System Backup

**101RRS** · 5th February 2007, 05:30 PM

I want to backup my entire C drive - not just my documents. Window XP professional has a backup facility that is slow and not real smart - as well it does not allow you to just do one drive - it defaults to "my documents". If you tell it to backup the computer it also does so including any other attached drives including the backup drive - so you get any backup files on the backup drive backed up as well - wasting space.

As well my laptop has XP home that does not have a backup facility.

Can someone suggest some freeware that I can download that will allow me to backup my entire hard drive including the operating system (with all the updates and other software I have downloaded) - not just selected folders or files. Ideally this will be a smart system that compresses the data and recognises that it doesn't need to backup information that hasn't changed since the last backup - at the moment a full windows XP based computer backup takes about 2 hours for a measly 40gb - if the drive was nearly full it might take days.

Thanks

Garry

**abaddonxi** · 5th February 2007, 06:14 PM

Not free, but Symantec/Norton Ghost used to do exactly that, and with a little fiddling you could get it to be self extracting too. Comes as a package with the full Security Centre, or whatever it's called.

Cheers
Simon

**djam1** · 5th February 2007, 06:49 PM

Try this you can register and download version 7 of this software for free

http://www.acronis.com/mag/vnu-ati7

Its very good and allows you to backup the whole operating system

djam1

**Blknight.aus** · 5th February 2007, 07:05 PM

huh? the MS backup software does let you do individual drives in their entirety...

what version are you running, if you have the following tabs

welcom, backup, restore and manage media, schedule jobs when it opens up simply close the offer to use the wizard, select the backup tab and then in the window setup that opens much like the explorer window from my computer select

my computer (if it hasnt already cascaded open) then the check boxes for the drive yoiu want to back up...

If you have no joy else where I can image off just the directory tree and cab files from my installer since ms has it available for download anyway (if you go this way I can be more help as we will both be using the same proggie)

best of luck...

**HangOver** · 5th February 2007, 08:32 PM

try one of these, all say they are free:

http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

http://www.majorgeeks.com/HDClone_Fr...ion_d3809.html

http://www.majorgeeks.com/ImageMaker_d3914.html

**101RRS** · 5th February 2007, 09:04 PM

Originally Posted by djam1

Try this you can register and download version 7 of this software for free

http://www.acronis.com/mag/vnu-ati7

Its very good and allows you to backup the whole operating system

djam1

Thanks for that - registered and downloaded amd seems to be OK except that the boot disk does not boot my computer - it freezes halfway through the boot process - reads the boot disk OK but then freezes. I can always boot from the windows XP_ boot disk but I am not sure whether it will be able to read the backup file until I reload the relevant Acronis software - maybe I save the softweare to a CD and run it as soon as I reboot from the windows boot disk.

Cheers

Garry

**101RRS** · 5th February 2007, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

huh? the MS backup software does let you do individual drives in their entirety...

what version are you running, if you have the following tabs

welcom, backup, restore and manage media, schedule jobs when it opens up simply close the offer to use the wizard, select the backup tab and then in the window setup that opens much like the explorer window from my computer select

my computer (if it hasnt already cascaded open) then the check boxes for the drive yoiu want to back up...

If you have no joy else where I can image off just the directory tree and cab files from my installer since ms has it available for download anyway (if you go this way I can be more help as we will both be using the same proggie)

best of luck...

Thanks - am running XP professional with SP2.

Doesn't work for me - when you select "C" drive it also automatically checks all the My Documents boxes and when you do the backup it only backs up these files not the whole of C drive. I cannot specifically select C drive without the other boxes being checked and I cannot uncheck them leaving only the c drive.

Thanks - will look elsewhere - the Acronis system looks good if I can get the system to read the backup file after a major failure.

Gazzz

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 7th February 2007, 07:07 AM

Acronis is the pick of the litter IF you want to spend $$$

I use COBIAN 8 (free)

and thats what it does,
just copies.(does differential etc)

you can set the scheduler do recopy at a set time
weekly monthly(!!)

but as I unplug my external drive
I just do it whenever--

**101RRS** · 7th February 2007, 08:37 PM

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

Acronis is the pick of the litter IF you want to spend $$$

I use COBIAN 8 (free)

and thats what it does,
just copies.(does differential etc)

you can set the scheduler do recopy at a set time
weekly monthly(!!)

but as I unplug my external drive
I just do it whenever--

The free version of acronis is pretty good and I have now installed on my laptop running with XP home.

There seems to be some conflict issues on my PC which runs XP prof - however as mentioned elsewhere this sytem is crashing so there maybe a bigger issue with it.

Thanks

Gazz

**101RRS** · 30th April 2010, 12:33 PM

I ended up using Kerry's Replicator on both my laptop and PC - is easy to do and works well - except as I have just found out does not do a restore when there is an issue. At the moment I am busily loading files and programs back onto my PC from the backup docs. It will take about 2 days with a lot of programs having to be re-loaded and of course I cannot find some of the disks.

Is there a free backup program that back ups entire disks/drives and then when required (after an OS has been reloaded and the backup software reloaded) will fully restore the drive in its entirety so I do not have to reload stuff.

The MS product does not seem to work for me - was using it but never managed to recover backup files etc and lost them. Also used Acronis but again when it was asked to put files back (in particular Windows files) it never succeeded.

Garry

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