Bobbee

I do, Acronous does that too, but i back you the C less often, and when it goes bad I am usually some where ver distant, so I drop into one of my companies local tech centers and the re-image the C drive and I am up and running in 2 hours. And still have my D drive. But if D goes i either have to fly home right away of wait till I get home

MikeMcC Loc: Glasgow, Scotland

I use Acronis True Image Home regularly. If you keep system and programs on a separate partition to your data, an image of your system partition can be made to another disk or partition so that if the system gets trashed with a virus or whatever it can be restored in a few minutes without having to reinstall the OS and all your programs. This image can then be restored to any, or the same partition. However beware that for Microsoft Office 2010 you need a new registration key if you restore to a different disk or partition. I found this out when I decided to move my system to an SSD (Solid State Drive)!

jpanar Loc: Reston, VA

If you want a "mirror" RAID, just be sure the second drive is identical to the original. One can back up a drive on another type, but if you want true mirror the second drive must be identical.

pauleveritt Loc: Erie, Colorado

You have to IMAGE a drive. This is NOT a simple file copy. The operating system in the control panel has a utility to create a set of RECOVERY discs. This set should be REFRESHED EVERY time you put in an update or an a program. So, of course, as lazy Americans we don't do that and then whine because our RECOVER discs are out of date. Create yourself a FRESH set of RECOVER discs and you are good.

I am a computer guy since 1976 and switched over to digital video in 2004. This is definitely an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

WINDOWS recovery disks do not recover your files data when a drive goes south. They are meant for system recovery of the OS, boot files and drivers. The backup utility in Control Panel can schedule OS backup of the primary drive but stored data on other sources is not accomplished. You need a real data backup plan and backup storage media to accomplish this. Nobody wants to lose thousands of photographs or documents due to an HDD failure. The implementation of a RAID system or complete systematic backup on secondary or external storage media is the only means to do this completely and reliably. You may have been involved with computers since 1976, but you definitely weren't involved in a data center where daily backup is done to assure that nothing is lost or corrupted.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

There's two ways to look at this Jerry. If you (or he) are really happy with the way your computer is running now, then you can mirror the current boot drive with software like Norton Ghost to an external hard drive. If the boot drive ever fails, Norton Ghost will put everything back exactly the way it was the day that you make this ghost copy. But if you don't like your drive, perhaps it's too cluttered with stuff you don't want or need or it's running slow and sluggish, then you might want to either:
1. if you can create a set of restore disks from the HP computer. It will let you create one set.
2. contact HP and for less than $20 they will send you the restore disks and you can restore the computers software and operating system exactly the way it was on day one.

I did option 2 above recently because I wanted to install an SSD drive as my new boot drive and only put Windows 7, Photoshop, Lightroom, and my antivirus software on it. I installed other software on a completely different drive and also installed another small SSD drive reserved as just a scratch disk for Photoshop for better Photoshop performance. It's smoking fast now.

jerrylh Loc: Texas

I've done this twice with Acronis and no problem. When I do it, I always switch to the new drive immediately by reconnecting the new drive to the same data connector the old one had.
The program you get with many WD drives is a version of Acronis limited to cloning function.

boudreau Loc: Ascension Parish, LA

Windows 7 allows you to create an image of C: on another drive. Look in Control Panel\backup and restore, on on the left pane select "create a system image".
I lost my C: a few months, replaced it with a new drive, and restored the image to the new drive. Worked well.

Kuzano

Ah Ah Ah!!!!

My Windows 98 computer running Photoshop 0.5 is still running Ide drives.

SATA was not out until the latter part of 2002, when I already had 15 years in building and consulting on computers. I just shut down my 386-16 computer in my advancement to faster computers. That was my last Windows 3.1 computer.

I still have a box of new hard drives. IDE measured in Megabytes. I'm going to have to use those up one of these days, I quess.

About ten to 12 years is as long as I will run a computer. My newest computer is a Sony Vaio Ultrabook w/Windows 8 which I dearly love. Best operating system yet. Teaching classes on it. First class "How to run your Windows 8 exactly like Windows 7, but faster and stabler". The trick there is to boot to the Desktop, run the Classic Shell Start Menu and completely avoid the Metro/Start side.

The second class is, "How to run your W8 Metro Side and Kick your iPad's Ass".

When you are a Computer Master Tech, you are constantly prepared for all the computers that are carried in the front door. Even those owned by little blue haired ladies using Windows 95.

And last point.... SATA stands for Serial ATA. On that note, I actually worked within the limitations of Serial Ports, prior to USB. Remember when all the devices you could easily hook to your computer were two (2)? Of course you do.... I've seen your chops.


:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

pauleveritt Loc: Erie, Colorado

One of me! I had my first programming class in high school in 1976 and my first computer was a TRS-80 Model I Level II in 1981. The Hard Drive I sold in a computer store was a 5 MEGAbyte hard drive for $5,000! It was an HP drive. At that rate a 2 TB drive would cost 200 BILLION dollars! Yes, things have come a long way baby.

I would love to attend your class. Windows 8 is a disaster. 8.1 not as big a disaster. I run Windows 7 Pro 64 bit with XP mode. VERY Happy! See NO reason to upgrade.

As a fossil of the technology era I am 54!

gemlenz Loc: Gilbert Arizona

I have Windows 8 and was thinking of using the windows recovery utility to create a backup of my operating system and applications. I already have good backups of my data files.

pego99

I maintain Acronis True Image cloned drives for all my computers.
I use external drives and I write to them using a drive to usb adapter.
This way if something I can simply replace the internal drive with the external cloned one. The cloned drive is a total copy of the drive C ready to boot if placed in the computer.

ebbote Loc: Hockley, Texas

I remember when memory was $40 a megabyte, if that held today I would have $640,000 worth in my PC

pauleveritt Loc: Erie, Colorado

In the MIDDLE 1980s, I actually SOLD memory at $1,000 per 1 Megabyte stick and you needed eight of them to make the computer work because they were 1 MB X 1 sticks!

pego99

Way off topic