Ghost/Acronis/ other backup strategies help please

Hi I have just cleaned up my pc with the help of Doug{thanks Doug} and would now like to make a ghost thing of my hard drive and save to my external drive so if anything major happens I have that at hand to help me. Thank you for any and all advice chazy

chazyb, what kind of information are you looking for. Are there any specific questions you have?

Other than

• Buy a copy of Symantec (Norton) Ghost
• Install it
• Run it and backup your hard drive to your external drive

Hi Ztruker Thank you for that. All I was wondering if there was a link on here to a free version ? and perhaps help with the installation ect. Am I right in thinking that the ghost prog makes a mirror image of my hard drive as it is now? What happens if I ever had to use item do you just click an icon or something and your hard drive is back as it was lol. thanks chazy

Hi, Heres' a link to a freebie, Drive ImageXML
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm
Personally I have always had good use from Acronis and others are very satisfied with Ghost or Paragon products.

In Acronis (and some others) you get a wizard that will make you a bootable CD and then in the event of serious problems that cannot be resolved by the usual methods, just boot your machine from the CD ( it has its own mini operating system with USB support) and restore your image from your external USB hard drive.

I restored one of my machines the other day with my "perfect "Windows XP SP2 operating system, my office suite, image editor, email and internet and the total time ( excluding the hard drive change was just over 15 minutes! ..this just left me to go to Windows Update and download and install all critical updates since my image was taken…I also did the same for my Anti virus and was up and running again in under 45 minutes (and that included the hard drive change.)

This was in a well equipped workshop and by a tech who has performed the procedure many times before…but it does show the value of a good ( validated) disc image.
The products usually come with a printable manual in .pdf format so its' a wise user who dowloads it in advance of trouble, and prints it out in order to be ready when the time comes!
Regards
paws

Hello chazyb, Paws did a great job in advising you re image software. Please keep your requests here on the forum and not via PM's…….then all can benefit from the interaction. No offence meant. Good luck with your installation, you will never regret it. kind regards,

Thanks folks for the advice, just missed it as a mothers day pressie i will have a scout round online see wehich one to pick, though I will need the easiest so one with a wizzard would be best. chazy

Hi chazyb, I run both - Acronis for my Laptop and Ghost 10 for my PC, but I suggest you go for Ghost 10, it is a couple of years old, but easy to manage. It is much more reasonable also as it is not the latest. You will also need a 160MB external Hard Drive. When you decide which? and what? post back to get more information on how to install the external HD. Installing Ghost is a breeze……………don't say I told you but Paws is good at all those things. Hope you have a good sleep………… kind regards,

Hi tallin, I have an external hard drive but how do I find out how big it is cos I cannot remember now lol thanks chazy

Hi chazyb, Has it got a USB cable connection, if so, turn off you computer, wait for 10 seconds, plug it in to a USB port boot your computer then right click on My Computer on your desktop click open right click on whatever letter drive it is (maybe F- E - or - D) click properties and it will tell you. Now I am off to get dinner. Post back if you need to, only happy to help you. kind regards,

Hi tallin it says 290gb but half of that is full with pics ect, will I have enough space? chazy

Hi, If you check how much space is on your boot drive (normally C drive,) then you can compare it with the amount remaining on your external USB drive. Disc imaging software often provides some compression when it creates an image, but its still best to make sure you have sufficient capacity on your external drive. Before taking a disc image its wise to ensure that your machine is working fast and smooth, free from virus or undesirable elements and that any unnecessary temp files and or unused programs are removed. I.E de-clutter your machine as far as possible. Do a disc clean up and then a defrag with a reboot in between, and then another defrag before taking your image. The rationale behind all this is that whatever is on your image will be fully restored ito your machine if and when you come to use it, so make sure your image is of a fast free running, correctly configured drive with no errors, no malicious or undesirable elements and with all junk files reduced to a minimum. Regards paws

Hi paws and thank you I have just been through a pitstop scan and various other things with Doug, my pc is fine now apart from I do need to get rid of some software and some other things like a million and one photos. I will do all that from both drives before I move on to sorting the ghost thing out. thanks again chazy