Help! Question on backup software.

I just spent most of the day backing up my hdd. I made a full back up using nero burning rom 7. Now was this the right thing to do or should I have just backed up the files in the C drive instead of mirroring the entire thing? Only reason I ask is because I can't do a differential back up if I back up an entire drive so I'm kind of confused. I read the guide on backing up and still don't really understand it. This is only my second computer ever and is my baby so I don't want to mess it up too much if I can help it.

Thanks in advance,
Reggie.

 

I'm assuming you mean Nero's Back-It-Up program. It gives you the option of backing up to to an image file, directly to CD/DVD, to a network drive, or to another hard drive. Unless you have only a small amout of data to back up, CD/DVDs are probably not the best way but they are one of the most secure and stable. Here's what a friend of mine does: every 4-5 months he does a clean install of his OS. He formats the drive and reloads Windows from an image he made a year ago. He installed his Windows and drivers, and some programs (like Office, FireFox, Nero, etc) and then made an image of this to DVD using Acronis. He can then restore from this image whenever he wants and doesn't have to go through the hassle of reloading the drivers and software. Th next time I do a clean install, I'm going to do the same thing. After all the drivers and updates and basic software has been installed, I'll make the image. I haven't used the Nero option, but you've motivated me to look into it a bit more Making a back up of your hard drive is always a good idea if you have important data that is impossible to replace.

EDIT- currently I just back up my docs, music, movies, and some downloads to external USB drives. I don't do full back ups; backing up Windows and Program Files is pointless unless I make a full image because they would work if I tried to restore them. Besides, I have over 160gb worth of stuff on drive C: and it's far too much to try to image, even if it's compressed....

 

The most important thing to backup is your system, Its when you loose that, your screwed. What I do is use more than one hard drive, that way I can back up each one on the other and I don't have to use a bunch of rom disks. Rom disks are ok when you first install your OS, but after a while when your 6gig drive becomes 106gig, rom disks, even dvd's, are not cool.

Keep your data (downloads pictures and music) on a different drive than your OS. Keep the C drive for windows and all your installed programs and every once in a while do a new backup as you add more software, deleting the older one (full backup) and that way you don't have to worry about differential backups. I keep one backup (the smallest) from when I first installed XP and it only has a few software programs installed like for zip and rar files, the backup software of course and a free firewall and anti-virus. The firewall and anti-virus may go out of date but there there for accessing the internet if I have to install the backup. I install my motherboard drivers before the backup but usually not the Graphics drivers for my video card. Its likely to change in a few years and I loath running ATI software when I have an Nvidia card newly installed. The basic windows vga driver is good enough for the original backup.

I install all my games to the D drive under the file name "Program Files" that way when I install games all I have to do is choose the custom install where I change the path and change the C to a D since C:\Program Files is usually the default. The cool thing about this is if for some reason you have to backup the C drive or do a format and reinstall, when you go to reinstall the games again, and point them to D, 80% of the games will recognize there own files and install new shortcuts and registry entries to the new C drive in a few minutes, often from the first CD of 5 without changing disks. the others will make you go thru the whole shebang but there's a ton of time saved from the 80% that don't.
As long as you have the room, you can always backup your D drive as well onto the C drive just like backing up the C drive to D. that way no matter which drive fails you have a backup for it. Its not easy to remember to keep a running backup, and you'll find yourself Like I do with a 6 month old backup when the drive takes a crap or your hit by a virus. But 6 months is better than nothing.

I personally prefer Acronis true image myself and I have the old version6 but it works like a charm, I'm used to it and I don't see the need to get a new version at this time.

 

I'm thinking about just trying acronis. All this backing up is just so I can get read to clean my computer completely off and get everything set up. Which brought about the whole issue of not being able to do differential back ups of my entire drive. I can do it with regular files so I'm not sure if any programs will be ok if I back them up this way. I guess the only way to find out is to try it lol unless I can find out some more info. Everything you've told me is great and its helping out a lot and I'll try the tricks yall told me.