Need Help - External HD as Backup

[JiF]LtWaterboy · Post by **[JiF]LtWaterboy** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:50 pm

Okay another dumb noobie question from me:

Trying to help out my uncle set up a backup to his hard drive w/OS.

Had him go out and get an external, USB western digital 160GB hard drive.
The drive itself is all installed and working.

Here's the dumb question now:

Does all he need to do is insert the disks in (has 8 recovery ones for his system!) and have this installed onto the NEW hard drive,
and then go to the start up sequence in BIOS and tag it as a backup (not slave)??

If not, what am I screwin' up?

I havent had him do anything (yet!) other than just getting the new drive hooked up and working (like for storage only).

He wants to be able to have something in place in case his O/S and primary hard drive catostrophically fails on him.

Tanxs in advance!!

LT

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[JiF]LtWaterboy · Post by **[JiF]LtWaterboy** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:44 pm

ps. do you need other software to copy the hard drive onto the external?

I've seen a bunch of comments like this on other sites, like Acronis True Image or other such software.

If so, what do you recommend that is cheap & effective to copy the entire drive?

He just wants to have the second drive all ready to go, in case the primary HD crashes.

Tanxs again!!
LT

[JiF]DispDave · Post by **[JiF]DispDave** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:48 pm

I've heard great things about arcronis

[JiF]LtWaterboy · Post by **[JiF]LtWaterboy** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:51 am

Dave, have u done this b4?

anyone else?

LT

[JiF][AARP]Jimbo · Post by **[JiF][AARP]Jimbo** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:07 am

I know that Grimp uses Ghost at work but I am not sure if you can actually boot from it. What does your uncle do on the pc that he is trying to backup? I don't really need to know exactly what he is doing, why I am asking is to find out if he has constantly changing data? In other words if he takes a snapshot today will the system be the same a week from now or is he going to have to constantly keep updating his backup? Or is it a situation where he needs the system to be up and isn't as concerned about the other data. I have become out of touch with the pc stuff these days so unfortunately I don't have a real recommendation for you, but if you were using a mac I can tell you how to do it

. I know sacrilege.

[JiF]Mentat · Post by **[JiF]Mentat** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:13 am

Well, if you hadn't already bought the external drive I would have recommended a mirrored RAID. It has saved me about 3 times and does not require any backup procedure or scheduled tasks.

... Look at me, posting in the TECH section, like I actually know something.

[JiF][AARP]Grimp · Post by **[JiF][AARP]Grimp** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:14 am

Ghost does work and can be set to run at certain times.
If you want a cheap manual thing look at G4U. It is not pretty (unless they have updated it) but it will do the job of cloning a drive or saving an image for later recovery.

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

[JiF]LtWaterboy · Post by **[JiF]LtWaterboy** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:47 pm

[JiF]Jimbo wrote:I know that Grimp uses Ghost at work but I am not sure if you can actually boot from it. What does your uncle do on the pc that he is trying to backup? I don't really need to know exactly what he is doing, why I am asking is to find out if he has constantly changing data? In other words if he takes a snapshot today will the system be the same a week from now or is he going to have to constantly keep updating his backup? Or is it a situation where he needs the system to be up and isn't as concerned about the other data. I have become out of touch with the pc stuff these days so unfortunately I don't have a real recommendation for you, but if you were using a mac I can tell you how to do it . I know sacrilege.

Jimbo,

thanks for the reply. He is not a computer wiz. He uses it for basically paying all his bills, getting his emails, photo making, etc. The typical non-IT type of computer user. He uses it all the time to do these type of things, so software updates etc (ie patches, etc) is not a biggy for him to worry about (although I explained this to him as well - might need to do incremental backups or downloads).
I just know from experience, that it is a pain in the a$$ if your HD crashes and you need your computer. Just wanted to have another drive already with the operating system on it and the couple programs (ie photo one) that he does use, ready to go.

Ment,

yeah, he already got the drive. I need to find out what model he got from West Digital to see if any copy software came with it (he tried to expain over the phone what he got but he could not articulate it to me where I could understand him!). Usually, the good drives come with some of this type of software.

Grimp,

Thanks too. Whoa... that does look ugly and I probably wouldnt trust myself with that, let alone my uncle!!! I know Ghost is another software that they said would work (like the Acronis true Image). Was hoping that there was some "freeware" floating out there that was simpler that what you sent.

Once I find out exactly what he got, I'll also call WD and ask them directly too. Worst case scenario, is I try installing his recovery disks onto the external and then patch everything on XP from microsoft and the software companies (ie Kodak) if needed. This is what I was trying to avoid, but it is starting to sound like more & more I need a software pack to avoid this headache.
Plus, he doesnt want to do/pay for ongoing, backups to "online" server companies who will do it directly to their sites.

LT

[JiF]LtWaterboy · Post by **[JiF]LtWaterboy** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:37 pm

I ended up just ordering True Image Home v10.0 from Acronis.

It will do the job.

Unfortunately (with my luck!), probably usuable on one computer only...

LT