External Drive

[Repoman]

Aldi have a 250gb external HDD on sale tomorrow for €150 which I think is pretty good value.

Question is, could I use this is a complete backup device for my PC? What I am looking for ideally is some software that will simply (and ideally, automatically) back up everything on my machine on to this external drive so that if the PC goes tits up I can install a new HDD and simply copy everything back.

I do mean everything btw - I dont want to be arsed re-installing programmes etc.

Asking too much?

Heres the Aldi fella -

 

[Fanum]

Two different things here.....backups and ghost copies.

Both are possible, but backups can be done easily without additional software- you would need to re-install everything though and then use the backed up data to copy all your files and settings back.

What it sounds like you're after is a 'ghost image', ie one that is identical to your main 'c' drive, including a copy of the registry and all the programmes.

Yes, it is possible, but I've never done it meself......there are several progs about though, one called 'ghost image'

Try a Google search on it and the info should pop up easy enough..or one of the network nerds here will be along in a sec with more info

 

[DrAlf]

What fanum said Ghost is a great product and pretty easy to use. Just make sure that you know what drive is the source disk and what's the destination drive - you don't want to get it wrong

For data copy you can use the windows backup utility under system tools on XP – again, very easy to use.

:note: - Find out whether the drive is firewire or USB. If it's firewire make sure you have a firewire connector on your PC and if it's USB make sure that both your PC and the device are USB2.0. If your PC doesn't have firewire or USB2.0 you will need to buy and install an extra card - cheap but more hassle. You might be able to run the drive on USB1.0 and above but it will be pretty slow.

 

[Repoman]

Thanks gents - ghost image is the fella I'm after - will investigate further.

 

[cookie]

Thanks gents - ghost image is the fella I'm after - will investigate further.

it's actually called ghost 9 now.

it will back up all your partitions while still in windows. you can carry on working while it does it's stuff. it's based on a program called drive image 7 which i've had problems with in the past, so i won't use it.

i still use the previous version ghost 2003 which has worked perfectly every time i've needed it. it works in DOS, so you can't use the pc while it's working, but it only takes 15 minutes and you set it up in windows so it's pretty easy to use.
you might find it cheap somewhere.

i am also trying out acronis true image 8 which comes highly recommended to me and works in windows.
certainly the nicest to use of the 3, but i've not had to test a restored image yet.

 

[doubleR]

I bought the 160GB HD from Aldi last year and it has been 100% reliable. I believe the 250GB is made by Gericom as is my 160.
I did discover that the drive had a virus preinstalled on the drive. Gericom Germay advised it was down to a disgruntled employee. Was an old virus and immediately picked up by AVG.
Format of the drive is FAT32 so you may have problems running the XP backup. Norton Ghost works well.

 

[cookie]

just reformat to NTFS