C Drive Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter artmerar
  • Start date Start date
A

artmerar

Hi,

I recently had a drive go bad. Good thing all the data is backed up
and I just bought another TB drive.....it was only data.

It made me think about what if/when the C: drive goes bad.......what
can be done to recover this? Is it feasible to image the C: drive?
Can you just backup all the files and if the drive goes bad just copy
files back to the new HD? What about having only 1 boot drive in the
system.........

Looking for suggestions.....

Thanks!
 
Is it feasible to image the C: drive?

Done all the time.

Can you just backup all the files and if the drive goes bad just copy
files back to the new HD?
Click to expand...

You need the MBR and Boot Records which are difficult to copy unless you
have specialised programs

You can only use one boot drive at a time and most only have one. Many who
dual boot on separate drives do it so they can select the drive to boot from
at boot time for added safety. They can then establish dual booting from a
common drive.
 
Google external hard drive or external hard drive enclosure. It is indeed
feasible to image your entire C drive to a partition on an external drive,
and make incremental backups to another one. Then at the most you stand to
lose only a couple hours' work when, not if, your drive crashes next time.
 
Earle Horton said:
Google external hard drive or external hard drive enclosure. It is indeed
feasible to image your entire C drive to a partition on an external drive,
and make incremental backups to another one.
Click to expand...

In my experience - Norton Ghost (long time ago) and Acronis True Image
- incremental backups have to be on the same drive as the original
backup.

Richie Hardwick
 
Richie Hardwick said:
In my experience - Norton Ghost (long time ago) and Acronis True Image
- incremental backups have to be on the same drive as the original
backup.
Click to expand...

Use Ghost or something like it to back up your entire partition. Then use a
file backup program to back up user files. There are a million ways to
handle the details.
 
Earle Horton said:
Use Ghost or something like it to back up your entire partition. Then use a
file backup program to back up user files. There are a million ways to
handle the details.
Click to expand...

Don't use the term "incremental backups" when you are talking about
something else.

An "incremental backup" is an addition to an existing backup image
that is made by the same software that made the existing image.

Richie Hardwick
 
Richie Hardwick said:
Don't use the term "incremental backups" when you are talking about
something else.

An "incremental backup" is an addition to an existing backup image
that is made by the same software that made the existing image.

Richie Hardwick
Click to expand...

I was talking about incremental backups of user data, independent of the
hard drive image backup. The copy of Ghost that I have doesn't appear to do
incremental backups.
 
I have Norton Ghost 2003. I believe that this is the last version that
works in DOS mode. I have found it to be extremely useful for a variety of
disk cloning tasks. I have heard good things about Acronis but as long as
Ghost keeps working for me...
 
Earle Horton said:
I have Norton Ghost 2003. I believe that this is the last version that
works in DOS mode. I have found it to be extremely useful for a variety of
disk cloning tasks. I have heard good things about Acronis but as long as
Ghost keeps working for me...
Click to expand...

I stopped using Ghost at 2002.

ATI does all imaging from within Windows... except for cloning, which
it schedules to be done during a restart. Images can be full,
incremental, differential. Imaging can also be done of data per your
selections.

You can browse the images and selectively restore from within Windows.
Complete system restores are obviously done on a restart.

Everything can also be done with a bootable CD which runs Linux.

Blows Ghost away completely.

Acronis True Image 11 stand-alone (free 3-day shipping) from Newegg:
$25.

Get it and Director Suite for $35 - again, same shipping.

Can't beat that.

Richie Hardwick
 
I stopped using Ghost at 2002.

ATI does all imaging from within Windows... except for cloning, which
it schedules to be done during a restart.  Images can be full,
incremental, differential.  Imaging can also be done of data per your
selections.

You can browse the images and selectively restore from within Windows.
Complete system restores are obviously done on a restart.

Everything can also be done with a bootable CD which runs Linux.

Blows Ghost away completely.

Acronis True Image 11 stand-alone (free 3-day shipping) from Newegg:
$25.

Get it and Director Suite for $35 - again, same shipping.

Can't beat that.

Richie Hardwick
Click to expand...


Wow! Just got back in and saw all these replies! Thanks for your
advice and input. I'm sure that I'll find a solution once I read
through everything!
 
Google external hard drive or external hard drive enclosure.  It is indeed
feasible to image your entire C drive to a partition on an external drive,
and make incremental backups to another one.  Then at the most you stand to
lose only a couple hours' work when, not if, your drive crashes next time..

--
Earle Horton -- (e-mail address removed)










- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

I have an external drive via firewire right now. Problem is if I have
to restore C:, then I'll need all the drivers and stuff like
that........

It sounds like Acronis is the way to go......

Thanks!
 
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