need to back up a hd

[kenshin-dono]

so im finally sending my laptop out for repair. Found out that they had actually extended the warranty because of a lawsuit against the Nvidia graphic card that was in it

Anyway, I was wondering what I should use to completely back up the HD. They'll probably have to wipe it. I bought a Hitatchi turo external HD to back it up to. I dont think the sofware on it is really all that great though. what i read sounds like i can just do some kinda scheduled partial backups. Anyone know if there is a good free program to do a complete backup of an entire hardrive? Also, i hear about imaging a HD, but dont really know what that is.. should i try to do that, or just do a regular old straight copy? I need to do it in the next day or two, im running an error check on it right now with HDtune

^_^x KD

[kitamesume]

...

"copy & paste", technically embedded to any OS known to date.

backing up an OS and installing it to a different device(possibly instead of giving you your unit back they'd send a refurbished one) will not work. so yea, you only need to backup the files that are needed.

[Bob2004]

backing up an OS and installing it to a different device(possibly instead of giving you your unit back they'd send a refurbished one) will not work. so yea, you only need to backup the files that are needed.

Actually, depending on the version of Windows, it might well work. If the hardware in the laptop they send back is roughly the same as you have now, then in theory it should work absolutely fine. And even if there are a few differences with certain pieces of hardware (eg. graphic card), it should still work. It's only if the motherboard/cpu are different that mirroring the drive wouldn't work, in theory. In fact, with Windows Vista/7, even if the motherboard is different, it should still, in theory work fine. And, since it recovers everything, it has the advantage of making sure you don't forget to backup some important file (which always happens to me).

Windows Vista and Windows 7 have a tool for completely backing up your entire hard disk which can then be used to restore Windows later. It's in control panel -> backup & restore -> create a system image. You can then use a Windows install cd to load it onto the laptop once you get it back.

If it turns out that you aren't able to get your recovered image to work properly on your replacement laptop (which is quite possible), then you can still use the recovery image to access all your files manually as though you just copy/pasted them (though there are a couple of extra steps, it's nothing complicated - see here for instructions).

[kitamesume]

theres one thing that always fucked up that theory when i do it, machines have a certain code that gets registered in the registry, trying to move the OS would make a bigger mess than going for a fresh install, well since backing up and reapplying kinda as fast as going for a clean install... you know what happened next.

but sure, i've seen some do it successfully, just that doing it myself haven't been successful at all XD

[datora]

.

I was wondering what I should use to completely back up the HD.

Acronis.  This can create a perfect image of a drive, which can then be imaged back to the computer and it will run exactly like it did at the moment the image was created.  Copies abound at the Bay of Pirates.

However, several drive manufacturers provide free versions for use with their products.  Western Digital, for example:

 - http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119

As long as one Western Digital drive is detected on your system it will work for free, even imaging one drive to another of manufacturers other than Western Digital (for example, I imaged a source Samsung drive to an Hitachi drive because a completely uninvolved Western Digital drive was detected in an external case over a USB port).  Read the user manual that you can download in *.pdf.  You should be ready to image your drive in about 30 minutes or less.  Can take several hours for the image to be created depending on amount of data on the source drive and connection speed (I try not to use USB 2.0 for drives with over ~250 GB data on them, for example).


If you just want to back up data & don't care about the OS or installed programs, I have mine organized into directories and just copy the directories.  Pre-Win7, it used to be easy to copy your user profile &/or My Documents folder.  Win7 has made that a royal pain in the ass now, changing the structure of that and hiding it behind it's "libraries" concept.

If your data isn't well-organized, a drive image might be your best option.  The image you make can still be read as a remote storage device and you can slowly crawl through the drive and copy everything back that's important once you get your laptop back.  Last year I had three drives fail as boot drives, but slapped each one into an external case and have been able to check & copy directory by directory to recover all the important data, even though all my installed software was lost.

[fohfoh]

Actually, I've taken an install from one laptop and used it on another laptop successfully without modification. You just get weird errors and fuckups with drivers which IIRC after an update, is resolved. However, I don't think you are able to validate the HDD (Not that I even bothered to see if it was possible though)

Put an SSD from one laptop into another, with similar specs... yes... but still.

Win 7 OS PRO though. Don't know if it's an important point to mention.

[Freedom Kira]

There isn't really a point in imaging your drive for this. It sounds like you only really want to save all your files, rather than the entire drive. Programs can be reinstalled, after all.

As for moving drives around, it does work with XP the way fohfoh described; I've tried it myself. The hardware does have to be reasonably similar, though. In Windows 7 Pro, though, I tried to image a RAID 0 array of SSDs into one SSD, and it just plain refuses to boot properly, no matter what I did, including BIOS settings, Intel RST settings, and such. So there does seem to be some extra issues with Win7 that may screw you over. I don't see why a direct image from one hard drive to an identical hard drive would cause issues though, as long as it's put into the same machine.

Anyway, what I would do is take out the hard drive before sending it in, if the repairs you need don't involve the hard drive at all. Be sure to check with them to see if this is okay before you do so, of course.

[Bob2004]

There isn't really a point in imaging your drive for this. It sounds like you only really want to save all your files, rather than the entire drive. Programs can be reinstalled, after all.

As for moving drives around, it does work with XP the way fohfoh described; I've tried it myself. The hardware does have to be reasonably similar, though. In Windows 7 Pro, though, I tried to image a RAID 0 array of SSDs into one SSD, and it just plain refuses to boot properly, no matter what I did, including BIOS settings, Intel RST settings, and such. So there does seem to be some extra issues with Win7 that may screw you over. I don't see why a direct image from one hard drive to an identical hard drive would cause issues though, as long as it's put into the same machine.

Anyway, what I would do is take out the hard drive before sending it in, if the repairs you need don't involve the hard drive at all. Be sure to check with them to see if this is okay before you do so, of course.

In theory, it should work even better in Windows 7 than in Windows XP, because it uses a new driver model which makes it completely hardware-independent. With XP, you have to completely reinstall the OS if you replace the motherboard or cpu, but with Windows 7 you don't have to. Obviously this is all in theory; in practice there are so many things that can go wrong, that you can never tell whether it'll work or not until you try.

My advice is still to make an image of the drive and give it a go, because if it doesn't work, you can just mount the image and recover your files from there easily anyway, and you haven't lost anything. If you try and just back up the files you want by themselves, you're guaranteed to forget something until after you've wiped the old drive and it's too late to get it back; with a disk image, you know that everything is safe and sound.

[kenshin-dono]

Ok, people started talking about imaging a drive but not really clarifying what that means o_O Im not really clear on what it is. It sounds like it basically copies everything over and lets you restore it like nothing changed, and still use the programs, ect. If thats the way to go id need a good program to do it with. Acronis sounds decent but i was looking for something free and easy to use that i dont have to hunt a pirated version for

WHen my sister spilled crap all over her laptop and sent it out it got backed up to an external. On that it basically had a folder that had all the file structures that were on the hard-drive but in a folder form. I.e. It had C: then everything in there, everything on desktop, my documents, ect. Thats what i want to do. My files are all mixed up everywhere, just drag and dropping will take forever, and i think just dragging the C: drive over would cause problems and take a long time wouldn't it?

WHats the best way to get it like my sisters drive was? Was that a HD image?

.
If you just want to back up data & don't care about the OS or installed programs, I have mine organized into directories and just copy the directories.  Pre-Win7, it used to be easy to copy your user profile &/or My Documents folder.  Win7 has made that a royal pain in the ass now, changing the structure of that and hiding it behind it's "libraries" concept.

If your data isn't well-organized, a drive image might be your best option.  The image you make can still be read as a remote storage device and you can slowly crawl through the drive and copy everything back that's important once you get your laptop back.  Last year I had three drives fail as boot drives, but slapped each one into an external case and have been able to check & copy directory by directory to recover all the important data, even though all my installed software was lost.

There isn't really a point in imaging your drive for this. It sounds like you only really want to save all your files, rather than the entire drive. Programs can be reinstalled, after all.

This. The bold parts are what im kinda shooting for. I really just want all the files on the HD. I should also clarify this was a windows XP system (i skipped vista cuz it was shit)

So whats the best way for me to just get to all the files? Imaging? Drag and drop? Some backup program? I have a ton of text files with info, images, and anime spread everywhere. As well as tons of bookmarks and other things i want to recover.  There were some programs i like but i think i also have the install programs scattered about. Luckily i quit warcraft a while back so i dont need to save that =P

Anyway, what I would do is take out the hard drive before sending it in, if the repairs you need don't involve the hard drive at all. Be sure to check with them to see if this is okay before you do so, of course.

the graphic card is pretty much fried. It kinda works sometims but usually not. I would love to just take the HD out, but i didn't request to do so at the time, plus, honestly im not comfortable taking a laptop apart like that. It will probably void my warranty anyway. A destop is fine, but laptops are a pain. Especially dells.

I was thinking of trying to do this today since i need to send it out really soon. Hopefully i get some replies by this afternoon. I would just drag the entire C drive over but im worried if something stalls partway or theres an problem that will screw it up. Im also not sure if that will get the destop and other stuff. Hell maybe the hitatchi backup program would work

^_^x KD

[Bob2004]

If you just want to backup your files, then yeah, just copy/paste the contents of drive C: onto your backup drive. Then you can just copy paste whatever you need back onto the new laptop. Just remember, you won't be able to restore Windows from it, at all, since there's a lot of stuff Windows needs which can't be accessed, or which can't be moved while the OS is running (as well as the FAT, boot loader, system partition, etc), and these won't get copied - this includes all your settings. It also means there'll be a lot of wasted space on the backup drive (since you won't be wanting most of the Windows files etc if you can't use them), but it is the best way to ensure you backup absolutely everything you might want.

A disk image is, quite simply, a file, which contains the entire contents of your hard disk. The program you use to create it will basically make a perfect copy of your hard disk, contained inside this file. You can then use a program to restore the contents of this file back onto your hard disk, restoring it to the exact state it was in at the time you made the image, right down to the last bit.

Because these images are perfect copies, they contain everything needed to make Windows bootable, so if you want to restore your laptop to the exact state it's in now (Windows and all), then you'll want to use a disk image. Looking around, it seems like the best program for doing so would just be the free trial ofAcronis True Image - there shouldn't be any need to pay or pirate it, and it should be pretty easy to use.

So, basically: if you just want to backup your documents, pictures, and other files, without caring about Windows or your applications, then yeah - just copy/paste everything, and don't worry about using any special software. If you want to restore your entire hard disk back to the exact state it was in before you sent the laptop off for repair, then use Acronis to create an image of your drive, and then use that to recover everything once you get the laptop back. Either way works fine; it's up to you.

[kitamesume]

XD thats why you outa do monthly checkups on your laptops, specially the intake/exhausts, if those get clogged with dust be ready for tons of crashes and eventually some fried parts.

for backup utilities just hit the manufacturer's site, obviously your HDD's brand, and they'll provide the rest, usually for free and should work.

PS: is ["right-click + select everything" -> "copy" -> "paste"] really that hard?

[Freedom Kira]

Don't worry about imaging, then. If you do want to copy the entire drive, you will have to overwrite some critical Windows installation files when you copy back. It's no big deal if you have Windows already installed on the hard drive when you get it back, but to be safe it might be better to do the copy back when running Linux off a Live CD, because of the "overwriting Windows installation files" part.

If you copy the drive, though (and yes, it is basically open C: -> CTRL + A -> CTRL + C -> go to other drive, hope it's blank -> CTRL + V), you will copy all your installed programs along with your files. I'm not certain if it copies the registry too, but my guess is that it does. It will not copy the MBR and such, which is critical for making Windows boot and for the partitions to be defined properly. A disk image will copy the entire disk into a file, from beginning to end, including the MBR (but not necessarily your partition info). That is the main difference between a straight copy and an image. When you copy the image back on to a hard drive, it will also copy the MBR, meaning it will boot properly as well. But, like I said, if you have Windows already installed when you get the laptop back, you don't have to worry about this.

Anyway, AFAIK, removing the drive should not void the warranty. Out of all the laptops I've done that with, there is absolutely no way to tell when the drive has been removed. Just call in and ask if you can do that, because it'll save you a lot of time (usually just takes a couple of screws, piece of cake). If you can't do that, the next best thing to do is to copy only your files, because face it, it will probably take you about as long to filter out what to copy and what not to copy as it would be to just copy the entire disk, and it's a lot less risky and takes up less space in the end. Your main concern with files would be the whole Users folder in Windows 7, or the whole Documents and Settings folder in XP. If you have any other folders you commonly save stuff in, copy those too.

If you're absolutely insistent on not doing that, maybe try a backup program? I have personally never used one before though.

[kenshin-dono]

thnx guys. I think i'll just try drag and dropping  the c drive over to the HD and hope it works. Most of you suggest ctrl C + ctrl V, but im assuming good old drag and drop would work the same right? I was just gonna grab the C: drive and drag it over. Or i guess i could ctrl c and paste it. I dont think i need to do an image or bother installing and running a backup program

Im curious what my sister had done to hers. Was that an image program? It just had the entire C: file structure on an external HD. Im thinking i would probably get the same thing if i just copied the whole thing over

@freedom kira. Its a dell XPS.. 1730 i think? I saw the guy dissemble it when they replaced a fan a while back. Its a crapy design where you have to remove the keyboard and junk to get to anything. Huge hassle to actually remove the HD, so i dont think i'll bother with that. THanks for the suggestion though

XD thats why you outa do monthly checkups on your laptops, specially the intake/exhausts, if those get clogged with dust be ready for tons of crashes and eventually some fried parts.

for backup utilities just hit the manufacturer's site, obviously your HDD's brand, and they'll provide the rest, usually for free and should work.

PS: is ["right-click + select everything" -> "copy" -> "paste"] really that hard?

I actually did try to vacume the intake/exaust from time to time. The nvidia graphic card in this line was actually defective. There was a big lawsuit about it and they extended the warranty another year. THats why im getting a swap.  Look up dell xps and nvidia graphics card lawsuit and you'll probably see tons of info on it.

My issue with just copying and pasting is that im worried that the screen will die partway through the transfer again, or it will crash.. what the hell do i do then? How would i know its done? I would lose the data that was being copied. Well wish me luck guess i'll go try it here in a few minutes


^_^x KD

[Bob2004]

thnx guys. I think i'll just try drag and dropping  the c drive over to the HD and hope it works. Most of you suggest ctrl C + ctrl V, but im assuming good old drag and drop would work the same right? I was just gonna grab the C: drive and drag it over. Or i guess i could ctrl c and paste it. I dont think i need to do an image or bother installing and running a backup program

Im curious what my sister had done to hers. Was that an image program? It just had the entire C: file structure on an external HD. Im thinking i would probably get the same thing if i just copied the whole thing over

@freedom kira. Its a dell XPS.. 1730 i think? I saw the guy dissemble it when they replaced a fan a while back. Its a crapy design where you have to remove the keyboard and junk to get to anything. Huge hassle to actually remove the HD, so i dont think i'll bother with that. THanks for the suggestion though

XD thats why you outa do monthly checkups on your laptops, specially the intake/exhausts, if those get clogged with dust be ready for tons of crashes and eventually some fried parts.

for backup utilities just hit the manufacturer's site, obviously your HDD's brand, and they'll provide the rest, usually for free and should work.

PS: is ["right-click + select everything" -> "copy" -> "paste"] really that hard?

I actually did try to vacume the intake/exaust from time to time. The nvidia graphic card in this line was actually defective. There was a big lawsuit about it and they extended the warranty another year. THats why im getting a swap.  Look up dell xps and nvidia graphics card lawsuit and you'll probably see tons of info on it.

My issue with just copying and pasting is that im worried that the screen will die partway through the transfer again, or it will crash.. what the hell do i do then? How would i know its done? I would lose the data that was being copied. Well wish me luck guess i'll go try it here in a few minutes
^_^x KD

If it crashes while you're copying, then most likely you'll just end up with whatever files it had already copied being copied absolutely fine, whatever file it was in the middle of copying being partially copied, and the ones it hadn't got to yet simply not being copied; there won't be any real problems. To resume it, you could probably just restart the PC, copy/paste it all again, and tell it not to overwrite any existing files when it asks. If the screen dies, you should be able to tell when it's done by looking at hard drive activity - both drives should be active pretty constantly while copying, then both will die down to almost nothing when they're done.

Also, to save time, don't copy/paste everything on your C: drive. Pretty much just copying the Program Files folder and the Users folder (and any other folders you might have created yourself - I have a C:\Games folder, for example) will backup all your data. The Windows folder, for example, won't contain anything useful for you.

[kenshin-dono]

Hmm thanks. I guess listening for the activity would work. I just hope it holds together loing enough to do this. But looks like i have a problem:

I copied the C drive and went to paste it and just a few moments in I got an error that a file was being used and couldn't be copied and the whole transfer shut down. I tried again and another file gave me the error and shut it down. I thought it was supposed to keep going and just skip that file when that happens?

Its looking like just copy and pasting isn't gonna work if i keep getting those error messages. Is there a way to skip them without it stoping the whole process? Well i would just copy the program and user folders but i had stuff scattered everywhere and dont want to miss anything. I dont have time to sort it all right now, and i want to be POSITIVE i dont miss anything, so i just wanted to copy the whole C drive. Its not looking like that will work though >_<


*EDIT*
Fuck.. well this isn't working. I keep getting a message that certain files cant be copied because theyre in use.. thats fine, but the problem is every time it happens it stops the copy process. Ive done it over like 5 times now and its just not happening. I guess im just screwed. Copying the whole C: drive does <b><u>NOT</b></u> seem to work. Unless anyone knows a way to skip those files or keep it going

shit not sure what to do now. I really didn't want to mess with the backup programs. Man i hate computers. Just tried backing it up manually folder by folder and when i do documents and settings i get a constant 'cant transfer NTUSER' message. So i cant back that important folder up. grrr

^_^x KD

[Freedom Kira]

Yeah, I thought that would happen, though I didn't expect it to happen when you were copying the C: drive to your backup drive. Best bet here is to boot up with a Linux Live CD, and perform the copy there. Or spend some time going through your drive and only copy files you need. =P Chances are the files that are in use are Windows files.

By the way, when you try to copy Documents and Settings, you may be being restricted to your own account's files. If there are multiple accounts on the system, you shouldn't be able to access the My Documents folder of any of the other accounts.

To get a Linux Live CD, Google Ubuntu. Download the 32-bit ISO (latest 11.10 is fine) and burn it to a CD or DVD using Imgburn. Pop that into your laptop, restart, mash F12 during startup, and select boot from CD from the boot menu. When it asks you, select "Try Ubuntu without installing."

I've worked with Dells before (admittedly not XPS systems though) and never had a problem pulling the drive out without touching anything else. It's a very stupid design to bury the drive deep inside, if that is really what they did. Having to remove the keyboard to perform any other work is true though (but Dell keyboards are usually relatively easy to remove).

As for vacuuming, you should avoid that. Vacuums can build up static charges very quickly, which can critically damage your hardware if placed in just the right position. There are no records of this ever having happened AFAIK, but better safe than sorry. It is better to blast air in (can of compressed air, or an air compressor turned air gun) than to suck air out.

[kenshin-dono]

thanks for the help guys. I got fed up with it and just copied everythihng manually folder by folder. It took forever, and the screen started getting kinda distorted near the end but it worked. I went in and copied everything untill i got an error. then found that file deselected it and kept going. It took forever

Also running Hitatchis crappy backup program too just for good measure. I should have just about everything except for some files that seemed to be about user settings and windows files. Well i hope i have everything i need because i gotta stress the gfx card so it can fully crap out again then send it out

As for vacuuming, you should avoid that. Vacuums can build up static charges very quickly, which can critically damage your hardware if placed in just the right position. There are no records of this ever having happened AFAIK, but better safe than sorry. It is better to blast air in (can of compressed air, or an air compressor turned air gun) than to suck air out.

I actually heard blowing air in is bad because it actually blows the stuff INTO the system, whereas vacuuming it pulls it out.

Is it really bad to use a vacum on the ports? I do it on my 360 and ps3 from time to time too. It ake the hose attachment off and press the bare hose up against it. If thats bad what should i do? Buy an electronics vacuum?

^_^x KD

[Freedom Kira]

If you do it regularly, blasting air is perfectly fine, since the dust doesn't get a chance to collect into huge chunks. If you let dust get caked everywhere, though, you might get some dust lodged in some crevice if you're not careful. You just need to pick where to blast your air well, so that the air can come out somewhere on the other side, so that you push dust out the other side instead of pressing it into a corner. In general, computers don't have many of these corners (for lack of a better term), so it's generally a good idea to blast air.

Again, there haven't been actual reports of people screwing up hardware with static shocks from a vacuum, but just be warned on that. I don't think "electronics vacuums" exist. =P