From Major Rookie to Major Geeks

Discussion in 'Software' started by gck49, Nov 21, 2007.

  1. gck49

    gck49 Private E-2

    I started this looking for a good backup system for my computer. While I have been playing with them for five or six years one thing I have learned. I don't know a darn thing. I did get the Windows XP backup program from the disc and from what I have been reading it is a huge problem if you have a problem. All your information is there but finding it is a major trick. I have heard about a "Mirror Image" of your computer so I went so far as to buy an 160 GB "My Book" from Western Digital so I could have a backup that was not connected to my computer encase of a major breakdown. I have two internal drives. One 80GB or my main unit and another 80GB for downloads and pictures and things I really don't want to loose.
    At this point is there anyone willing to give a guy a little advice on which way to go. I tried calling NEWEGG to see if they had a program to sell me that may help. They told me to call Microsoft, after they had me on the phone for almost an hour they told me it would cost me $57.00 per minute to give me advice. Am I way over my head here?
    THANK YOU IN ADVANCE for any time in helping a guy trying to learn!
    Gary
     
  2. ItsWendy

    ItsWendy MajorGeek

    You've come to the right place, but you need to post the questions in the software forums, where most of our technical types hang out and answer questions. We are all volunteers here, people helping each other when we can, but this site has some pretty high level users and I think we do a pretty good job in the technical assistance area.

    Welcome to Major Geeks!
     
  3. DavidGP

    DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

    Hi Gck49 ( Gary )

    Moved your thread to software as Bill suggested above, saves you re-posting as I had some free time to reply..


    No your not over your head at all in this, you now have the tools to do exactly what you need in Imaging a Hard Drive, which basically allows you to clone your full hard drive ( it just images the data not the free space, so that you dont end up with a image/clone file in the 100s of GBs depending on how large your HD is ) so that in the even of a crash or a problem you cannot fix easily you have a complete mirror image of your Operating System and all your software exactly as you set it up, just like nothing had happened, this saves you re-installing the OS and all your favoured software and as you likely know this can take hours, with a clone or image file of your HD then this can take 30mins to 1hr depending on size.

    I Image my HDs on a regular basis, and also before installing any potential software that could cause a crash, generally beta products.

    The easiest software I have found and have used this product now for many years is Acronis True Image, its not free but at $49.99 its a damm sight cheaper than the $57 that Microsoft told you it would cost for their advice.

    Acronis True Image 11 is just out now and is as I mentioned $49.99 you can trial the software too for 15 days, just to see if it does what you need ( sadly at present we have not updated our internal link from version 10 to the new 11 )

    http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

    All information and data sheets on this product and trial download are listed in the link above, its an easy way to backup.

    Straight backup vs Image ( Cloning )

    Straight
    This allows you and both Western Digitals own software with your MY Book and XPs backup will allow you to backup your fav documents, basically like a copy and paste of the files to another location.. good for data backups but not if the whole Operating System developes a fault.

    I would always advise backing up data in this way as well as Imaging.

    Imaging
    This takes your whole HD and backs up and compresses it into a single file ( depending on where you backup to and its size, but your My Book is big enough.. ie. my current OS HD is 130GB in size and the Image file is only 18GB ) this allows you to create a few backups so that maybe you create one each week, you can schedule these to automatically start, so that if one backup fails you have others.

    You can also with Acronis, open the compressed image files and view and recover single files from them.

    You can also just backup certian locations, like My Docs etc.



    I personally think Acronis True Image is the one peice of software I could not do without, hope this helps you some, but feel free to ask more questions, you may get some other suggestions to applications to use, but Acronis is very easy to master.
     
  4. gck49

    gck49 Private E-2

    :D
    THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR ANSWER!
    I hope it is not against any rules of Major Geeks but I am going to copy and paste this information to keep on my computer till after Christmas when the money is a little better. I just knew there had to be a way to do this even for the home computer user. $50.00 is not that much when your talking about loosing everything you have saved for years.
    Again THANK YOU SO MUCH for YOUR time in answering my questions. With some of the minds that I know I am dealing with here I feel kind of like an infant trying to learn to walk. Funny thing is some people think I am a computer genius, because I know about Ad-Aware, Ccleaner, and other free Virus protection programs and Zone-Alarm. I try to help when I can but as you know sometimes you just feel like an Idiot, and don't know where to turn. THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH!
    GARY
    PS: Sorry I posted to the wrong section, I promise I will either get it together or get out! I do NOT wish to cause ANYONE any aggravation!
     

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