Best Backup software from PC World
I want to AVOID having to do a complete re-install of my software in case of primary disk failure. PCWorld lists a number of free and share ware backup utilities which can be downloaded free. In particular, I am interested if anyone has experience with the backup utilities listed, and can recommend one.
More generally, I wish to be able to backup my entire 40 gig hard drive to my 10 gig secondary drive (only 4 gig is in use on my primary drive). In case of a disaster on my primary drive, I wish to restore the primary from the secondary drive, or if not possible (eg primary drive crash) be able to set up the secondary drive as the primary, and with minimal effort, continue as before.
For an instance of a utility from PC world, check the link Http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,23148,00.asp
it displays one called Cobian, but there are at least a dozen others.
I used to use an old version of Norton ghost to do a disk to disk copy. I was quite happy with it, but it did not work with disks over 10 gig. The current version of Ghost is fairly expensive.
Some specific questions I have, is that none of the descriptions from PC world describes how easy it is to backup the data, but none say a word about how easy it is to recover the data. It is not clear if these utilities are sufficient to do a complete restore of all data on a disk, ESPECIALLY without having to do a separate install of the software...this is critical info that I need to know.
I want to AVOID having to do a complete re-install of my software in case of primary disk failure. PCWorld lists a number of free and share ware backup utilities which can be downloaded free. In particular, I am interested if anyone has experience with the backup utilities listed, and can recommend one.
More generally, I wish to be able to backup my entire 40 gig hard drive to my 10 gig secondary drive (only 4 gig is in use on my primary drive). In case of a disaster on my primary drive, I wish to restore the primary from the secondary drive, or if not possible (eg primary drive crash) be able to set up the secondary drive as the primary, and with minimal effort, continue as before.
For an instance of a utility from PC world, check the link Http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,23148,00.asp
it displays one called Cobian, but there are at least a dozen others.
I used to use an old version of Norton ghost to do a disk to disk copy. I was quite happy with it, but it did not work with disks over 10 gig. The current version of Ghost is fairly expensive.
Some specific questions I have, is that none of the descriptions from PC world describes how easy it is to backup the data, but none say a word about how easy it is to recover the data. It is not clear if these utilities are sufficient to do a complete restore of all data on a disk, ESPECIALLY without having to do a separate install of the software...this is critical info that I need to know.
