Hard Drive Backup Question
I want to be able to backup EVERYTHING on my hard drive to a larger
external USB 2.0 drive.  So if I make the backup at noon today and my
hard drive fails in the future I can replace the hard drive and on the
new drive restore EVERYTHING to what is there at noon today.
I now use Norton Ghost 9.0 which I think is supposed to be able to do
that, but it is so quirky and poorly documented that I don't trust it
at all.
What I am looking for is a software or hardware/software solution that
I can be sure will work if disaster strikes.

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Request for Question Clarification by livioflores-ga on 28 Jun 2005 12:18 PDT

Hi!!

Regarding to the use of Norton ghost you must see the following documents:
"Ghost compatibility with USB devices":
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/2000101617144125?Open&src=&docid=2002030414141625&nsf=ghost.nsf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=

"Radified Guide to Norton Ghost":
http://ghost.radified.com/ghost2_rad.pdf


Let me know if this helps you enough to post it as an answer, or if
you need something else.

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Request for Question Clarification by livioflores-ga on 28 Jun 2005 12:26 PDT

Hi again!!

Here is a HTLM version of the "Radified Guide to Norton Ghost":
http://ghost.radified.com/

See at page 8 what they say about USB drives:
http://ghost.radified.com/external_drive.htm

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Clarification of Question by keasy-ga on 29 Jun 2005 08:16 PDT

I am really looking for a solution that does NOT involve Norton Ghost.
 I have invested countless hours with two or three different versions
and have never felt I had a backup I was fairly sure would work if
disaster struck.

Hi!  Consider using Stomp BackupMyPC.  You can read about it here: 
http://www.stompsoft.com/backupmypc.html.  It works well and allows
you to create a "backup job" of the entire system state of your
machine and back it up to the external USB drive as often as you
choose.

Additionally, Maxtor makes an external usb drive with a one-button
backup functionality.  You can read about that here:
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.6adb6b8313633595062e6be791346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Products/External%20Hard%20Drives.
 All the "onetouch" products allow for one-button backup.

You should consider downloading a GNU/Linux distribution called
knoppix (http://www.knoppix.net/get.php) which can be burned into a
CD. Then you can boot from that CD and use the system without
installing it in your hard drive. Once you've booted up your machine,
you can use an utility called partimage (http://www.partimage.org/).
You don't even have to install that utility since it's included in the
knoppix distribution.
If you need step by step instructions, please let me know and IŽll provide them.
Hope it helps. Good Luck.

Genie Backup Manager Professional v5.0:
Enter Genie Backup Manager Professional (GBM Pro), a very easy to use
yet powerful and flexible software that can backup files, documents,
emails, settings, programs and more to virtually any local or remote
device including internal and external hard disks, FTP locations,
across network, CD/DVD discs, removable media, memory sticks and
tapes.
http://www.genie-soft.com/store/gbmpro.html

Note: If for any reason you are not satisfied with software purchased
directly from Genie-Soft, simply contact us for a refund within 21
days of purchase.

I use a product called Acronis True Image to do this.  It does the
same type of thing that Ghost does, but I think it is much more user
friendly.  It is fairly low cost and has been very reliable.  You can
schedule automated updates to the backup image so that you do not have
to worry about manually running them.  You can find more info at
www.acronis.com.
Thanks
Al

I use acronis for my laptop with XP Pro. But if you are using server
then I would mirror the drive so you can have realtime backup(all
server versions have this feature). I have raid setup on my
servers(2003) In that case it's your preference whether to use 3rd
party or not.

 Online system disk backup and instant bare-metal system restore
 Restore individual files and folders
 Integrated compression and password protection
 Disk imaging and disk cloning
 Incremental disk backup and disk backup image verification
 Acronis Secure Zone and Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
 
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/?ad=A01010313

mike@boxerdogit.com

The best and most simple way to back up your system files is an
external hard drive. ( assuming you do not own a tape drive :P )
Almost all external hard drives come with software to make it easy for
the end-user to backup his/her system. If you own an older computer
make sure to install USB 2.0 Hardware so that data can transfer at
maximum speeds.
Thank You,
PCMD