Backing up laptop drive onto desktop

[peaceDev]

Hi all! I need help. I currently have two computers: a laptop and a desktop. I use the laptop more frequently and I'd like to make a backup of the entire hard drive. Since my desktop hard drive is about 5 times larger, I was thinking about using it for my backup. The problem is that I'd like to know if in order to do this I'd have to create a new partition.

The desktop's HD is already partitioned and has Win98 and Linux Redhat installed, so I didn't want to mess around with the partitions again. Besides it was a real pain to do because of the size of the hard disk and the whole addressing issue.

I'd also appreciate any tips on how to go about doing the backup.

I would truly appreciate any help you could give me.

Thanx!

 

[comtec17]

I would personally purchase an external drive and backup to it using the backup software the drive comes with. I recommend the Maxter 80GB 7200RPM External.

 

[peaceDev]

Hi Comtec,

if I purchase an external drive, could I back up both hard drives on it? My current lap top drive is 4 GB, so 80 GB is a bit too much for it to be the sole backed up drive.

Thanks for your help.

 

[comtec17]

Yes, you can backup full and do incrementals. It does not place a special file out there, it actually replicates or mirrors your disk to the external. I have 4 machines that use it to backup.

 

[peaceDev]

What do you think about Iomega's line of external HDs? They seem cheaper then the Maxtor but is it worth it?

 

[peaceDev]

When you say that you use it to back up more than one hard drive, how do you go about doing that? Do you have 4 partitions?

 

[comtec17]

When I backup my drives, I choose to backup by directory structure. You can choose to backup a partition to a file as well.