A note of encouragement to action...

Hi friends,

Here we are at the beginning of a brand new year and I have a sobering question to toss in your direction. -- How serious would it be if your hard drive (which had previously displayed no apparent signs of problems) suddenly died and went to electronics heaven? Do you have all of those digital images of family and friends burned to a CD or DVD? What about all that music and all those letters and things that you have written in Word, the spreadsheets you've used in Excel, etc. for the past few years? If you suddenly lost all of that data, would it be only a temporary inconvenience, or would it be a gut-wrenching catastrophe?

For the past few years, I've been in the practice of backing up my systems from one hard drive to another. (FWIW, my choice of software for doing so is Norton Ghost 2003, though there are several good programs that will create such an image for you.) By choice, I create such images every Saturday. There haven't been many times when I've needed to restore an image (or a portion of one), but when those times have occurred, it has been a wonderful feeling to be able to solve the problem in only a matter of minutes. An additional procedure that is worth the trouble to me is to periodically burn important files to CD or DVD.

What brings all this to mind is the mysterious loss of sound on my secondary machine last night. For no rhyme nor reason, it went silent and stayed that way after a reboot. I spent some time "tinkering around" to see what might have happened, but to no avail. So I fired up Ghost, grabbed the C partition out of the full system image that I created last Saturday, and in about 10 or 12 minutes, I was back in business.

Obviously, there are different ways to protect your data. Some may be easier to carry out than others. The important thing is that you do something that will protect you from losing all of the "stuff" that all of us have, and treasure. I encourage you to give some serious thought to this concept, and to convert those thoughts into action immediately. When the chips are down and you need to rely on whatever backup process you have in place in order to regain access to files of importance, you'll be mighty glad that you did... Who will protect your data --if not you, who? If not now, when?

Happy Computing!

Limerick
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

Thanks for the post Limerick
I have been making "backups" using Windows backup utility and just now using Windows Live Care. I put my backups on an external drive. Question I have is how would I go about recovering from a disaster if one should arise. Do I reinstall Windows Xp and then go and recover my backup? Never had to do this and hopefully never will.
Thanks and Happy New Year

SyncBack is a flexible, and quite powerful backup and synchronization program that allows to to maintain backup copies of your files and folder, or to synchronize them, so that both locations always have a complete copy (e.g Laptop/PC). It offers different types of actions that let you choose how older and newer files are processed, which files should be excluded (by mask) and more. It offers standard file comparison based on the date and size, as well as optional MD5 checksum, which will detect even the slightest modifications to files. SyncBack also supports scheduled projects, FTP and zip compression of backups, as well as network login, simulation runs and more.

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/SyncBack/SyncBack.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tpm

Thanks for the post Limerick
Question I have is how would I go about recovering from a disaster if one should arise. Do I reinstall Windows Xp and then go and recover my backup? Never had to do this and hopefully never will.

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Hats off to you for doing something about protecting your data, Tom. So many computing enthusiasts just hope that nothing bad will ever happen to them, never do backups of any kind, and then when the wheels do finally come off -- it's oh, mercy! :mad:

My concern with your approach is what you would do if Windows suffers a catastrophic breakdown and you are not able to get back into Windows. A good question to ask might be "What is my next step now?" Who wants to reinstall the OS and then hope for the best? Not me...

That's one of the appealing capabilities of Ghost that keeps me using it, year after year. If the above scenario happened here, I could boot to a floppy with Ghost on it, grab the most recent image from the other drive, restore the image, pull the floppy out, reboot, and I'm back in Windows XP just like I was before the crash. Another plus is that when installing a new hard drive, you don't even need to format (or partition) it, Ghost does it automatically when laying the image back down....

Limerick

A couple of years ago while trying to ghost with Nortons 2003 I somehow got caught between before and after. I went through the process of ghosting an image and then if I remember right when I went to reboot I couldn't get back to windows. During the reinstall process I did see the operating system was still there but unaccessible. When I get the courage up I will give it another go. Meanwhile if I did have to recover would it be as I said? reinstall windows and then recover one of my backups to put it back the way it was?
Thanks

Excellent, limerick....this is much needed....especially by me..:o I bought Acronis True Image 9.0 some time ago and have only burned a complete copy of my hdd once...:o I never was sure of what exactly that I needed to copy...the whole hdd...just certain parts...so I just copied the whole hdd.
Now that I have my first Granddaughter and already have lots of irreplaceable pictures, I know that it is even more important now to keep those pixes safely copied.

I also have Partition Magic 8 and made a couple of rescue floppies from that. I need to read thru the info about that and get familiar with what those rescue floppies do, exactly....as of this moment...I don't remember...:o

Any other suggestions and info about how to do proper back-ups will be welcome.

Thanks again, limerick...keep after us lazy folks!!!

My strategy is to take a multi-pronged approach to backup. For the OS partition I make regular images using Acronis True Image. I keep all important data on a separate drive to that which the OSs are installed on, so whatever happens to Windows, I don't have to worry about my data. I will back up that data to an external HD, to DVDR, and to the other computer on the LAN. I do that on different days, so that I always have a recent backup, and even if a backup was corrupt I would never lose more than a couple of days worth of data. I also back up the Acronis image files to external hard drive or the other PC.

Like many experienced PC users, I discovered the need for backups the hard way :( Let's hope this thread will help others to learn from my mistakes and back up their data before disaster strikes.

Just remember hard drives are mechanical devices, and WILL fail sooner or later.

How many of us have had a BSOD or power failure and upon booting up have gotten a UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME error?

Then we find out that we can not fix it with recovery console.

How many thousands of Dollar$ are you willing to spend for forensic/ recovery work?


20 minutes now can keep your wallet from getting one serious beating!

Backup anything you do not want to lose.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SuperSparks

Just remember hard drives are mechanical devices, and WILL fail sooner or later.

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Ain't that the truth! After years and years of having hard drives that ran non-stop for long periods of time (and none ever failing), I encountered a bad year in 2006. Within the space of only a few months, I had an 80 GB and a 60 GB to just "up and die" on me. I would have been in a world of hurt had I not had current backups stored on other drives.

Limerick

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tpm

Meanwhile if I did have to recover would it be as I said? reinstall windows and then recover one of my backups to put it back the way it was?
Thanks

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From what you've said about the means that you are using, that sounds like the only thing that you could do at that point.

Limerick

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

SyncBack is a flexible, and quite powerful backup and synchronization program that allows to to maintain backup copies of your files and folder, or to synchronize them, so that both locations always have a complete copy (e.g Laptop/PC).

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Thanks for posting that link, Steve. I visited there and read some of the reviews, which were mixed. A product like that may work well for some, but being an old "DOS-head" myself, I prefer a solution that does not depend on having Windows up and running.

Limerick

Train stopped by and left a reply of considerable importance --

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Train

Backup anything you do not want to lose.

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I may have mentioned it on here before, but this reminds me of a time when I worked for a software company in Baton Rouge. I did phone support in those days for a backup product called "Fastback Plus." It was a wonderful program, in that it had lots of power and capabilities for a product of its day...

A desperate lady called one day. Her computer had suffered a severe crash and I walked her through the process of restoring her most recent backup. (Which had been done about 19 months prior to that day.) When the restore was complete, she was thrilled to see that the files had been successfully restored. But then as she began to look at payroll files etc., that she was most concerned about, she said that she didn't see any files that were recent. When I explained to her that she now had her system back to the state that it was in when that backup set had been made 19 months ago, she really lost it. The poor thing thought that by doing a restore, her system would somehow magically become just like it was the day before it crashed. :eek: Moral of the story -- while old backups may not be entirely useless, their value is definitely limited.

FWIW, I had another rather unpleasant experience while doing that job, that I don't think I'll ever forget. Another lady had me to walk her through a restore of a backup set that was on about two dozen 5 1/4" floppies. We got to the point where I asked her (just as I had previously done with many other clients) whether she wanted to overwrite her existing files. She said "yes" and I told her how to set an additional switch in Fastback to allow that to happen. The restore went without a hitch and she began to look at the files. She began to get really alarmed and said that she didn't see any of her current files, just the older ones. I explained to her that when I asked her, she said that she wanted to overwrite them, and that in that process, they had been replaced with the contents of that backup set. She began screaming at me, saying some very unkind things. I learned from that call never to use the word "overwrite" again. From that day on, I always asked "Do you want to destroy the existing files and replace them with the files in the backup..." Indeed, we live and learn. ;)

Well, enough of my musing... yes, I hope that this thread creates an awareness of how important it is to have a backup plan that is worth the effort put into maintaining it.

Limerick

To give you an idea, this is a very short list of possible things that can happen:
· HDD failure
· Data-destroying virus
· Accidental format of wrong drive or other user error
· Corruption caused by a disk operation such as partition resizing
· Other random corruption
· Static electricity
· Flood
· Fire
· Any other weather related storm
· Deleted on purpose by someone malicious (through internet, or physical access)
· Confiscated by the Police/FBI/etc

There are many more ways it can happen. Most of these have a low enough odd, but do you really want to take that chance?

Well, now that I have had the proverbial cup of cold water tossed in my face, I need to take the next step which is to decide which kind of extra, simple to use..relatively inexpensive ( maybe around $100.00 )..storage device to get....another internal hdd ( wouldn't 250Gb be sufficient...or even less?)...or an external hdd ( don't know much about those).

I think that I would probably keep my pixes burned to cd's or dvd's...which would result in not needing such a huge hdd capacity...unless I wanted to have multiple redundancy and also keep the pixes on the back up hdd??

I have other questions but I'll just stop here and take this in several steps.

Hmm ironically with my old Gateway system I used to use Ghost 2002 to back up about every 3 days.

Towards the end of it's life that was coming in very useful.

My new Dell system came with Raid 1 Mirror on dual 250Gb HD and Ghost 10 creating backups on a second partition on the drive.

Needless to say in my first days of tinkering, I turned of raid and also stopped the Ghost 10 schedule in preparation for doing it myself manually.

About 3 weeks in and I hadn't got round to setting it up and was tinkering around with raid in the bios and wiped my hard drives.

Had to resinstall from scratch and then restore files and emails from my old PC.

So lost 3 weeks worth of email plus any docs etc my wife had updated and all the stuff she'd set up in the Outlook 2003 calendar. She was not impressed.

Lucklily was able to retrieve some additional pictures that were still on the Digital Camera.

Had I gotten round to wiping the old HD and data from my old PC, we would have lost that too as I hadn't backed it up recently either.

You can guess what I immeditelty started doing once I was back up to running again. Almost daily backups now and lots of DVDs full of photos, MP3, My Documents etc etc from old PC and new.

I've gotten into the habit of keeping two 1gig USB drives plugged in to the front slots on my unit and when ever I create a file, picture, install file or anything I want to save I load it to the USB's and keep it there for back up.

I use Opera browser and every time I save a new page into my Bookmarks now I hit <file>export Opera Bookmarks> , send it to the file already saved on my USB drive and get the "do you want to replace" thing and click "Yes". This way I always have an up to date copy of my bookmarks so if I have to reinstall windows for any reason it only takes five minutes to set my browser back up with all the links and bookmarks just the way I had them before.
I also do this with my email contacts so that I always have those if needed.

I love the USB drives, you don't need any software programs to make an image or anything and you don't need an extra hard drive.

Of course this isn't the same as having a complete Image backup on a seperate HD but I can't really afford all that and don't want to fool with it anyway. This is the poor mans backup system! lol

Are there any free good ghosting programs out there with easy to understand directions? Or should I use my Nortons 2003 ghosting software

There is one called "ImageAll" from here:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html

I have no idea how good it is.

rythymace...USB flashdrives....I have seen them but had never really paid much attention to them....they look like a good addition or maybe alternative to using cd's or dvd's. I looked at some at Newegg and read a few reviews and most people really like them.

Keeping pixes , documents, letters, stuff like that on the flash drives seems as good a choice as using cd's or dvd's....is there any info as to the life of those flashdrives as compared to cd's & dvd's...and I'm talking about keeping the flashdrives in one place...on my desk...not swinging on a key chain.

But XP Pro needs several Gig's....a separate hdd is needed , isn't it?

When I did my one & only back up many months ago, I didn't really know how to get just the files & folders for XP Pro without possibly missing something....that's why I just copied the entire hdd. So...what would be wrong with just backing up the entire hdd on a regular basis....that would get everything all at once...and wouldn't the new back up replace the previous back up and not take up much more room....especially if I had a hdd. of perhaps 250Gb's?

Now, of course, I would be copying my pixes...letters...etc...to something else as well....maybe those USB flashdrives?

I really like Acronis True Image, see http://www.acronis.com/.

Version 10 is the latest and greatest. They also have an excellent partition managment program, Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0.

Cheers,

Linda

Stevejr, pondering the backup possibilities that are out there, asked the question:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stevejr

So...what would be wrong with just backing up the entire hdd on a regular basis....that would get everything all at once...and wouldn't the new back up replace the previous back up and not take up much more room....especially if I had a hdd. of perhaps 250Gb's?

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Nothing wrong at all. There's also nothing wrong with having several backup sets stored on your backup drive. I have one that is a couple years old,and I keep it with other backup sets for it contains files that I have since removed from my system. But if I ever need to access them, I can extract them out of that Ghost backup through the use of Ghost Explorer.

Backup programs are able to use compression at varying levels. That is, if you want to utilize a moderate amount of compression, the backup speed will be pretty quick, though it will take up more space. You can also opt for a very tight compression, which will take up less space on the drive, but will take longer for the backup process to be completed. There are lots of ways that you can go with this...

Happy Computing!

Limerick
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

One thing I like to do, after a clean install of Windows, is to get it set up just the way I like it, but without installing anything beyond the barest minimum. Then I activate it and make an image of it. So if ever I need a clean install of Windows I don't have to start from scratch, I can just restore that image, grab the latest drivers and install whatever software I want.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SuperSparks

One thing I like to do, after a clean install of Windows, is to get it set up just the way I like it, but without installing anything beyond the barest minimum. Then I activate it and make an image of it. So if ever I need a clean install of Windows I don't have to start from scratch, I can just restore that image, grab the latest drivers and install whatever software I want.

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Bravo! That's an excellent approach, Nick. I've been doing the exact same thing for several years, as well as capturing a Ghost image at various intervals of installation. That makes it very easy to get back to a specific point if the need arises. Note: I always type a lot of stuff in the text box (Ghost properties) that corresponds with the backup that I'm creating, telling myself exactly what it is that I'm backing up. As time passes, it may not be easy to remember "what's what", but by annotating the backup when you do it, you can tell what it contains in a matter of seconds.

It grieves me to hear a friend or coworker say something like "Oh, man! Over the weekend my computer crashed big time. I had to reinstall Windows and then hunt up all the drivers and stuff and then do the configuration of everything. I worked on it all day long on Saturday and it was a nightmare!" That's when I tell them that if such happened to me, in 30 minutes I'd be back up and running with everything working as desired...

Happy Computing!

Limerick
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SuperSparks

One thing I like to do, after a clean install of Windows, is to get it set up just the way I like it, but without installing anything beyond the barest minimum. Then I activate it and make an image of it. So if ever I need a clean install of Windows I don't have to start from scratch, I can just restore that image, grab the latest drivers and install whatever software I want.

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Thats exactly what I did after my disk wipe faux pas. Windows and required software install, Windows Update, Other Software patches, Ghost Image to second HD, Burn copy to DVD, Copy to another partition on 2nd HD and hide partition for additional backup that can't be deleted accidentally.

Of course now I can't remember if I copied across all of my favorites, files, pics, mp3s, email etc before I ghosted or not.

ie was it a ready to go 'totally clean install' or was it that one step further.

Either way I've got all the other stuff backed up to DVDs now too so it wouldn't be too hard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stevejr

rythymace...USB flashdrives....I have seen them but had never really paid much attention to them....they look like a good addition or maybe alternative to using cd's or dvd's. I looked at some at Newegg and read a few reviews and most people really like them.

Keeping pixes , documents, letters, stuff like that on the flash drives seems as good a choice as using cd's or dvd's....is there any info as to the life of those flashdrives as compared to cd's & dvd's...and I'm talking about keeping the flashdrives in one place...on my desk...not swinging on a key chain.

But XP Pro needs several Gig's....a separate hdd is needed , isn't it?

When I did my one & only back up many months ago, I didn't really know how to get just the files & folders for XP Pro without possibly missing something....that's why I just copied the entire hdd. So...what would be wrong with just backing up the entire hdd on a regular basis....that would get everything all at once...and wouldn't the new back up replace the previous back up and not take up much more room....especially if I had a hdd. of perhaps 250Gb's?

Now, of course, I would be copying my pixes...letters...etc...to something else as well....maybe those USB flashdrives?

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Steve, since I never attempted it I don't really know if you could make an entire image to a USB drive the same as you can or would to a HD. Maybe someone else can help with that answer. I certainly think size would not be a problem, as I know you can now get flash drives in 2 gigs or more and the prices have really come down.

As to longevity the flash drive is very good as far as I know, it should be as good as a commercial CD and probably better than a "burned" CD you make yourself as long as kept and stored in reasonable conditions.

Up to now I just use the flash drive as a way to instantly backup install files, Pictures, Bookmarks and Email contacts and of course things PDF files and documents. I also keep my Password manager on it so when I need to use a relatives computer I just plug it in (the flash drive), enter my master password and there I have all my passwords to various financial and other sites at hand so I don't have to remember the passwords or URLs. I use Password Agent 'Lite' from Moon software.
http://www.moonsoftware.com/pwagent.asp

Stevejr,

I think that backups to either an external hard drive or a USB flash drive.

NTI has a program, Ninja for USB drives, where you can partition, encrypt or hide a partition.

http://www.ntius.com/ninja.asp

Quote:

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NTI Ninja™

For Windows® 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP

NTI Ninja is exciting software that maximizes data protection by using a driver level encryption technology to create private and public partitions on USB storage devices. Ninja allows you to easily access and share commonly used data on the public partition, while simultaneously restrict and hide access to confidential data on the private partition of your drive.

What You Do With Ninja, Stays with Ninja!

Key Features

1. Creates a public partition & a private hidden partition on any USB storage device

2. Encrypts and password-protects your private partition

3. User selects the amount of workspace for each partition

4. Supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS, and includes a Quick Format option

5. Automatically detects & prompts you for your password when you plug in your USB device

6. Includes a password Hint when you need it

Key Benefits

1. Safeguards your data from theft and unwanted access

2. Keeps common data fully sharable & portable while hiding your private data

3. Great for students, business road warriors, and all users of USB drives

4. Works with USB flash drives, micro drives, external hard disk drives & more!

5. Great for protecting homework, confidential reports, journals, financial Information - even those treasured photos from Vegas!

6. Installs fast - Intuitive interface makes Ninja easy to use

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Cheers,

Linda

Yes , some programs let you image and clone to a USB hdd. Some even let you do those things to another drive over a network. That means through the lan to a hdd on another computer.

To some of us, a image of a clean install is important, but one thing for sure, to all of us, that which goes into My Documents, or whatever folder you use, is the one that we need to backup.

Learn to backup email, and whatever else you need/like to save also. But most of those folders can be moved to another partition. Once you have done that, figure out how to put it back/import/copy/paste to where it should be on a so you will be able to access it again.

Figure out what you would HATE to lose AND how to get it back to where it will do you some good. Whether is be the likes NTBackup/Ghost/copy/paste/Burning or anthing else you can find. Just make sure you can successfully use your back up. Even if that requires buying a 2nd hdd and doing the the recovery in practice.

There are limitation even with imagining, like a new mobo will require a clean install.

Lots of areas we have to cover, some of us more areas than others.

Anyone get a USB drive near a loudspeaker/magnetic field, may have a real nasty surprise in store for them.

Some things I do :

Once a month , Ghost HD#1 contents to HD#2 and also to USB HD .
Outlook .pst file is kept on seperate partition on HD#1.
Favourites , etc.. are also stored on seperate partition on HD#1 .

I learned the hard way about 4 years ago and since then I haven't lost a thing . Touch wood !

Paul

Train, you are correct...it doesn't do any good to have stuff backed up if you don't know how to recover that info. When I copied my entire hdd several months ago my software said that the copy was successful...and that's as far as I went. But because I didn't have a 2nd hdd to put the copy on to see if it really worked...and because I didn't know what would happen if I ran the dvd ( would it automatically start trying to install the copy over the current copy...would it somehow mess up the current copy....I didn't know...didn't want to take the chance...so I did nothing). Obviously there are lots of basic processes that I am not familiar with....I am exposing my lack of computer know how here...be kind to me...!!!

I need to keep my back ups simple to do....and easy to retrieve info from when necessary. I remember reading where someone would only back up certain files & folders which I didn't really follow very well and the process just confused me...and I think that maybe others might be apprehensive about being able to easily do back ups...as I was.

For myself, I am leaning toward getting either another internal or perhaps external hdd ( what would ya'll suggest...usb external okay?) for entire hdd back ups ( yea, I'm lazy!!)...then maybe flash drives for pixes & other personal stuff...and even use cd's or dvd's for same pixes, etc...redundancy. If redundancy is good enough for NASA....then it's good enough for me, too!!

I am exposing my lack of computer know how here...be kind to me...!!!

How do you think I learned all that? The hard way! That is how.

Most of us have towers and they will take a 2nd hard drive or we can place it where the ribbon and cables from the case will reach and try the restore with the on board completely disconnected. Being disconnected, nothing will bother it.

USB external hdds. They have there uses, but will your computer boot from it via the BIOS? Will your imagine program be able to work with it?
Like image/clone back from it. Some of the usb hdds can only be copy/paste or use Sendto with because of various BIOS and other restrictions. :(

Do not forget you can add something like a ATA133 PCI controller and add 4 more ide devices. May have to upgrade your power supply though. That depends somewhat on your case.

One with Drive Bays like this
5 x 5.25"
2 x 3.5"
4 x 3.5"

You could get 6 hdds and 2 DVD burners in it easily.

Train...I really like my case...it has 4 ide connections..no problem adding more hdd's...and thanks for the info about usb externals...I will just add another internal hdd.(I had been meaning to add a 2nd hdd for a while...now I have a real need for one.)

I'm not clear about your second paragraph....you mean that the primary hdd can be dis-connected while trying the restore on the 2nd, back up hdd...to make sure that nothing can accidentally mess up the primary??

Like I said...love my case. I have a cd-writer,dvd r/rw,fan controller, floppy, big 120mm fan on bottom and still have two 5.25" bays left.

Also..see sig...Enermax 485w.psu....plenty of juice!!

Quick clarification....I have 4 sata connections for hdd's...not 4 ide connections ( I have 2 of those). I already have the 1 sata hdd...will add another sata hdd..

I'm not clear about your second paragraph....you mean that the primary hdd can be dis-connected while trying the restore on the 2nd, back up hdd...to make sure that nothing can accidentally mess up the primary??


Yes, Just unplug the boot Sata and plug the new on in using the same mobo connector.

Remember if the present one is disconnected completely, it is safe.

I see...so plugging the back up hdd into the same sata connector will fool the Bios into thinking that the first hdd is still there....but why is that important?

First boot hdd. As set in the BIOS. Believe me, it will be a save your hair type of trick.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Train

Learn to backup email, and whatever else you need/like to save also. But most of those folders can be moved to another partition. Once you have done that, figure out how to put it back/import/copy/paste to where it should be on a so you will be able to access it again.

Figure out what you would HATE to lose AND how to get it back to where it will do you some good.

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One thing I like to do, and I post it here for benefit of any who have not thought of doing it, is for instance I use a program called Webshots that let's me download screen savers, wall papers etc. If I have to reformat or reinstall windows it's easy to reinstall the program but what about all those wallpapers and screensaver pics? I learned to find where Webshots stores the collections and backup that folder to my flash drive so that I don't have to re-download all those files again. When I do my reinstall or whatever I just copy the folder from my flash drive and paste it into the proper folder in Webshots, replacing the one that comes with the reinstall that only has a "sample" folder in it and voila! I have my entire collection installed and ready to go in minutes.

Also in another similar situation I use Opera Browser which allows you to download Skins. There are a couple hundred pages of skins for opera and if you have to do a reinstall it can take forever to find the ones you like again and download them. So I do the same with the skins as I do with the Webshots program.

My question is this, CAN a USB flash drive (not USB HDD) be used to backup a ghost image? I mean of an entire operating systeme and all it's programs installed? I've really not ever used a ghost program so don't know how they work at all. Will my bios recognise a Flash drive with and operating system? Or could the flash drive only be used as storage for the copy and for everything to work it would have to be transferred back to a standard HDD? I hope I've stated that correctly. It would be kinda cool I guess if I could back up my entire HDD to a flash drive and if a problem arises just format the hard drive and install the image (from the FD) and be back in business. Can that be done? IF so would that prevent the problem of having to "re register" my windows OS with microsoft.

If big enough, I see no reason why not. But a 16GB USB 2.0 USB Flash is about $360. :eek: :eek:

I find a 750GB hdd to be a tad cheaper at newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...SubCategory=14

Well, those Flash are not quite so bad at newegg it seems.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...hdrive&Ntk=all

Still quite a size difference. 16GB vs. 500GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...hdrive&Ntk=all

First boot hdd in Bios....Darn!! shouldv'e known that one!!

My hair has been disappearing too quickly as it is these past few years...no need to help it along!!

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Originally Posted by Train

If big enough, I see no reason why not. But a 16GB USB 2.0 USB Flash is about $360. :eek: :eek:

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Why so big? My W/XP Home sp2 disk only contains 556MB. My entire HDD right now with all programs installed and lot's of stuff I could get rid of is only 8 gigs.

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Originally Posted by stevejr

My hair has been disappearing too quickly as it is these past few years...no need to help it along!!

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Now why does that sound familiar. :rolleyes: