How do you backup your o/s?

[johns0]

I use backup software to create an image of the whole o/s drive.

[Baldrick]

I don't. I just backup my documents and workspace folders.

[deadrats]

i just put it in reverse, make sure there's no one behind me and i floor it.

seriously, i only back up my pirated porn and illegal movie/music downloads, everything else i just re-pirate as needed

[fritzi93]

Bootable clone to another hard drive for the OS. For data, backups to another hard drive plus backups to DVDRs.

[hech54]

Had to choose "other". I have backups of a naked install and one of the install with my favorite, vital(to me) programs. Everything else is just backups of data....photos mostly....but also my My Documents folder and my Downloads folder.

[gadgetguy]

I don't backup much, but what I do, I do manually.

[pepegot1]

I Backup an image to an external drive-God help the poor bastards who don't, unless they like reinstalling the OS. This has saved me on several occasions.

[deadrats]

I Backup an image to an external drive-God help the poor bastards who don't, unless they like reinstalling the OS. This has saved me on several occasions.

i'm a tad confused, you back up an image of the OS to an external hard drive? how does this help you in any way? in order to use an image on a hard disk you need to have an OS up and running, don't you?

[freebird73717]

Not necessarrily.

I don't know what pepegot1 uses but paragon backup does image backups that can easily be restored without a functioning os. If you ever need to restore you use the boot cd or flash drive (that you were prompted to create when you made your first image) to boot the computer. Then you can restore from your image on the external drive.

[johns0]

Most softwares that do full image backups have boot discs or flash drives that can be made,even windows 7 can do full image backups that can be accessed with a win7 install disc.

[pirej]

I do o/s partition backup(image) with "Paragon B&R", i have made my "boot cd", so i can restore the image with or without OS installed(functional).
I have 1 "clean install" image burnt to dvd's, i do backup's weekly on hdd, and 1 monthly on external hdd.
Paragon B&R and Acronis TI, saved me a lot of hours work, i do backups of all of the friend's PC's that i maintain.. FOR FREE.. as a friend

[zoobie]

I put XPP on every backup HDD I have just in case. Rather than using the OS disc itself, I find that it's much easier to use HDClone which has a free version. I just bought a 1TB HDD (Hitachi $49 delivered from Newegg) and the cloning worked perfectly.

I would like to hear of other cloning aps, too.

[budz]

I don't. I just backup my documents and workspace folders.

Ditto!

[redwudz]

I keep my important documents and files backed up on DVD, BD and external drives. I haven't backed up my OS and installed programs, but I probably should. I do have a copy of Acronis True Image and I like it for system BU.

[yoda313]

I generally don't.

I do have norton restore on a computer and an external harddrive but I haven't backed up recently. I usually just burn media files to disc as a backup for that stuff.

I really should do some more stuff like that to keep on top of it.

I do have a restore drive on my vista pc - oem hp model with a partitioned drive on it for restoring vista.

[cal_tony]

I have 2 clones of my hard drive.

Tony

[handyguy]

The topic is confusing, is it just your OS, or your HD? My OS came in a cd. It doesn't need to be backed up.

[pepegot1]

deadrats: read this:

I use Easeus Todo Backup and back up all drives(OS+Data) to an external HD. Then, if I get a virus or a HD fails, I can easily restore the drive from the external drive image to its recent status. It has come in handy, in the past, many times over the years! I have a second external drive to backup the first one as I have two computers. Each external drive has the image of both computers. If an external drive fails-I am still OK! Work smart-not hard.

[Seeker47]

I put XPP on every backup HDD I have just in case. Rather than using the OS disc itself, I find that it's much easier to use HDClone which has a free version. I just bought a 1TB HDD (Hitachi $49 delivered from Newegg) and the cloning worked perfectly.

I would like to hear of other cloning aps, too.

XPP ? Whazzat ?

I've used Acronis TI and DFSEE. (The latter is more techie, and less typical-user-friendly.) But there seem to be a few others around. Norton / Symantec GHOST was very big in this area for a long time, though I don't hear it mentioned so much these days. Dantz Retrospect ?

I like the idea of having a pristine install image + a reasonably current and fully populated one. Also like Cal_Tony's idea of having at least one "understudy" clone of the boot drive, ready to swap in. These are things I've done before, and am working on to have again.

So -- no one makes slipstreamed reinstall discs with all the OS patches, apps, and your numerous customizations ? This was supposed to be possible up through at least XP, and remains something I would like to explore.

[johns0]

The topic is confusing, is it just your OS, or your HD? My OS came in a cd. It doesn't need to be backed up.

How do you backup your o/s?

How is the topic confusing?You can backup your o/s to hd,flash drive or dvd/bd and even online. Backing up your o/s is done to save all your personal settings and programs,using your cd wont do that.

[marioval]

DriveImage XML

[handyguy]

The topic is confusing, is it just your OS, or your HD? My OS came in a cd. It doesn't need to be backed up.

How do you backup your o/s?

How is the topic confusing?You can backup your o/s to hd,flash drive or dvd/bd and even online. Backing up your o/s is done to save all your personal settings and programs,using your cd wont do that.

OS = operating system. e.g. W7, XP, comes on a cd or dvd.

If you want to backup everything then that would be a HD backup.

[zoobie]

XPP ? Whazzat ?

XP Pro

[jaodsvuda]

These days :

- Acronis to backup my primary partitions ( , but Paragon is my all-in-one "cup of tea") - full backups on DVDs ( at lower speed : e.g. x4 ) / incremental backups on logical partition
- important documents,projects - on external drive + DVDs
- important music/videos - on DVDs +/- external drive