Re: Backing up a Windows Installation

Partition Magic would be your best bet in this instance. It would be a case
of shrinking the C: partition and then extending the D: partition to make it
larger. The only snag is that, when using an operating system that comes on
a recovery disk or partition, should you wish to re-install using the
recovery disk/partition the partitions will be returned to factory
conditions. In other words on re-installing XP from the recovery CD you
would end up with the C: drive as 100 GB and the D: drive as 40/50GB.
I don't own a Dell machine but if i use my recovery CD to re-install my
operating system it takes up the full amount of the drive, so i have to use
Partition Magic to shrink the size so i can allocate other partitions to
allow me to run three operating systems. Nowadays i prefer to ignore the
recovery CD and simply install using my retail copy of XP. At least i have
more control over partitions.

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

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"Jyeshta" <whatever@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:s954e2h2keuvhf2j86r6m95vj5j4mv4t1p@xxxxxxxxxx
Hi, Kenny, Well this computer came from Dell with the physical hard
drive in 2 partitions. For some reason they made the C drive around
100 gigs and the D drive around 30 to 40 gigs. So I couldn't fit all
my data onto the D drive (I have a huge music library and some videos
I transferred from my old computer). I spent a day on the phone with
Dell trying to get them to help me back up the OS and Program Files
onto the D Drive with Norton Ghost and they couldn't do it. I would
need something like Partition Magic, wouldn't I? To make another
partition for the OS and Program Files? I'm not even sure this is
possible and I don't know how to use Partition Magic and I don't have
it anyway. Thanks.

Gail



On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 11:00:01 -0700, kennyg92
<kennyg92@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Well, you might try doing this.
On my PC I have my hard disk split out into virtual drives so that my boot
drive (C:) is just large enough to hold all of the OS and applications
that I
run (typically less than 10GB).
I use my other virtual drives to store all of my volatile data (pictures,
graphics, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, ad nauseum).
In this way I have a minimal drive hosting the core application files, and
this is easily backed up onto 1 DVD using Norton Ghost and the high
compression option.

The volatile files (pictures, graphics, Word documents, Excel
spreadsheets,
ad nauseum) are backed up onto seperate disks.
So if something corrupts my OS, or if I become infected by spyware, etc, I
can easily restore the core OS and applications without affecting the rest
of
the stuff.

Been doing this for a long time, and it's saved my *** on several
occasions.

No need to have a contiguous 100, 200, 250 or 300GB drive. Split it up. It
also decreases the data access time making your PC run faster.

Just my 2-1/2 cents.


"Jyeshta" wrote:

On Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:17:17 +0100, "John Barnett MVP"
<freelanceit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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.

What if my hard drive has nearly 160 gigs filled up? That's too many
DVDs! Are you saying it's not possible to back up my hard drive via
Ghost to an external USB hard drive and then copy it back to a new
internal hard drive? Thanks.

Gail




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