[sjmazzoli]

Kind Readers....I am newbie with casting dust still on me...What is the simplest greenist & cost effective way for me to prepare for the coming crash.

It happened a few months ago and it is only a matter of time its gonna happen again.

As these things go..I run vista Home Premium...it happens to all of us no matter what your running.

To begin with what exactly is the difference between backup & recovery & restore.


Thank You Kindly

Stu

[jason.m]

Give memeo software a try:

http://www.memeo.com/downloads.php

With the 30 day trial and a cheap $20 USB thumbdrive, you should be able to backup and restore everything thats important to you

[sjmazzoli]

Thank You

[1SillyBilly]

I use an internal slave drive. Many use an external drive to make an image of their main drive. Doing this makes a complete copy of everything on your main Hard Drive - OS, applications, drivers, e-mails, e-mail contacts, favourites ...

You will need to purchase an imaging program. Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image, and DriveImage are the ones most cited by users.

The memeo software referred to above backs up files and folders. It does not back up the OS, or Programs, or drivers. If your computer crashes and you need to do a Clean Install of the OS, you will need to locate and reinstall all the drivers, and the Programs. This can be an involved process.

It really depends on how safe you want to be.

[sjmazzoli]

Thank You Kindly.....
I need a reliable set of recovery discs for a VISTA HOME PREMIUM right now all I have is windows xp pro media center 2005
the questions just keep on coming..
again Thanks for the shove in the right direction...

[mrss]

I am guessing that you had Vista installed on your HP m7680n, which came with XP?

You should have the Vista disk from the install. That could also be used to reformat your PC, but then you have to download all the drivers from the HP website, and also re-install the other software on your PC. Reformats arre the most work.

HP will probably sell you a set of recovery DVD's which will restore your PC back to the factory condition for a Vista equipped HP m7680n. But that loses any software you might have installed later, along with all your pictures, music, email, browser bookmarks, and doc files. This is what restore DVD's do. They recover to some pre-set condition. When you buy them from a manufacturer, you get their preset condition. Maybe that is good enough for you.

Now you can make your own restore DVD's with an image program. Then you will have a eaxact copy of your PC for the day you made it. But you still need to do backups to get changes in your photos, email, nookmarks, etc

So the greenest/cheapest path is to get a free image program. .But if you want quality, buy one with good features. And if you want reliability, you write the restore to two sets of DVD's. or you use hard drives for storage.

[sjmazzoli]

Thanks Kindly
That was very clear.
Indeed...if anything, speaking with somone about this enables me to focus my questioning on the important details, which become clear as questions begin to be answered.

[sjmazzoli]

Yes my HPm7680n came with xp and the vista os was part of the deal ..it was my choice to add it.
The Restore Program is the way to go it seems..the discipline is to update the backups
and 2 sets of dvd's ensure that at least 1 of them will work in case of emergency.

This is all real good stuff
Thanks again.
Stu

[1002richards]

Hi,
If you use a restore prog such as Acronis (already mentioned above) you can set 'scheduled backups' to run automatically at whatever frequency suits (weekly, monthly etc). So you don't have to remember to do it. If you set 'incremental' backups (after your initial full backup) you're only saving changes since the last one so they can be quite fast.

Richard

[sjmazzoli]

Thanks for your time kind person

Every bit helps

Stu

[Noyb]

Acronis True Image and a USB External Hard Drive has not failed me yet.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832200004

If you feel comfortable installing Hard Drives, I can tell you how to install a second Hard Drive in your 7680 .. and even make it Bootable.

I Just saw that there's a new version of Acronis .... ATI 2009
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...cts/trueimage/

Newegg should have it soon

[sjmazzoli]

ok ok...my hp m7680n has a personal media drive bay built into the front of the tower..it has its own door and so if I had one of those things AND if it was plugged into the slot AND my system crashed would it also be wiped out along with the built in HD?
which is to say...if I bought acronis and made a complete up to date back up..I should keep the personal media drive out of the machine in case of a major crash or whatever the technical term is...? right i know i probably don't need 500gb hd for backup purposes..
THANK YOU KINDLY...

[Noyb]

The HP Personal Media bay is just a HP version of a USB external Hard Drive.
In my opinion .. They cost too much.
You can get better, cheaper, USB External Hard Drives.
Using Acronis .. just make a backup of your entire computer to a data file in an external HD.
You can backup the XP and the Vista.

Once you start using Acronis and an external HD .. you might want more space.
Might as well go for 500gig to start with .. They're usually not that much more nowadays

Putting a slow USB HD in the HP Media Bay is a waste of good space.
I have a second SATA Hard Drive in my Media Bay.
It's bootable .. and like having a second computer in my tower.

[sjmazzoli]

awesome wicked cool
great info
Thank You and everyone at this site..

[sjmazzoli]

I recently purchased a 1 yr subscription of Windows Live OneCare..this enabled me to make dvd'sof my whole system..I assume these are the Recovery disks..so far I have 3 dvd's and I backup on a weekly basis...as for Restore I hope that is in there also...
Also I purchased NERO 9...which came with BackItUp 4 which, I assume, does the same thing as Live OneCare..I have yet to use BackItUp 4...My skillset is such that I am grinding through just the first few inches of what NERO 9 is all about..
So I think I am beginning to get a handle on some of this..
The 1 year subscription to LIVE ONECARE was to give me time to sort all of this out so in the meantime if and when the system crashes I will be better equipted
to deal with it..I hope.
Does any of what I just told you make any sense?
I do not know..I am just guessing here...
So if my system just stops working I turn on my machine and insert the disks in the order they were made and follow instructions & hope for the best. Right?