how do i back up my computer to a hard drive(external)? can i restore my comp from it?

Question

how do i back up? is there a program, windows app, etc? can i restore my whole pc if something happens? pls help, i have abt 25gbs on c/d drives, 100gb left on external drive

Answer 1

There is a Windows program called Backup that lets you back up your data to an external hard drive. That's what I am currently using on my machine. The Backup program is made to work with Hard Drives (Internal or External) and tape drives as well.

Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Backup.

Windows uses a compression routine. I fit several hundred gigabytes of information on a 1.5 gig hard drive. The program is even designed to maintain the backup system. It does take some time to make the backup since you are not working over the Internal Hard drive wiring, but instead you are pushing it through a set of wires with a more narrow bandwidth.

First you need to buy a hard drive and an external hard drive case, or you can buy the entire hard drive and case as one unit. You connect the external hard drive through a firewire or a USB cable. Format the drive and run the Backup program.

While I haven't had to do it yet the backup file can be used to restore the data to your hard drive even after a system meltdown. I don't bother backing up my programs or the Windows Directory because I will have to reinstall that anyway. The programs that I downloaded are stored on a data drive and backed up so I can get at them. The others are stored on CDs.

According to the Help files in the Windows Backup program you can restore your system data, but it will write over any previous install. The problem is that you will need to have a working version of Windows in order to use the program, and if your Windows was unstable and caused the failure then you will only get another failure. In that case you may want to use the Emergency Repair function in the Windows Backup Program.

I don't know the exact compression routine that Windows Back uses, but since you are backing up the entire drive then I wouldn't try to zip the files first. Windows Backup will probably use a similar system and it will have more blank space to fit in the programs so it should make a tighter compression than the Zip program can.

You should also consider copying some of your CDs over to DVDs. If you put the programs in their own directory then they won't autorun on the install, but you can still use the Run command to go to that directory and start the autorun sequence.

Answer 2

Windows has a backup tool.
Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup

It should start a backup wizard to guide you through the process.
This will backup the files/folders you specify.

If you want to do a complete copy of the whole PC for quick restore in the event of a system failure then you should look for some drive imaging software like Norton Ghost:
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost10