[KCStrom]

Hello, all.

I am trying to sort out the best way to copy about 200G of data from one external Western Digital hard-drive to another. (OS is XP - ACER desktop). Essentially I want to create a mirror image of the first external hard-drive onto a second. Why you ask?...well I have my entire CD library ripped onto the first hard-drive and want to make a duplicate copy in case something goes wrong with the first one. I keep the stuff on an external hard-drive so that I can move it around between a couple of different desktop machines.

Is it as simple as drag and drop? Or is there a more efficient, reliable way? I have plenty of time, but don't want to do anything stupid.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your time.

kC

[Rommel]

KCStrom, on 23 September 2009 - 08:08 AM, said:

Hello, all.

I am trying to sort out the best way to copy about 200G of data from one external Western Digital hard-drive to another. (OS is XP - ACER desktop). Essentially I want to create a mirror image of the first external hard-drive onto a second. Why you ask?...well I have my entire CD library ripped onto the first hard-drive and want to make a duplicate copy in case something goes wrong with the first one. I keep the stuff on an external hard-drive so that I can move it around between a couple of different desktop machines.

Is it as simple as drag and drop? Or is there a more efficient, reliable way? I have plenty of time, but don't want to do anything stupid.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your time.

kC

Hi KC,

It sounds like you can plug both drives in at the same time.
Beyond copy/ paste one to another I don't know.

If you have your power settings on, turn them of and let do its thing.
??

Hopefully someone will reply with a better answer if there is one.

Rommel

[techie4fun]

KCStrom, on 23 September 2009 - 08:08 AM, said:

Hello, all.

I am trying to sort out the best way to copy about 200G of data from one external Western Digital hard-drive to another. (OS is XP - ACER desktop). Essentially I want to create a mirror image of the first external hard-drive onto a second. Why you ask?...well I have my entire CD library ripped onto the first hard-drive and want to make a duplicate copy in case something goes wrong with the first one. I keep the stuff on an external hard-drive so that I can move it around between a couple of different desktop machines.

Is it as simple as drag and drop? Or is there a more efficient, reliable way? I have plenty of time, but don't want to do anything stupid.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your time.

kC

If you have Cloning software, you could actually clone your first drive to your second drive, which would be faster.

You can also drag and drop.

[lexon]

I have done this using drag and drop. No issues. I also burn to a DVD and keep the DVD off site.

lex

[smax013]

KCStrom, on 23 September 2009 - 08:08 AM, said:

Hello, all.

I am trying to sort out the best way to copy about 200G of data from one external Western Digital hard-drive to another. (OS is XP - ACER desktop). Essentially I want to create a mirror image of the first external hard-drive onto a second. Why you ask?...well I have my entire CD library ripped onto the first hard-drive and want to make a duplicate copy in case something goes wrong with the first one. I keep the stuff on an external hard-drive so that I can move it around between a couple of different desktop machines.

Is it as simple as drag and drop? Or is there a more efficient, reliable way? I have plenty of time, but don't want to do anything stupid.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your time.

kC

There are a number of ways to do this...

- the "brute force" method of either copy/paste copying or drag/drop copying (two different methods to do the exact same process). The downside of this is that sometime Windows "encounters" something that causes it to ask you a "question" which will halt to copy process until you answer. Thus, if you leave it unattended to copy, you could come back and find it waiting for you to answer some "questions" about 15% or 35% or etc through the copy.

- using cloing software. There is Clonzilla for free (http://clonezilla.or...ad/sourceforge/). I use True Image for my cloning purposes (http://www.acronis.c...ucts/trueimage/).

- you can use a "DOS" command using the Command Prompt. The advantage of this over the first option is that you can modify the switches to "bypass" the "questions" that Windows might ask that would halt the process. The downside is that you have to figure out the syntax of the "DOS command" to get it to work how you want, which is not something that most people want to do. It is not overly hard, but many people tend to "freak out" when contemplating using DOS commands.

[charles849]

I'm using windows live one care as my tune-up and back-up program .I'm able to pick and choose what files I want to back-up to my external HD. When you plug in your external HD try to right click on a program do you see a "send to" option with your external HD on the menu ?