Best way to back up the Hard Drive?

[Goenitz196]

I am running Windows XP Pro.

I have 2 Hard Drives - a 40GB and an 80GB. The 40GB is the C: Master which holds all the Windows files and Program files, and the 80GB Slave D: drive holds all my personal files ONLY.

Now I want to back up the whole of the 40GB drive, and from what I found there are quite a few ways to do this. You can either: -

- Use the Windows Backup tool (not in XP Home Edition)
- Use a drive Imaging software like Norton Ghost
- Use CDs/DVDs to back up the files

The one that interests me the most is the Windows Backup - I was thinking of using it to backup the C: drive, which will compress it into a 3GB or 4GB file. I will then place this file onto the D: Drive, so if the C: drive goes down, I can then use the backup file on the D: drive to restore it back to the C: (after I format it and re-install Windows). But just one thing is still puzzling me - when I use the Backup tool it also gives me an option of backing up the System State as well...is it important to back up the system state too? And what exactly are the benifits of backing up the System State?

As for Drive Imaging, I have read some bad views on it - people say that when you image the data back onto the original drive, it causes some drawbacks such as minor slowdown, because apparantly the files are "placed into a different sector/area which is different from the original".

Can anyone help out? Any help will be most sppriciated. Thanks.

 

[wolluf]

If you want a backup to restore your system from, I'd use one of the imaging tools (eg, Ghost or Drive Image). To restore from windows backup, you need to have a working XP system. From the images, just the relevant boot floppy. Like any software, things can go wrong, but for example, I recently used Ghost to put the same image on a new suite of 15 school computers with no problems at all.

 

[Kofy]

I've used both windows backup and Norton Ghost... my personal opinion is to go with Norton ghost as it is faster, compresses better, and has much better error checking to it. granted windows backup IS free but you do get what you pay for. I backed up a friends laptop to swap the drives out and used GHOST. I had zero problems with it... took about 40 mins all told and I had zero copy errors.

 

[zardiw]

I suggest you buy a new harddrive (they're getting cheaper every day). Then use EZ Gig to CLONE your harddrive to the new drive. That way if it should ever go south, you just switch harddrives, and you're back in business. You can also use the new drive as an external USB drive..It's a win win situation.

Go here for a GOOD harddrive site that also has the EZ Gig stuff on it.........z

http://www.drivesolutions.com/

z