Re: Backing up a Windows Installation

You would have to image the hard drive using third party software such as
Acronis or Paragon or even Ghost. Depending upon the amount of disk space
your current XP installation takes the imaging software - acronis and ghost
in particular - can compress the data to fit onto a DVD. If the software
cannot shrink the image to fit on a DVD it will usually offer to 'span' the
image file over a number of CD's or DVD. This is by far the simlest method
of backing up the whole drive.

In my case i have a triple boot system, XP Home, XP Pro and Vista. Each
system is imaged and stored on DVD. However, XP Pro (because this is the
operating system i use from day to day) is also backed up to a seperate
partition on my hard drive. If i need to re-install XP Pro (via an Image)
then i usually boot up to Windows XP Home, run Acronis or Ghost and then
re-image the XP Pro drive back. You would be able to do a similar thing with
your USB drive 'if' you had a dual boot system. As you don't have a dual
boot system you would have to rely upon the imaging software's DOS based
recovery CD. In this instance i'm not sure if the USB drive would be
accessible. If this is the case you would not be able to access the image
file. You would, however, be able to access an image from a DVD or CD.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind,
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"umwhat" <me somewhere@somewhere else.com> wrote in message
news:934B3484-A9E5-454D-9084-126DA44B6075@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Can I back up my whole harddrive to a USB harddrive E: with Windows XP
Home Edition ? I could use Nero 6.6 , and then if I want a fresh copy of
my
whole new installation could I copy the backup on the drive E: ?


--
my signature


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Backing up a Windows Installation
    ... Acronis or Paragon or even Ghost. ... in particular - can compress the data to fit onto a DVD. ... In my case i have a triple boot system, XP Home, XP Pro and Vista. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)
  • Re: Backing up a Windows Installation
    ... Acronis or Paragon or even Ghost. ... in particular - can compress the data to fit onto a DVD. ... In my case i have a triple boot system, XP Home, XP Pro and Vista. ... If you have all your data in the XP partition, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)
  • Re: Backing up a Windows Installation
    ... Acronis or Paragon or even Ghost. ... in particular - can compress the data to fit onto a DVD. ... In my case i have a triple boot system, XP Home, XP Pro and Vista. ... If you have all your data in the XP partition, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)
  • Re: Norton Ghost 2003
    ... "Back to the original problem - if I'd had Ghost 2003 I should have ... cloned the source drive on the second computer to the first partition ... BTW Acronis True Image support has been strangely silent since I ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: copying from DVD
    ... Ghost Explorer then worked. ... Verification adds quite a bit of time ... > Burn at no more than 4x, even if your DVD writer can burn faster. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
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