External hard drives

#1

I have a 250G external hard drive. It backs up everything in MY DOCUMENTS and my DESKTOP.

However, in looking at the MAXTOR MANAGER, I see that I have an option to backup my C: drive.

Hmmm. Will an external hard drive really be able to copy/backup my entire C: drive?

My laptop is only 80GB…so it’s obvious that I could park 3 of my laptops in this external hard drive “garage”! (MAXTOR ONE TOUCH 4 PLUS)

Could you really reformat/re-install your entire computer using the external hard drive which also contains the C: drive backed up within it?

Anyway, what is your ‘take’ on this? Can I really back up my entire C: drive? [U]What[/U] will it backup anyway? What’s on a C: drive? The Microsoft Office stuff? Everything in your ADD/REMOVE programs? Everything in your ALL PROGRAMS? The drivers? :??

#2

I’ve copied the entire contents of a hard drive to a new hard drive, operating system and all before. I haven’t used the program you mention, but it can be done.

As to what is on your C: drive, is that the only partition on that hard drive? If so than everything stored on that computer is on the C: drive: your operating system, your programs, your documents, etc.

#3

I was just thinking, something I have set up here is different partitions on my hard drive. I have one for my files and another for my operating system. That way if there is a problem with the operating system and I want to start over and reformat I can do that without messing with my data. (Actually this computer has 3 partitions, one for Linux, one for Windows, and one for my data.)

#4

Wow, hummingbird, my hat’s off to you! :thud:

You know…I have heard that folks who have a large hard drive…often partition it! I know what you are talking about!
If I get a new laptop with 160GB or 250GB hard drive, it would be a smart thing to partition it, wouldn’t it?

But, I’d have to figger out how to PARTITION. A Dell guy once told me it is better to partition before starting to use the computer.

Anyway, thanks for the information! I think I will allow my MAXTOR to backup up my C: drive. Why not?:shrug: My laptop is only 80GB…the MAXTOR is 250GB!

Will a C: drive backup “re-backup” MY DOCUMENTS, too?

Hugs,

Artlady

#5

Depending on the software used you can do there are two types of back-ups. A full back up will make a copies of all the files on the drive and stores them on the back-up drive. The other is incremental back-up. Each time you change a file there is a flag set in the file properties. When you do an incremental back-up the software look for these flags and back-up only those files that have changed. Once the file is backed-uped the flag is turned off. The incremental back-up is faster than full back up.

The best practice is to do a full back-up after a few incremental back-ups. How often depends on have sensitive you are to the lose of any data.

#6

A full back up will copy everything, in compressed format. I always keep a system restore disk handy so don’t bother backing up the entire system, just my personal important data.

As for partitioning, only do so if you actually have a need to do so. I run several partitions on my machines. A small one for Windows, and others for Linux and data storage.

If you do partition a drive, make sure to clean it up first and defrag it. This will make it go much more smoothly for you.

Do NOT attempt to partition a drive until you have read up on it and are sure you know what you’re doing. I see many posts from Linux newbies who totally trashed their Windows system because they didn’t understand what they were doing while repartitioning their drive. It’s the single most common mistake I see them make.