Best way to backup a PC on to external hard drive?

Q. I currently have a PC with Windows 7 Ultimate on it. I will be moving to a new location soon and will be purchasing a new PC there.

Is there any way I can do a backup of my current PC onto an external hard drive so that when I get the new PC I can just transfer all of the files, including the software? My main concern is just keeping all of the software as-is on my current computer, so I am not burdened with having to reinstall all of it on to the new computer.

Answer
A backup of your files (music, photos, etc) is possible and can be done with the backup wizard or drag and drop.

You will not be able to back up your programs in this way because there is simply too much that make them run. You have files for any particular software located all over the hard drive, including program files, application data, common folders, registry entries and so on.

The only way to keep everything exactly as it is would be to do a clone of the hard drive. This is only good if you lose your original hard drive and will not work for putting your information onto a new computer.

How To Backup Your Harddrive With An External Hard Drive?

whatdahek

I just purchased an external hard drive. With this new drive i would like to back up all my files from my pc and restore the computer (runs slow now). What is the best way to perform this task without losing any information and properly cleaning my pc?

Thanks

Answer
Open up the folder of the files you want to save then open up your external hard drive folder by going to my computer and select the files you want and drag and drop it onto your external hard drive.

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Can you backup PS3 and a PC on the same external Hard Drive?

Bensock

I was looking at getting a 1TB external hard drive so i could backup my PS3, but I want to be able to backup my PC as well on the same drive. Would that be possible?

The HDD doesn't need to be formatted differently for each machine? Thanks for any help

Answer
As long as you format as FAT32, you're fine.

It'll work on both systems.

Personally, I sectored my hard drive into two smaller hard drives. One fat32, and one NTFS. Now I can use it anywhere!

How can I backup 40GB worth of data in my pc using an external hard drive?

sevenor

I use Norton Ghost together with DVD-RW as the media for backing up. Unfortunately, as the DVD burner I use (Liteon SOHW-1693) only burns DVD-RW at 4X,it requires more than 10 hours, plus I have to be there to keep changing the DVD-RW. Is there a backup software out there that recognises external hard disk drive (connected through USB 2.2 port) as the backup media and is fast. Thanks!

Answer
I would highly recommend CasperXP. It's saved me a few times now and makes a complete bootable clone of the disk. The best thing is that it can backup whilst you are still using XP and has smart clone technology so that on subsequent backups it will only backup changed sectors of the hard disk reducing backup time considerably. It will work with external USB hard disks.

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Can a Western Digital MyBook external backup hard drive have 2 seprate HD's on them?

best external hard drive backup pc image

Devon

I have a Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition. I want to backup my Mac, but I don't want to delete the backup files from my PC. Is it possible to backup 2 hard drives and keep them on the external hard drive?

Answer
you will need to partiton the hard drive

this turns one physical disk in to two disks that the computer sees

windows vista can do this

email me if you need help doing

WARNING partitioning can cause data loss so if you are doing this you need to back up your backed up data (sounds irish i know but if you dont do it and you lose data youve only yourself to blame) before doing the partition

Can I use (1) external Hard drive to backup information from a Mac and a PC?

Peter A

My wife uses a PC and I use a Mac with an interest in purchasing a external hard drive to back up our stuff. Is it possible to have two computers on different platforms share one external hard drive?

Any recommendations for external hard drives? Seagate? Western Digital?

Answer
Mac OS X and Windows understand seperate file systems, what you need to do is partition the hard drive, half NTFS (for windows) and half ext4, or whatever it may be. You should be able to do this via windows and MAc OS X, if you can't GPARTED will do the job for you.

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What's the best external hard drive out there that will not lose any personal data whatsoever?

best external hard drive backup pc image

discoman

I'm running out of space on my pc and I need to know what's the best external hard drive that is portable, has lots of memory, cheap, will always work, and will not lose any personal data from the external hard drive. Some of the known external hard drives are like seagate free agent, transcend iomega, western digital, and lacie. If you know any RELIABLE known external hard drives, please write a well structured detail description of it. Thank you.

Answer
Check out the ioSafe Solo: http://www.iosafe.com/3

This external hard drive is virtually indestructible - it's fireproof, waterproof, and can be bolted down to prevent theft. Despite backup efforts, if you have a house fire or flood, you're pretty much hooped with a typical hard drive. With the ioSafe, in addition to its disaster-proof features, your data is safe. If something does happen to your hard drive, you can send it back to the company - at their expense - and they will attempt to recover your data and, if they can't, will spend up to $1000 for a third-party recovery service to do it. Once your data is recovered, ioSafe will send it back to you, along with a new hard drive.

I just got an ioSafe Solo and I love it. I'm extremely happy with the services and features this baby offers. :-)

Good luck!

How do I make my external hard drive back up files from my Mac?

dudette

A friend of mine gave me his external hard drive, a bytec external sub-system, that he always used on his PC laptop. I would like to backup my music, photos, and other files but when I plug in the external and try to copy files to it it says "cannot be modified". After researching I think it must be in NFTS format, but I don't know how to change it to something that the Mac can write to. I downloaded Psync to help back up my hard drive, but it can't work when the external can't be rewritten. Thanks!
If I need to reformat the external, how do I do that?

Answer
It likely has to be reformatted so that the MAC can read and write to it.

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