Newbie at backing up! Help please.

Hello all.
I'm new to this site and need a little help please. I recently purchased Norton Ghost 14 and after reading some of the threads on this and other sites I think I should have bought True Image. I have a external WD Mybook and have partitioned it to have two drives. One for a copy of my C drive and one for all my files, pictures etc. What I would like to do is image my C drive in case I need to copy it to a bigger drive or if my drive craps out. Is it possible to copy or Image the C drive to my external WD Mybook and keep it there so that some time in the future I could copy it to a new internal drive so I can just plug it in and turn it on? I have it hooked up using a USB connection to my computer and plan to do the back ups once every so often then disconnect it for safe keeping. I've read that copying the C drive to the external WD via USB could be a problem and may corrupt the files on my original C drive. I tried the Firewire connection but my USB mouse won't work that way. I may not be using the correct terminology here but is what I want to do called Imaging or copying or does it matter?

Another question is that My system (XP Pro) is set up Raid stripe with two 150 GB drives. Can I copy the C drive contents to one drive and will it work? I was reluctant to try a raid setup but after two years and no problems it seems to run fine. A friend running a raid setup had one of his drives fail and it was impossible to restore his OS. I really don't want to go through the trouble of reloading my OS and all my drivers and programs again.
I would appreciate any help anyone could offer.
Thanks
Jim

 

Acronis uses the terms Backup (same as Image), Recovery (or restore) and Clone. If you clone one drive to another, you can only have one clone on that drive. If you Image one drive to another, the other drive can have as many Images as its capacity will allow. An Image is, in simple terms, a compressed file, much like zip and rar. So you can copy it to any other drive or even burn it to dvd.

I don't do Raid so cannot answer that part.

 

Does Ghost work with your hardware? If so it should be fine. The key question is whether you can boot the system from the Ghost recovery disk and see all your drives and backups.

Forget the term copy for the boot partition. You make an image of the boot partition with a program such as Ghost or True Image. The image can be stored on an external USB drive. If your hard drive fails, you restore the image using the recovery disk for the imaging program.

You can restore either a single boot disk or a RAID boot array.

If your RAID array has more than the C: and D: partitions, include them in the image. Manufacturers often put hidden partitions on the drive for diagnostic and recovery purposes.

 

DwnNdrty
Thanks for the reply. Does this mean that I can put my C drive image on my external drive then at a later date put that image on a internal drive and install it in my computer and it will work as if I installed everything?
Thanks
Jim

 

Not quite .... an Image has to go through the Recovery process before the drive you recover to, can become bootable like the original drive.

 

Perhaps my guides can help. Check line 2 and 3 of my signature below.

 

jmk94903 & DwnNdrty

Thanks again for the replies.

So I can't just clone a drive now and physically put it in my computer and it will be the same as my original? If I make an image on my external drive and later install a new unused drive in my computer and use the recovery disc can I then transfer the image to the new drive and restore my original OS? I really don't want to go the raid route again. I once had a lot of spare time to mess with the computer and learn stuff but now I've forgotten most of what I learned and don't have the time to get into it again. I'm just happy with a bug free machine I can count on and a reliable means of backing it up.
One more question if I may. I already have Ghost 14 and I'm not sure if it was the right program for me. Is True Image easier to use?

GroverH
Thanks for the Tutorial. I'll have a look.
Thanks
Jim

 

You're confusing the terms Clone and Image ... if, after reading Grover's tutorial it is still not clear, let us know.

 

You could, but you'd need a new external hard drive for each clone "backup." That's pretty silly. By making backup images, you can keep several made at different times on one partition of your external hard drive.

Yes.

I don't think so, but that's a very personal question. Try Ghost. If you don't like it, try the free trial of TI 11.

 

Once again thanks for the help. I guess I'm confusing clone and Image, as I thought they were the same. I partitioned my external drive because I thought I would have to copy the drive to a dedicated partition and could only do it once as each successive copy would erase the last. I didn't realize that I could restore my OS from my external drive to a new unused HD by just making an image. Now all I have to do is figure out how to do that. Grovers tutorial is based on TI so I guess I should use that. Ghost 14 has some issues with XP SP3 but has a fix in one of their updates. Norton has never been my favorite software and their support isn't the best either. I would rather use software like TI where I can get some help when needed. You have all been very helpful.
Thanks
Jim