Backing up a computer

Quote from lotsofloot:

Hi Folks

Have just purchased a new PC which comes with Vista loaded. With all the problems relating to that particular operating system I got the manufacture to remove it completely so the computer now comes with a complete blank hard drive.

My intention is to make a "Boot-Disk" and "Hard Drive Image" of my old PC hd using Acronis TrueImage. I will then start my new PC with the bootdisk and copy all my software onto it. Now my question is will work or am I suppose to format the new PC hd before I take the above action.

Thanks for any help received.

LotsOfLoot
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I doubt that will work. The BIOS plays a role in formatting, and unless the new machine has the same mobo, BIOS and all the same model peripherals as the one you made the image from, your idea seems impossible. (Then again, there are those who claim you can take a hard drive out of one machine and put it into another... then do some hacks... and make it work.... not sure about that.)

However, Besides the possibility of fouling your image, I don't think there is any risk in trying it and we'd surely love to know that it worked.

Best thing you can do is build your new machines' hard drive data and OS from scratch. In any "old" image, there is some schmutz and flotsam... you don't really want to copy that to your new rig, do you?
 
I bought an external hard drive enclosure, about $45. Then I bought a 250 gig hard drive, about $65.

The hard drive slips into the enclosure, has its own power supply, and it connects to your PC with a USB or SATA cable. Hook it up, the PC recognizes it, format the drive, and then copy everything onto a folder you create or just do a full backup with the external drive as the destination.

I backed up all three PCs and my laptop to this drive and I still have some room on it. I also used it to copy all my digital pics which I then copied onto the other PCs just in case one drive crashes I still have all the pics on other drives.

The best part is you can buy dirt cheap drives, slip them into the enclosure and transfer your data. Fill up the drive? No big deal, just slip another drive in. Once you are done, remove the drive and label it and store it somewhere safe. Hate to do all this and then have a fire destroy all your stuff. I store mine in a fire safe, but think I may get another drive and store it at a friends house. Offsite storage prevents loss in a fire at home. The data would be a bitch to lose, but pictures cannot be replaced.
 
Interesting question. I'm sure you don't need to format the hard drive as I had one fail and used my Acronis image to write to a new out-of-the-box hard drive installed in the old machine. Everything worked fine.

However, Gnome's comment about motherboard/BIOS interaction is interesting. I used to build my machines from components but have switched to buying low-end Dell's the last few years. I have one remaining home-built machine running XP and have been considering moving its software to a Dell using the image method.

What you are proposing is what I've been thinking of doing. Did your new machine come with a "Recovery Disk" and a Utility/Driver Disk? My Dell machines have both. The Recovery Disk appears to be just the Microsoft operating system, the utility disk contains machine/accessory specific drivers. If you run Acronis and load the old software onto your new drive (and it then boots), I'd suggest you run the driver disk to optimize your machine's performance. The Display driver could be troublesome.

If the process fails you haven't lost anything except time.

Jack
 
Hi

Thanks to everybody for replying. In response to Jack my new PC has no software at all it with. It comes withs no software cd's. Its custom build. I wanted it that way so I could copy my current hd onto it and end up with two PC's running identical software and acting as a backup to each other.

Regards

LotsOfLoot
 
Use an external hard drive with wireless access and automatic daily backup. Seamless regular back-up of your chosen documents & folders with no effort at all, just set it to do the backup outside market hours and you'll have no interference.

If security is not a critical issue, you can automated backup online as well, so you have off-site backup too.

I strongly recommend against relying on manual backup. 99% of people are too lazy to keep up to date, and with Sod's law you will have a failure at the worst possible time. Automating is the reliable, lazy man's solution.
 
Quote from lotsofloot:

Hi

Thanks to everybody for replying. In response to Jack my new PC has no software at all it with. It comes withs no software cd's. Its custom build. I wanted it that way so I could copy my current hd onto it and end up with two PC's running identical software and acting as a backup to each other.

Regards

LotsOfLoot
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You do at least have a mobo utilities CD... with drivers for chipset, onboard devices, yes?
 
Quote from Cutten:


If security is not a critical issue, you can automated backup online as well, so you have off-site backup too.

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I've really enjoyed using JungleDisk - which is software that runs on top of Amazon's S3 service and costs $20. You can set it to be encrypted. The cost is $.15/mo per GB. So, a 20GB backup costs $3/mo. It will save 60 days of history by default but can be set to save versions as long as you want. The first backup takes awhile because it copies everything, subsequent backups are pretty quick. You can set it to back up every 5 minutes or once a day etc.

http://www.jungledisk.com/
 
Quote from caementarius:

I've really enjoyed using JungleDisk - which is software that runs on top of Amazon's S3 service and costs $20. You can set it to be encrypted. The cost is $.15/mo per GB. So, a 20GB backup costs $3/mo. It will save 60 days of history by default but can be set to save versions as long as you want. The first backup takes awhile because it copies everything, subsequent backups are pretty quick. You can set it to back up every 5 minutes or once a day etc.

http://www.jungledisk.com/
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A bit pricey. In fact there is also separate fee for upload and separate fee for download. Assuming you never download, but refresh your backup once a month, that's $150 / year for 50GB backup. For that price you could buy a hard drive and rent a deposit box to store it!
 
Quote from HiFreekTrader:

A bit pricey. In fact there is also separate fee for upload and separate fee for download. Assuming you never download, but refresh your backup once a month, that's $150 / year for 50GB backup. For that price you could buy a hard drive and rent a deposit box to store it!
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Well it's not for backing up your porn collection or whatever. :D

The idea is to have the backups run regularly, be offsite in case of disaster at house, be accessible from anywhere (access my home files from work, vice versa). Data transfer in is $.10/GB and out is $.17/GB. The biggest cost is your first backup, the rest are just backing up what has changed in the meantime. My total bill last month was $2.62.

50GB would be pricey - but is that movies or other stuff that is more of an archival thing? If it's archival stuff, burn to DVD - keep a copy somewhere separate from the house, etc.
 
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