Backing up HD

[Wexfordman]

Hi,

My laptop has started acting up (again!!!), and it looks like my HD is on the way out. Its a HP laptop, about 3 months old, and has started to freeze intermittently, needing a hard restart (power off and back on again), to get it working again (ctrl alt del wont work when it freezes). Anyway, I was told to do a HD check via the setup menu, and I did, it failed!!. It said the HD needs to be replaced. Got on to HP, and I need to send the machine back.

(Note to self, and this time I mean it, never, ever, ever buy anything made by HP again!!).

Anyway, to my point. What is the best way for me to backup and restore all details on my laptop, including mails, files, programms etc. Would creating a mirror be the best way (I have a networked hard drive that I can back up to). and if creating a mirror is the way to go, how do I create it, and restore it ?

Looking for some advice urgently, as I need to backup tonight in order to return the laptop tomorrow.

Thanks,
Wexfordman

 

[johndoe64]

Re: Bcking up HD

If you had some imaging software you could make an image of the disk you have and pull it back down to the new drive when they return the laptop to you, I usually use Ghost but you probably haven't got that.

If you go to Programs>Accessories>System Tools> Backup and follow the wizard you can select the files you need to backup and then when it asks for a location to save the backup put it on the external hard disk.

 

[ClubMan]

There are several threads on this already with very useful info about backing up and cloning hard drives.