Lotodig,

Is there a program? Yes, Acronis is pretty good. Some members of the forum has reported external hard drives that will backup your internal hard drive without having tertiary programs. Actually, what you're trying to do or should do is clone the internal hard drive.

Sounds like you've already got the external hard drive. Well, plug it in and turn it on. Now go to "My Computer". Should have something listed there for your external, a D or M or F. Assuming you have XP operating system, open one of your folders and select a file but don't open the file. Now in the top left hand of the page, click on file. A dialog or menu box will open. Somewhere in that box will be the line "send file to". Click on that and then click on the letter designation for your external hard drive. Guess what, you've now completed the first lesson in external hard drive 101.

Its really simple. Rather than going through each folder and sending it to the external, get a program like Acronis. It actually clones the internal hard drive. How much of the internal do you want to put on the external? Well, how many files can you afford to lose? Why not just do them all.

There was a recent thread about restoring the internal from the external. The poster was having problems and one of the questions asked was, do you have all the incremental clones cause if you don't it won't work. My experience is that incrementals take a bit less time but I simply do the full clone. I keep 3 full clones on the external and when I do the next, I delete the oldest.

Its really not complicated and perhaps the hardest part is remembering when to do the backup. I use a thumb drive to keep up to date on daily minor changes and then clone about every week.

HTH

Bob

Like Bob I do not do incremental backups, always a full one. These are kept on an external drive. However as I stated in Luis' thread I really need to get my head around Acronis and sometime this week that will happen as so far I have never tried a restore.

If you have a Maxtor or Seagate hard drive you can download Acronis for free. Maxtor/Seagate has some kind of deal with Acronis to allow this. Be aware the download for either one is 104 megabytes, also you need to visit the web site for the drive you have to be able to download it.

Other than that the regular price is US$49 but at times they have a special on for $39. Version 2009 seems newly out do perhaps it might be a while before they have a sale. The sales are usually just before a new version is launched.

Here is a link that might be useful: Youtube 'howto' on Acronis True Image 11

rrcrossing..what an excellent answer..thanks so much. Your answer was clear and concise and I understand what you're saying. I do have an external hard drive and have used it to store pictures but it's been a while since I did it and now I'm not sure where I left off or how to do it file by file. You're right I want to copy [clone] the whole thing.
I will search for the program "Acronis" and use it.

In your last paragraph you said that you "clone about every week"...do you clone on top of what's already there and it automatically adds to, or do you delete everything and replace with a new clone?

I was also hoping that raven would answer with one of his "free" programs to use.

Thanks again

There's a free program available called Drive Image XML, but I didn't find it particularly user friendly (and my preferred editor is vi). I had already purchased a program by the time I found it, though, so the problem may be that I didn't spend much time on it.

I used to image my drive periodically and back up changes daily, but the daily backups were interfering with my work, so now I just create images regularly.

When you create an image (aka clone a drive), you're basically cloning the entire drive in a way that if you have a catastrophic failure you can buy a new drive, boot from CD and restore from the external drive. Typically, if you clone, you replace the old one with the new one since the clone copies the entire drive. If your external drive is many times larger than your internal drive, you can keep several copies in case you discover that you accidentally deleted something that you need.

Lotodig,

bpgreen has pretty well answered your last question.

I do use acronis, Acronis 8. That program selects a file name for you, changeable of course. I keep the last two clones/images when creating a new one.

Bob

lotodig,

I have also been using Acronis for the past few years and love it ( True Image 9.0).

You can clone the drive to another drive or backup either individual files and folders or the entire drive including the operating system.

I have a full backup(Acronis) of Windows XP with Service pack 2 on an external hard drive which would save me a lot of time and the hassle of using the WinXP recovery and service pack CDs.

For everyday use I backup to the 'Acronis Secure Zone' I have on a second non-system internal drive. A full backup takes me a little over an hour so I use 'incremental' backups about every other day, depending on what I've done to my computer. The incremental backups only take several minutes and only records those files that have changed since your full backup.
After about a month or whenever I'm reaching the capacity of my 'Acronis Secure Zone' I'll start over again with a full backup.

Acronis has saved me from unnecessary aggravation on more than one occasion.

Witz

I have ordered the Acronis disc and will study up on how to use it when it arrives, it sure seems like the answer to what I need to do.

Thank all of you for your answeres, you are just some very smart and generous people!!

lotodig

I am sorry I somehow have missed replying to you on this thread, I apologize. but you got some really great info here.
I will add that I too have Acronis, I back up to a 500 gig Seagate Free Agent Pro. Full backups are my preferred method. (keep multiples just in case)
You specifically asked me about tutorials and yes I do have some that I think are pretty good, you may see different version numbers but they are all very similar.
Using Acronis True Image I wish I had seen this earlier because this site offers it for a little cheaper than most.

Creating a Hard Drive Image using Acronis True Image
Creating a Bootable CD using Acronis True Image
Hard Drive Image Restore using Acronis True Image
There is a full series of amazing tutorials there on whatsabyte dealing with all aspects of Acronis, about the best I have seen with the pics included.
So hope those help they are the best of the ones I have.

Raven...thanks for the info, I have learned a lot from you and others here just by reading responses to the many question answered.

I think when I read something in one of your responses to a post, I got the impression that you are a female, I referred to you as 'His" in this post, sorry, hope I did not offend.

Anyway thanks, I'll be checking out the referenced information you suggested.

I answer to just about anything after being on forums for so long LOL (and I have a few aliases) but yes I am female. I do not offend easily so nope no offense taken. Glad to help.