Backing up the OS?

TI makes it sound as if the only way to backup the OS is to backup the entire hard disk! Can't one select FILES & FOLDERS for backup & then select all the folders (including Windows) except My Music, My Pictures, & My Videos and still end up with the OS backed up?

Thanks for help. I have latest version of TI & run Windows XP.

 

You could move your stuff in MY DOCUMENTS, and other data files, somewhere else (another partition, external drive, CD or DVD, etc) and then image just the boot partition on the HDD. You can't back up installed programs (like the OS) without backing up the registry, etc too.

 

Well, yes, you could do that but you wouldn't be capturing the MBR and Track 0 data. That isn't a problem if you are merely restoring the image back to the original serviceable drive but would be most inconvenient if the drive failed and you had to fit a replacement.

Regards

 

I favor something like this approach. The first step for easy use of an imaging program is to consider how your disk is layed out in terms of partitions since that is the unit that an imaging program operates on.

Get your data out of C and put it on another partition. This way you can fool with C all you want and can easily restore it without worrying about how current the data file component is. Your personally created data files are the thing that must be protected at all costs since you can't get them anywhere else. Restoring programs and the OS is just time. I don't bother moving My Documents and I only use it as a scratch area. I have a folder structure of my own liking for personal data files setup on another partition.

My preferred route is:
XP and installed programs on C

Large Games installed on D. These files never change very often so why spend time backing them up over and over. You may want to consider backing up player "progress files" independently. Note that since installing in another partition still makes changes to the registry and perhaps other files on C, you must make a corresponding backup image of C when you install/uninstall programs on D.

Data files on E

Backups on F, F should be on another HD either internal or external.

Files and Folders backup is quite slow compared to imaging.