Hard Drive help..

Dunkyboy_2

I want to back up my PC in case it goes Pear shape. I have looked at other threads and it seems to be quite confusing/complicated, so

what do i need to do/buy.
eg.

do i need another hard drive (external) or do i put everything onto a disk or similar..
please keep it simple.....if you can
thanks..

albertross_2

What do you have, PC, laptop, DVD writer? How much data do you have to backup (how many megabytes, right click on c: in explorer and do properties), and what type of data is it, loads of compressed music and video?

Norton Ghost or
Acronis True Image or
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm or
Microsoft Backup or
xcopy

Are the bits of software you will need to do it properly

There is a sticky thread at the top of this page with other options.

Dunkyboy_2

PC with 35GB HD which is half full. I have a lot of digital photos (300) on it and perhaps 200 song tracks.

Dunkyboy_2

sorry yes is has a DVD writer as well

Dunkyboy_2

thankyou Albertross, i appreciate you help, i will look into your suggestions tomorrow with fresh eyes.

albertross_2

NP, BTW the advantage of DVD's over an external drive is that a virus could damage the c: drive and external drive at the same time, leaving you with no recovery method.

If you backup to a couple of DVD's every month or so (50p), then you have a running snapshot of your computer so you can go back to any point in time, and recover your PC to the state it was n months ago.

Dunkyboy_2

Albertross, looking at the Acronis option, would i be able to put the saved data/settings etc onto a new computer. I am thinking of getting a new PC with a huge Hard drive but i am worried about losing all my stuff off the old one. Is Acronis ok for doing this sort of thing, and just as importantly is it relatively easy to do, or is it a job for advanced computer techies..
thanks..

albertross_2

I haven't used Acronis as much as Norton, so maybe someone else could advise. (There are some Acronis experts on this forum)..

You can transfer your data with Norton ghostexplorer (comes with Ghost), but not the settings.

Acronis and Norton are designed to save and restore the settings for the same PC, rather than to transfer from one to the other.

If you have a router (or hub, or crossover ethernet cable), you could link the two PC's together in a network, and transfer all the files without using Norton or Acronis.

You could transfer the settings with this..

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/mgrtfset.mspx