Need a Geek

[ashby koss]

Thanks everyone. I do back up my hard drive to an external drive fairly regularly. Oddly enough, while in the BIOS, I tried to set it so it would boot up from that drive, but had no luck. Apparently the back up doesn't back up everything? Maybe I'll try "blanking out" the password as ddavidson suggested. I'm just nervous about taking this lap top apart to remove the battery.

When you back up, it only really backs up your data, not your OS. Which means it cant boot a backup file. It also depends upon the software used to "backup" the drive. Even if it was a truly full backup, the backup would need to be part of the master boot record to initialize the boot.

The only true backup, IMHO, is to use a distro of Linux and copy the full drive, then to boot the backup all you would have to do it set the drive to the location of the MBR. Even then with the newer versions of windows and versions differences between the home, student , and pro, I cant say the motherboard and hdd combo wouldn't get stuck paired together. Which i think is one of their "safeties" against people like me.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

When you back up, it only really backs up your data, not your OS. Which means it cant boot a backup file. It also depends upon the software used to "backup" the drive. Even if it was a truly full backup, the backup would need to be part of the master boot record to initialize the boot.

The only true backup, IMHO, is to use a distro of Linux and copy the full drive, then to boot the backup all you would have to do it set the drive to the location of the MBR. Even then with the newer versions of windows and versions differences between the home, student , and pro, I cant say the motherboard and hdd combo wouldn't get stuck paired together. Which i think is one of their "safeties" against people like me.

I wondered about this. The back up does create a folder called "Windows Image" or something like that. When people at work have catastrophic failure of their PCs our PC guys always talk about having to "re-image" the machine to get it working again. So, I'm guessing that this "Windows Image" may not be what I think it is? As for the rest of what you said... Whoosh! Right over my head!

 

[eric001]

Backing up the drive is quicker, but I still think cloning it onto the external is a better option. I use free software from EaseUS called ToDo Backup. It takes a while to finish, but I can run it from within Windows and it does a sector by sector confirmed copy of the drive from start to finish. And I know that if something happens to my laptop, I'll still have ALL of the installed programs, complete OS, as well as data files. I can confirm that it creates a bootable copy of the main drive--at least that's how I transferred from a smaller HD into a much larger one when I changed laptops.

 

[Ericpwp]

User profile not loading in windows is different then a BIOS password issue. Create a new windows user and log on with that at startup.

NM just read the rest.

But windows image backup is bad. You will have issues imaging to any harddrive that is not the same size as the original.

 

[pinshooter45]

As I told another INGO member backing up is fine but the only true way to totally protect yourself and your data is to create an image of you hard drive on a regular basis. backups DO NOT COPY YOUR PROGRAMS! Using Linux to create an image is great but as some one who barley got a B in his introduction to LINUX class it is not for the novice (it is mostly all command line). My Instructor, who BTW co authored "The Linux Bible" favorite line was it is time to get out of the kiddie pool!. And my Security class Professor never backed up. He was religious about creating images every week or so. A back up will do you no good if you HD fails. So get a some good imaging software like Acronis or Norton Ghost just to name two. I like Acronis. Also you should contact your computer Manufacturer and request the original discs and keep them in a safe place. That way if every thing fails you can at least restore to the way it came from the factory. I purchased my discs from HP for less than $25.00.