Hard Drive

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

My hard drive is making funny noises. I was thinking that maybe I would buy an external hard drive and transfer the entire existing hard drive to it. What software/hardware do I need to buy to do that and is it fairly easy to do? This way I could have a complete back up if and when it does goes out.

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

Most external hard drives either have backup software with them or software is available to download from their website.
The most important thing to get backed up is your own files. e.g. photos, Word documents. Programs can be re-installed from their original disks.

[Arkansas Winger Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Arkansas Winger]

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 - FREE

As of Saturday this offer was still available even though the announcement said it expired in 2007. Here is a link to the announcement Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 - Computeract!ve and when you get there be sure to note that Online registration required. (click that link and give your name and email, a registration code will be emailed to you). Go further down the page and click on the download now to receive the install program.

This will do everything you need and the price is right.

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

I have a few external USB hard drives and I LOVE them! I actually purchased a couple recently at Wal-Mart on clearance and I they were 250GB drives that I paid $40/each for!

I use them to back up my computer files (including my site backups from here) and they are small enough that the fit in the safety deposit box in the bank. I have two so that every couple months I can do a do a complete backup and then swap the hard drives in the safety deposit box in case the house should ever burn down or a thief manages to steal everything.

Sure, I am a little more obsesive then most but I am running a business so I really need to ensure that my older data that could be very difficult to replace later is secure.

I love USB drives as a way to backup data! Now, I have some expensive backup software as well that most people just would not need (I have a server running MS Server plus Nortan Ghost).

[Jim McLaren Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jim McLaren]

I like Drive Image XML (Data Recovery Software - File System Utilities). It makes an image like Norton Ghost and if you are running Window XP, Vista or Server 2003 will use Shadow Copy to get a complete copy. The nice thing about it is you can browse the backup to pull files off of it. Restoring can be a little tricky (geeky) but is not too bad. If you are at the point where you are restoring you probably need to be a bit of a geek anyway.

I use it all the time. And it's free.

Jim