you can restore from.

Otherwise put your laptop HDD as a slave in a desktop with a CD or DVD writer and run ghost on that to burn a set of back-up discs.

Using the DOS version of ghost from Norton Systemworks 2003 has saved my bacon a few times.

I doubt if you will be able to access an external drive without Windows running.

[Cenobitez]

U could use ubuntu to copy from hdd rto external drive.

thats a version of *nix that runs off a CD and doesnt install at all, U can then use nix to copy everything as another alternative.

[chatterji]

Don't know if it's what you're after but PCmover from Laplink, transfers everything from one system to another. It's plug 'n' play and even a technotard like me found it easy to use. You can buy it on online for about ?30.

[Porn crackers]

I shall have to process this info.....

Laplink might be just my level. But I suppose this wouldn't work for me as the external HDD wouldn't be a "system".

Cenobitez, you credit me with far to much technical ability, I feer I may be toooo much of a nuisance with your kind "help desk" offer.

I think suppliers should give information with their equipment on HDD back up. Perhaps they don't in the hope to keep the work for their service business...... or maybe some do!.

I will have to look into all your suggestions or it's back to the search for a one button upload/download external HDD !grin!

Thanks everyone

PC

[Cenobitez]

OK ;et me give you the simple option

You will need:

1, a new 2.5 inch 80/100gb hard disk
2, a USB 2.5innch Caddy.
You can get both for ?60ish



or slightly more expensive but a ittle mroe stylish and a free 512mb flash disk too.



3, Windows Install CD.

Pop the old hard drive out.

Put the old hard drive into the caddy (Its 1 cable to 1 slot and 4 screws on the case)

Put the new Hard Drive into the Laptop

Fdisk it, Format It (odds are it will already be formatted and ready the above 2 are already)

Install the windows of your choice onto the laptop on the new drive.

Plug the caddy with the old drive into the USB port of your laptop and you will have FULL access to the WHOLE drive, and the best bit ? You also get a handy little back up device as well.