Question:
My sisters hard drive gave up and I am worried that if mine ever done the same I would lose an awful lot of work. I am getting an external hard drive so I can copy the work of both my computers to the external hard drive. Any suggestions on how to do this, someone mentioned that they got theirs shadowed but I don't know how to do this, any suggestions?
Answers:
there are a number of different ways of doing this.
the easiest it creating an image of your hard drive, probably with something like nero and copy that to you external hard drive.
also there are programs out there that will "ghost" (shadow) your hard drive for you and maybe some helpful MSE'ers can direct you towards those sites.
Abs
Answers:
there are a number of different ways of doing this.
the easiest it creating an image of your hard drive, probably with something like nero and copy that to you external hard drive.
also there are programs out there that will "ghost" (shadow) your hard drive for you and maybe some helpful MSE'ers can direct you towards those sites.
Abs
What is nero? How long does it take to "ghost your hard drive"?
Answers:
Depending on the external hard drive you purchase you shoud be able to see it as an extra drive when you double click "My Computer" on the desktop, this should allow you to simply copy and paste the files you want to keep across to the external drive.
Shadowing the drive will copy exactly the contents (Opearting system, programmes and everything else) and may be overkill if it's just key files you wish to keep.
HTH
Regards
kevin
Answers:
Depending on the external hard drive you purchase you shoud be able to see it as an extra drive when you double click "My Computer" on the desktop, this should allow you to simply copy and paste the files you want to keep across to the external drive.
Shadowing the drive will copy exactly the contents (Opearting system, programmes and everything else) and may be overkill if it's just key files you wish to keep.
HTH
Regards
kevin
What does overkill mean, sorry I am not up to date with these terms? Wouldn't I be best to shadow the drive?
Answers:
Norton Ghost or Acronis Trueimage, there is a sticky thread at the top of the page about backups.
Backup to DVD if you want extra security.
Answers:
Norton Ghost or Acronis Trueimage, there is a sticky thread at the top of the page about backups.
Backup to DVD if you want extra security.
How much will this cost?
Answers:
how much data do you have?
If you read the threads in this forum often, you will see many people who wished they had ghosted their hard disks, sat in front of a dead unbootable pc, with no backup.., and no method of getting at their data. Ghosting to DVD is the answer.
Answers:
how much data do you have?
I have definitely used 10gb on one drive and possibly 10gb on the other. The desktop has 25gb, if I remember properly and the laptop has 40gb.
Answers:
nero is a cd/dvd burning software, very common.
overkill means to overdo it. you might just want to copy a select number of files (i.e. your work files) and not they "whole" hard drive!
ghosting doesnt take too long but it all depends on how much you are backing up and also your laptop specs (although your laptop specs even if slightly old wont make too much of a difference)
backing up to cd/dvd is ok but once you have backed up thats it! you cant use that cd again unless you get re-writable cds! An external hard drive is good but be careful you dont knock it or anything as you could run into the same problem as your existing one i.e. lose all data on your external hard drive! But the chances of that are slim if your careful
Abs
Answers:
dont some external drives have a button that you press to backup the data on the computer onto the external drive?
EDIT:
Answers:
Which version of Norton Ghost should I purchase? One computer is Windows 98SE the other is Windows XP. BTW this is the external hard drive I purchased, , as it was recommended on this site.
Answers:
You may also want to check the Windows event viewer now and again: if the disk is getting unreliable then you'll probably see disk errors listed in there as a warning that you should look at replacing it.
Answers:
It depends how dead it is.
One the one hand there are companies out there who charge thousands to rescue company data from hard drive using electron microscopes.
One the other hand the drive might be just a bit noisy or slow, in which case you could start by just
1) installing Windows again on the new drive to get a fresh start
2) plug the old drive in and copy it all across
Answers:
Forget about ghosting/imaging your HD as this image will be more difficult to retrieve the work off in anything does go pear shaped and you can't then re-image another HD. All you need to do is copy the important docs off your current machine onto another HD (external) and then it can be moved to another computer very easily if you need to.
eg, if all your work is on My Documents, just go to the location of the my docs folder in C:\documents and settings\<username>\my documents, and right click and choose copy, then go the external HD and right click and choose paste.
Why make things over complicated by suggesting unnecessary things to do?
Answers:
You may also want to check the Windows event viewer now and again: if the disk is getting unreliable then you'll probably see disk errors listed in there as a warning that you should look at replacing it.
How do you do this?
Answers:
Dad thinks his computer might give up soon because it has got slower than what it was. He has some programs on the computer which he no longer has the disks for but he still uses these programs and obviously if his hard drive gave up he would still want to have them rather than have to purchase them again.
What is the best soultion for Dad as I have pointed out I have an external hard drive ordered for him?
Answers:
I think in the next 12 months network storage with built-in back-up protection are going to become commonplace as any other component in a computer.
I have collectively about 3,000gb spread across 3 machines and external hard drives.
Answers:
You have no excuses now, this is free.. get it now, the offer only lasts for another 10 days or so..
Ghosting/Trueimaging is far less complicated than what phil79 is proposing.
eventvwr probably won't tell you your hd is on it's way out.
This might
or
start, run, chkdsk c: /F/R
Answers:
You have no excuses now, this is free.. get it now, the offer only lasts for another 10 days or so..
Ghosting/Trueimaging is far less complicated than what phil79 is proposing.
eventvwr probably won't tell you your hd is on it's way out.
This might
or
start, run, chkdsk c: /F/R
THANKS! I am downloading it at the moment but as I am on dial up it will take forever and a day. Next priority after this is to get a broadband provider.