Ready Set Go!

[artbuc]

Got my WD external harddrive today. It is the Elements model without WD's bothersome SmartWare back-up software. My computer recognizes it fine. Just downloaded Macrium Reflect. All systems go for back-up, I think.

Any tips and/or warnings before I back-up my system? My internal harddrive has one partition for recovery. Don't have much to back-up - 22 GB on C and 9 GB on D (recovery). Should I just connect the external drive, open Macrium and follow the prompts? Thanks.

[patio]

Yepper...
Matter of fact no need to backup the recovery partition...follow the manuf. info on creating a set of bootable CD's for it instead.

[artbuc]

Yepper...
Matter of fact no need to backup the recovery partition...follow the manuf. info on creating a set of bootable CD's for it instead.

Thanks Patio. I already have the recovery CD's - they were made by Circuit City when I bought the computer. I was concerned that they may be corrupted because they are 5 years old plus I have never used them so I don't know if they were made ok to begin with. I was thinking that a back-up on my external harddrive would be good insurance.

[Allan]

Several backups would be better. I image my system partitions once a week to external drives, keeping the two or three most recent versions. Also, be sure to enable verification of the image during creation.

[artbuc]

Several backups would be better. I image my system partitions once a week to external drives, keeping the two or three most recent versions. Also, be sure to enable verification of the image during creation.

Allan, do you put each partition on a separate external harddrive? Do you put each of you 2 or 3 most recent images on separate harddrives?

[Allan]

Actually I have several external drives. I create weekly images of my system partition and keep 2 or 3 on one external drive and then about once a month create images of the other partitions. Also, once a month or so I create images of all partitions and put them on a different external drive - overly cautious

[artbuc]

Actually I have several external drives. I create weekly images of my system partition and keep 2 or 3 on one external drive and then about once a month create images of the other partitions. Also, once a month or so I create images of all partitions and put them on a different external drive - overly cautious

Thanks Allan. By "system" partition, you mean the drive that contains your OS?i

[artbuc]

Good Morning! I have created and verified a back-up image of my internal harddrive (system partition and recovery partition).

Macrium asked me if I wanted to create bootable rescue CD's. I went thru the wizard but it kept going in a circle. Before I installed Macrium I tried to make recovery CD's (actually I was just exploring to see how you would do it) and I got a message saying that a set of recovery CD's had already been made and only set per computer is allowed. Is that why I could not make a set using Macrium? Are the Macrium bootable rescue CD's the same as recovery CD's?

Should I now disconnect the external harddrive? I will probably update manually.

Finally, how do I use my recovery CD's and back-up image in the event of a catastrophic failure of my internal harddrive?   If I wake up tomorrow and discover my internal HD is toast, what do I do? I am guessing that I would:

1. Remove bad HD and install a new replacement.

2. Load my 3 recovery CD's.

3. Follow directions?

Thanks.