Windows 7 forum: Back Up Media

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Answer Best answer as chosen by user 17-gemini

I think your confusing ram with hard drive

by TWB404 - 3/29/12 9:13 AM

In Reply to: Back Up Media by 17-gemini

When you use the term 4GB, I think your referring to your ram. Your hard drive should be 300GB or larger. If you post the model number we can help more in that area.

There are many different kinds of backups. If your wanting to image the entire hard drive which is probably partitioned into 4 drives the that is going to take a while but should not take all night. It takes me about 10 mins to image 14GB. I recommend that you image each partition. That will be easier. You can use the program below but I recommend that you burn the bootable disk and make your images without Windows running. Others people will do it with Windows running but I think you get a better image if you do it from a bootable disk.

http://download.cnet.com/Acronis-True-Image-Home-2012/3000-2242_4-10168093.html?tag=mncol;6

You can also clone the hard drive. There are good programs for that to. I prefer the image method and others prefer the clone method. It is a either or method.

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Answer Best answer as chosen by user 17-gemini

Backing up is essential but one question

by Steven Haninger - 3/29/12 11:20 AM

In Reply to: Back Up Media by 17-gemini

Did your laptop come with a utility to create restore media on CD/DVDs? If so, I'd do that right away. It should allow you to restore the HD to it's original factory image should the drive become corrupt or need to be replaced. As for hard drive images using the Windows utility, you'll need more than a small flash drive. I'd use another HD or even DVD media for that and you can expect the original image to take 3-5 DVD disks. Making it to another HD such as an external can be run unattended once the process starts. I like the imaging method but you don't want to do this only once. You're better off doing creating images at some regular interval so that when (not if) the need to restore the system happens, the image will be more current. Also make a habit of backing up your user document folders.

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Back Up Media

by 17-gemini - 3/29/12 12:33 PM

In Reply to: Backing up is essential but one question by Steven Haninger

TBW404 and Steven

Thank you very much for your kind and useful replies.
Yes the size of the HD is 300GB (Toshiba Satellite C600D), I got it mixed up with memory RAM (red-faced)
I created a Repair disc but as the laptop did not come with an installation disc, I thought I'd better back up the HD using Windows 7's creating an image utility (basically the same with Acronis, I suppose).

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Just what I learned.

by R. Proffitt - 3/29/12 12:51 PM

In Reply to: Back Up Media by 17-gemini

Microsoft's backup and restore has failed so many times over the year that I don't trust their system here.

My advice is to use ANYTHING ELSE for this backup.
Bob

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I will second Bob's comment

by DChrisL - 4/1/12 8:52 AM

In Reply to: Just what I learned. by R. Proffitt

I found I could use NERO Multimedia 10 Suite, get DVD-R to do that backup - it ha NERO Backitup Agent. Darrell

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You mentioned Acronis

by Steven Haninger - 3/29/12 4:42 PM

In Reply to: Back Up Media by 17-gemini

That's what I use. Previously I used Drive Image from PowerQuest but they got bought by Symantec and ditched them long ago. I've tried the free Clonezilla program. It works but takes much longer and creates a set of 2.1 GB files rather than the one file that Acronis makes. There are other cloning/imaging programs that may be just as good or better but Acronis hasn't failed me so I've stayed with it. It has a few nice features that I like. One of these, if you have the program install on the hard drive, is the ability to exact individual files or folders from a saved image. Good luck.

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Repair CD vs Restore DVD

by TWB404 - 3/30/12 7:51 AM

In Reply to: Back Up Media by 17-gemini

You mentioned that you created the repair CD. I do not want to be to picky here but the repair CD is different form the factory restore DVD. If you made the restore DVD, you should have 4 or 5 of them. If you just created the repair CD you only have one of them. The repair CD is important but without the restore DVD you could pay the price down the road. It is very important to have the complete set of the restore DVD in case of a complete hard drive failure and it needs to be replaced.

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Back Up Media

by 17-gemini - 3/30/12 9:16 AM

In Reply to: Repair CD vs Restore DVD by TWB404

Hi

A repair disc is for starting Windows up when it fails to boot but I don't know the difference between restore disc and repair disc...

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I call it restore

by TWB404 - 3/30/12 10:14 AM

In Reply to: Back Up Media by 17-gemini

I just looked and it is called recovery media creation. I do not own a Toshiba but I am sure that all puters sold today have the ability to make the DVD so you can restore the hard drive back to the way it came from the factory. You might look in all programs for a Toshiba folder and see if the recovery media creation program is in it. You can also call up the help and support and type in recovery media creation.

I can not stress enough how important these DVD are. You need to make them and treat them like gold. I would also recommend that after you make them that you make an ISO of each one and keep the ISO on an external hard drive just in case something happens to the DVD you make.

I have 2 external hard drives for back ups and ISO. I also have them on thumb drives just in case. You might say that I am overly cautious when it comes to back up. To quote the moderators. You only lose what you do not have backed up.

You can use the program below to make ISO after you make the recovery DVD.

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

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Most is on flash drives except HP_RECOVERY(D:)

by DChrisL - 4/1/12 8:56 AM

In Reply to: I call it restore by TWB404

latter is on a dvd+r

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