>
>
>I want to backup my entire hard drive onto a removable hard drive.  I
>was thinking of going into DOS and using the copy command with all the
>little switches.  Do you think that's the best way?
>
>And how can I make it bootable just in case?
>
>
>
Hi Diane

What I have done is install a mobile rack in my computer. The rack
consists of a plastic frame and a drawer that contains a hard drive
(HD), which I have nominated as the "D" drive but it can be called what
you like. My computer now thinks it has two HDs.

The drawer and HD can be pulled out and stored off site. I only put the
drawer back in the computer when I want to clone or recover a file. It
takes less than 5 seconds to install or remove the drawer containing the
"D" drive.

I clone the "C" drive directly to the "D" drive using Norton Ghost (NG).

If you can clone the whole of the "C" drive to another drive it formats
that other drive as it stores a photo image of the "C". Using this
method means that if the "C" drive crashes, the other drive can be used
as a replacement without having to do anything software wise. However, I
clone to a file rather than the drive itself so that I can retain 3
backups of "C". This does not affect recovering the whole of the "C"
drive or individual files.

I use Windows XP (have used the same system on 95) and NG runs as a DOS
program. Because of the NTFS file system in XP and the need to back up
to FAT32, I use a Win98 boot-up floppy with a BAT file that does all the
work for me.

Don't be frightened by these terms. All one has to do is insert the
mobile rack before turning on the computer and boot up using the floppy.
NG has instructions on how to create the floppy (a CD can be used
instead of a floppy).
I have created 3 floppies each containing a BAT file that I call Clone1,
Clone2 and Clone3. Once you have the process set up, it is only a matter
of booting using one of the floppies and the cloning process will start.
It will ask if you want to overwrite the previous file. Answer YES and
away it goes. Once finished, turn off the computer and remove the mobile
rack and floppy.
There is a refinement that can be used to make the system work even
better but it is not essential. Format the HD in the mobile rack with 3
partitions. Set up each floppy to store the backup file in a particular
partition. In the BAT file start be deleting all files from that
partition before it calls the Ghost program to ghost the "C" drive. In
the process of backing up, Ghost can create more than one file - the
stored file size seems to be limited to 2 GB and then Ghost creates
another file. This process goes on until all data is stored.

It is very easy to "Restore" a file or files to their original folder on
"C". Likewise, it is easy to restore the whole of the "C" drive.

To me, this is a foolproof way of backing up because if one back up is
corrupted for any reason, the previous back up can be used. Also, drives
other than the "C" drive can be cloned onto the mobile rack.

You would need to buy the mobile rack, a hard drive and NG. If you
decide to go this way, I can send you the BAT files.

Another benefit is when upgrading your computer. Transfer the mobile
rack to the new computer and you have access to every file on your old
"C" drive.

Hope this is of some help.

Orf Bartrop

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