Best way to backup prior to full reinstall

I will shortly have to reinstall my XP Media Center 2005 OS. It will be a clean install onto a new drive.

My question is as follow

What should I use to backup my system and what files beyond the ones I mention below should I backup?

I have Windows Backup, Norton Ghost as well as Retrospect Express (from Maxtor). Have 3 Maxtor external hard drives - 40 mb (FAT Format has to currently stay that way), 2 (NTFS) with 300 GB on them.

In general, I prefer to just do a straight Drive to drive copy, but sometimes Windows won't let me copy certain files because they are in use by the system. I cant seem to make that problem disappear.

I know I need to back up MyDocuments, email files, Quicken, Turbo Tax files, Office and Firefox settings, but how do I find the system settings that I would like to keep as opposed to having to figure them out again. How do I copy them if Windows says they are in use and I can't figure out who is using them. I do close all the programs I can, not sure which system ones I can close without causing problems.

I use Belarc system advisor
http://www.belarc.com/advisor_update.html

to tell me what I had installed and what the keys are for the programs I need (Have the original install keys with the install discs as well)

Any suggestions for what do do before I get new drives installed.

Thanks

Jorjab

 

Hi jorjab,

I notice you have Norton Gost:

http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/features.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost10

Key Features
Backs up everything on your computer - digital music, photos, financial documents, applications, settings, operating system, etc. - in one easy step

And you have external drives.

The ideal would be to do the above - cloning the current OS drive and then restoring it to the new drive.

I don't use Ghost - I'll give a person that does a holler to look at this thread.

Regards - Charles

 

Steve,
can't use the drive as a slave as Dell will be taking it back as it is defective and going bad.

 

I have Ghost 9.0 -

Have to do full reinstall - my XP Media center is not working for the TV portion (Installed a Windows update for it and that did it in). Have tried everything else and this is last resort for that. Cloning will not work although Ghost 9.0 says it can do - do not want to put the problem back.

When I install on new drive will set up the data partition as suggested. With my old Gateway PCs, Gateway would always partition the drive for me as I requested with 2 or even 3 drives.

Dell refused to do that for me when I ordered PC even though I had asked them to.

 

Christer,
was answering your previous post as you were posting your last one.

Will look into replicator as well as your PDF doc on moving files.

Thanks

PS No Ghost bundled with my PC, purchased Jan 2005

 

Christer - one question

How do I determine the sizes of the two partitions?
Hard drive is 166 GB altho it looks like for some reason that I can only use 144GB
I think the rest is used by Dell.

Will check my Ghost CD - did not come with the PC, retail version.

 

Norton Ghost backup and restores strategies

Best to create a dos bootup ghost disk rather than backing up from within windows.
You have several choices:
1) ghost onto dvds -
takes a while and if one dvd is scratched you are in trouble.
Sometimes all it takes is a little speck of dust that needs to be cleaned carefully and the restore stops in mid stream
2) You can ghost to a hard drive
faster and safer
Just place where you dvd drive is now
3) You can never be too careful in backup strategies and be redundant
4) You can set up your computer with a number of partitions with windows on one , data on one or several and a ghost image of your new windows install for each restore of the os.

You would boot with a ghost disk and just restore from partition to partition.

You can never be too carefull

 

Just a few comments about what is happening.

Will post final info when I get back up and running

Am having new hard drive put in tomorrow by Dell rep. My backups so far have just been copy my docs and other private info to my external hard drives. Also, some info has been put on DVDs.

Backing up OS in any form not a good idea here. Forgot to say I have a RAID system which also complicates matters. Would not want a clone in any case because too many problems.

DELL Techs so far have told me that they will not help me partition the drive when I install. I wont be able to do myself because I need their help for setting up the RAID part. Was told to ask tech who I speak to, when ready to install, to see if they will guide me through it as part of the reinstall process.

Figured if I just back up what I know I need, then will be easier to reinstall and not have to use a restore type program for Ghost or any other backuop program.

I have managed to either save or document the important (to me ) settings and keys for the various programs I use.

Thank You all for your comments and suggestions.

 

Well I am backup and running with a few minor glitches.

It turns out that, with the raid configuration I have, it is not really a good idea to partition.
I also (found out when reinstalling ) could have gone away from the Raid Configuration and just had 2 separate 160 GB hard drives. Probably would have been the way to go but was in the middle of getting back up and did not want to do that at this point. RAID makes for a faster system which is one reason to keep.

I just used the save and restore files on my own with my external hard drives and DVDs. Probably more complicated in some ways, but at least I would not have introduced any of the old problems by using some of the Backup routines mentioned in this post.

Lost my passwords for Firefox but had printed them out. Also lost a couple of other programs (one was a firefox profile backup routine which I have the restore file for ), because I can't remember the names and therefore can't find on the web.

Reinstalls of some programs have caused other glitches which I do not remember occurring when first setting up the pc.

Overall I am pretty much back to normal.


Thanks for all suggestions.

Jorjab

 

Sorry, I forgot one very important point: Licenses

Dell had never sent the Microsoft License page. Luckily I had copied it from my system or I would have had no record of the license.

Secondly, some of the additional software I had purchased and Dell installed caused some licensing problems. I had written down the licenses as they existed on my PC and they were incorrect. The originally supplied Software CDs had different license serial numbers on them then what had been installed by Dell.
So, when backing up make sure you have all correct license and serial number information from everywhere.

I also use a routine called Belarc Advisor which lists most of your licenses as they exist on the PC for you. as well as other useful information about your system and what is on it.

http://belarc.com/free_download.html


DELL tech was not exactly able to tell me which drivers I needed to reinstall for certain devices and I am not sure that I have all the right ones. Some are different from the originally installed ones. Although everything still seems to be working properly.

The most important thing is not only just backing up everything regularly but remembering to keep track of all the information you may need in order to reinstall. Some of that information is not always as obvious as you think.

Overall I am back to normal but not something I want to do very often.