Hard Drive Backups

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Erik

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I currently have a 40GB WD 7,200 RPM IDE hard drive, and I will soon have an 80GB Maxtor SATA drive, and I'll stop using the 40GB drive (sell it or something)

Anyways, I also have a portable 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive, and I was wondering. If I do a complete back up of my computer, will Windows save everything? My current configuration, my desktop, all installed programs, all my data? To my understanding it should. But to put the data on the new hard drive, would I first need to install Windows XP, install SP1, then restore?

Can someone please help me on the easiest way of going about this? I was thinking of Norton Ghost, but that would be sort of a hassle. Having to install both drives, then setting it up as a slave, blah blah blah.
 
no matter what you do, if you plan on using a new hard drive you will have to reinstall at least some programs. the best way is to use Norton Ghost and create a Ghost. if your motherboard and hard drives support Cable Select, you won't have to change any jumpers. just switch the cables on the drives and that'll do the trick. better than sitting by the hours and reinstalling programs. i've done that too many times but ever since Ghost, my life's been paradise!
the Windows backup will backup system status and any other data you want it to backup. that's useful if you want to restore your system to a previous state on the same drive, with the same OS etc.
if i made any mistakes, please forgive me as it's late..!!!
 
easiest way is ghost the operating system volume to the new disk. with ghost you can have the target partition a different size than the source partition. meaning your original partition that the OS was on is 15GB, your target can be 30GB or 10GB.

you can just copy everything else like word docs, music files, ect manually. i would copy them to a second partition. all this is done without the use of your USB disk. after you are done ghosting and copying disconnect your 40GB disk. . . . .curious bandage_boy, would you like to sell that 40GB to me? if yes, can you give me a price?
 
I bought it for...I'm not sure, I think it was around $60...So, I would sell it to you for $35, and i would clear all partitions etc, so you can do whatever you want with it. I got it a couple weeks ago. Let me know if you still want it.

And OK. So all I do is hook up the SATA drive when I get it, turn my computer back on (after setting up ghost) and the process will begin?
 
yea but i think that Ghost requires that the partition the ghost is saved to is the primary partition, that's why he would need to switch the drives on the IDE cable.
 
bandage_boy i think you do need a version of ghost that can access SATA or install drivers in DOS. than you do a partition to partition clone. if you want the target a different size i would make the partition beforehand with fdisk. select the source as the operating system partition on the old disk and the target is a partition on the new disk.

i think siselia has used ghost with SATA, you might wnt to ask her for some advice. yes i'm still interested, if you want me to use paypal or cashier's check PM me with your fullname and address or email
 
bandage_boy said:
I currently have a 40GB WD 7,200 RPM IDE hard drive, and I will soon have an 80GB Maxtor SATA drive, and I'll stop using the 40GB drive (sell it or something)

Anyways, I also have a portable 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive, and I was wondering. If I do a complete back up of my computer, will Windows save everything? My current configuration, my desktop, all installed programs, all my data? To my understanding it should. But to put the data on the new hard drive, would I first need to install Windows XP, install SP1, then restore?

Can someone please help me on the easiest way of going about this? I was thinking of Norton Ghost, but that would be sort of a hassle. Having to install both drives, then setting it up as a slave, blah blah blah.

I have not read past this.
You are makeing it too complicated.You don't seem to know how to copy from 1 hd to another.
Try this,
http://www.netez.com/2xExplorer
Saveing to cd isn't a bad idea either.

:eek:
 
It's sort of hard to save 30GB to one CD.

I have used norton ghost before, but I have never used it between a Serial-ATA drive and IDE
 
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