[jimyyz]

I am somewhat of an obsessive tweaker (xp settings, program settings, etc.) and have invested dozens of hours tweaking my system over the past year to get it running how I like. Now I am looking for a good disaster recovery plan for when (hopefully years from now!) my internal HD fails.

I just bought a new Seagate FreeAgent 300GB external drive (USB 2.0). My internal HD is a Smasung Spinpoint 300GB. Running XP Home SP2.

Here's my draft disaster recovery plan and some questions:

I
downloaded the free Seagate DiscWizard Vers. 10.0 (build 5,077) (oem Acronis) and am thinking I could do the following:

1. Use DiscWizard to clone or image my internal hard drive to my Seagate FreeAgent external drive.

2. In the event of internal hard drive failure, I will install a new internal hard drive.

3.
Then I want to make my Seagate FreeAgent external drive the boot disc
via system BIOS and then clone the Seagate FreeAgent external drive to
the new internal hard drive (and then make the new internal hard drive
the boot disc).

In summary, what I am trying to do is use my Seagate
FreeAgent external drive as a bootable clone that serves as temporary
bridge between my old (failed) internal hard drive and my new (empty)
internal drive.

Would appreciate thoughts or feedback:

1. Would above seem like it would work? Any issues you foresee?

2. I have read various things on wbe about some people having BSOD problems after running DiscWizard (see www.techspot.com/vb/topic94820.html). Any good or bad experiences you have had with DiscWizard? Obviously my objective here is to create a fail safe disaster recovery, not create problems with a system that's running well now!

3. Is there a difference between an "image" and "clone"? If yes, which is better for what I am trying to achieve?

Thanks. Great forum!

[techie4fun]

Hi Jimyy :)
I don't see any reason why 1-3 WON'T work. As long as you can set your computer to boot from the hard drive in step 3, you shouldn't have any problems.

[coastie65]

Hi jimy, I have to agree with Techie. It looks like you have a good contingency plan and should do just fine. Hopefuly you won't have to utilize it anytime in the forseeable future. coastie65

[techie4fun]

The only thing I am NOT so sure on is a "standard clone" versus an actual image. The theory would be that your backup software usually defines both types to you. An Image would be like taking an exact copy of everything on your hard drive and saving it to a blank dvd for backups. A clone would be just copying Partition One onto NewPartition 2.

[Evildave]

I can't recommend a 'CloneZilla' bootable ISO enough. There are several versions of the ISO with different tools attached, including ones with 'GParted Live'. It's a bootable Linux CD image. It's free, it does a complete drive image, partition image, drive copy or partition copy, will do it to external USB drives, and will even backup and restore over the network. It does Linux, Windows, ANY file system. If it doesn't recognize a file system, it simply copies the whole partition without attempting to determine what is 'free' and what is 'used'. Compresses the drive images pretty good, too.

Here's a longer rant on the same topic with details and techniques.
http://forums.pcworl...messageID=95915