Cloned "C" drive

[caveman16]

Hey Guys,

     Always wishing you a nice day.   Been somewhat out of it for awhile but manage to keep-up.

     To many, I'm sure this question is very basic.   I mess-up often everything in my PC due to my trying new, different and often untried programs.

     How do you "clone / copy" your entire  "C" drive ?   The reason is so I can go back to when it was working correct.   I've discovered the  "restore" program has too many shortcomings to depend on it .

     I would also wish to  "put or save" this cloned "C" drive to a DVD for it's safty and future back-ups.

     Greatly appreciate your  input.

                             caveman
     

[EirePlane]

A DVD has a maximum capacity of around 4.5GB so it would be far to small to make backups with. Also if you were to completely wreck your PC, there would be no way of getting files off the DVD without the operating system.

I imagine you would need a second hard drive or something you could copy your C drive to.
You may or may not know, but the files you see on your hard drive are nto the only files on it. For instance, a fresh install of XP will only show up the following files in the C: drive:

Documents and Settings
Program Files
Windows

there are however several other files you can't see in there, even if you have the hidden files and folders displayed. System Volume Information and AUTOEXEC.bat to name a couple.

There is also the MBR (Master Boot Record) which gives your computer instructions on how to start itself up. These are hard to get to, if not impossible (I can't find it anyway)

Because of these reasons, there is no way to simply "copy" your C drive from within windows and ensure the copy is bootable.

You could probably create a copy by using Linux to display all the hidden files but if your hard drive uses the NTFS file system (Like most XP installs), even linux wouldn't be able to copy it.

XP Professional has a built in backup tool under
start->all programs->accessories->system tools
and there are probably other tools available to do the job. try http://www.download.com but I can't name any specific ones

My advice would be to just back up your essential files such as programs and documents and maybe putting them on a seperate hard drive. You would also need to keep your Windows Install CDs and your Registration Key.

But I could be wrong, there are a lot of people here more experienced than me who might know otherwise

[NicksFXHouse]

You can use Norton Ghost or Nero BackItUp for sequential DVD capture of an entire drive. I do not know if Nero has a DOS tool for restoring but I know Norton Ghost does.

Also, I do believe the MS backup tool (ASR RECOVERY) will also write to multiple sequential DVD's and you can also use it to restore by running the WindowsXP setup from the disk and hit F2 to run ASR RECOVERY. You should be prompted for the disks in sequence as the system is restored.

Ghost is the choice of most professionals. I am sure there are other titles out there which will do the same job.

[NicksFXHouse]

The easiest way to accomplish what you are trying to do is buy a separate IDE HDD which is dedicated to backups. It is a good idea to run sequential hard-copy backups of data as time goes on but the best way to recover an entire partition is use a HDD (on the IDE channel) as the storage point.

[caveman16]

Hey Eireplane  and Nick,  

     [Really nice of you to take the time  to help me ]  I guess I'm trying to  "fail-safe" my PC.     I suppose everyone dislikes re-installing everything from scratch.   I'm still learning the basics, BUT - - - the one thing I've learned for sure, - - -  I'm my worst enemy by my always trying something new and different.  

     Appreciate the info,   it gives me a new direction to again try something new !!!!!!!!  ;D

     Always wishing you "GUYS" a nice day.

                                       caveman  

     

[richardd43]

Hey caveman, don't feel alone. I would hate to tell you how many times I have done the same thing.

I use an external E-SATA drive to hold all of my documents and other goodies that I do not want to lose.

If I really screw my C Drive I actually prefer a fresh install. I am always suspect that a restore from a backup disk will never overwrite everything and I am stuck with bad stuff still on my C drive

[congo]

Hi Caveman,

Hard disk imaging (ghosting), backup and restore can be a time consuming process, but once the image is made you can use it over and over again.

Keep in mind that you can only restore the original image you made, and you lose your data that was on the disk when the error occurred, unless you are able to recover that data before you restore the image to your drive.

I believe it makes more sense to make regular backups of your important data, and if you use a drive imaging tool, you must understand that the image you recreate is the exact image of the drive when you made the image. That image should ideally be made after you get everything set up just the way you want it to restore again. The trick is in getting it right to begin with.

Drive images are best saved onto some fast media like a hard drive or hard drive partition. The process will be much faster than using removable media like DVD's.

Even so, the time it takes to do all this imaging and restoring, and then getting everything up to date, is comparable to just re-installing from scratch in my opinion.

There is a backup facility, built into windows I believe, that will backup your data depending on what you select for backup and when you schedule those backups to occur, many people schedule these backups nightly. I would advise backing up to a seperate hard disk for extra security in case of a total hard disk failure.

Backing up to a second partition on the same hard drive is just fine, but if the main hard drive completely fails, you lose everything, so it's a bit of a risk.

Personally, I prefer to manually backup my data.

I always have an extra hard drive for my data, which includes all my photos, programs, projects, FS downloads and games etc.

When I do important work, I regularly back up the data to the extra hard disk, otherwise I just copy the contents of my main hard disk, (in my case it's a RAID0 array, not just a single hard disk), straight onto my backup hard disk for safekeeping.

This sounds easy but as with everything, there is a catch......

If you try to copy everything on your main hard disk to another hard disk, or to another hard disk partition on the same drive, you will get errors as some windows op sys files will not copy as they are is use. The copy will fail and you have no idea what you copied and what you didn't.

You can do one of 2 things to overcome this limitation.

First, you can select the files/folders you wish to backup manually, and copy them at your own pace, or use software to automate the process.

Secondly, and to my mind, preferably, purchase a second hard drive, partition 40gb for Windows, and then install WinXP on that first partition, get it up and running like you normally would, this is just like having a second PC handy, and all you need to use it is a bios change or a boot select option.

Once Windows is up and running on the second hard drive, partition the remaining unused area of the new hard disk (if you haven't already done that) and use that space for your backups.

Now, from this second "Windows", you can easily copy the entire contents of the original main hard disk to the backup partition on your new second drive. Open the main hard disk in explorer, (from the second Hard drive's Win XP), and select the recycler and System Volume Information folders, go up to the edit menu, select "invert selection" and copy and paste the highlighted remaining data to your backup partition

[congo]

Advantages to the above arrangement are that your data is replicated on two seperate drives for redundancy and you have two functional operating systems in case one fails.

You'll be safe as long as both hard disks are not destroyed at the same time. I always unplug my backup hard disk when I'm not using it, further reducing risk of failure to that drive in the event of electrical fault.

It is also reasonably safe to do all this on a single drive with the risk of data loss occurring should the drive fail.

Multiple operating systems can be placed on the C: drive or on seperate partitions, or both I believe. Use a large partition as a common data folder for all the Operating systems installed.

Microsoft may not allow these configurations under their license agreement, I couldn't read that small print myself, so check it out if you wish

[richardd43]

You'll be safe as long as both hard disks are not destroyed at the same time. I always unplug my backup hard disk when I'm not using it, further reducing risk of failure to that drive in the event of electrical fault.

That is why I use the E-SATA drive, there is a switch on it to turn it off when not in use.