Backing up disks

[scottp88]

I have set to the task of revamping my fathers PC. He uses this PC for all his work so the security and correct backup and storage of all his data is paramount.

He is currently running an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (those good old processors that we all loved so much...)
512MB of DDR333 RAM
ATI Radeon 9200SE 128mb
2 hard disks: The system boot disk is 80GB and the storage disk is 250GB (Both are IDE)

I selected a Gigabyte M61PME-S2 mobo: socket AM2/AM2+
with an AMD5500+ dual core processor and a GB of Corsair DDR2 twin2X RAM for the upgrade.

Here is where the trouble began. I installed the new hardware with relative ease and the system posted with no problems. However, I continually got the "windows did not start properly... etc..." where is lists different options for safe modes and the "last known good config" option and the "start windows normally" option, yada yada yada. None of these options worked! and I cannot get past this screen in my attempt to boot windows. Again, I did nothing to the disks at all.

After reviewing some other threads in this forum, I realized that the HAL is only configured during the initial install changing the motherboard is too much for windows to handle. I have decided to wipe the drives clean, and do a fresh install...

NOW for my question: What is the best way to create a disk image within windows? or do a full backup to create a backup file?

 

[kimsland]

Norton Ghost (I use this one)
Acronis True Image (most users like this one, images and backup incrementally)
Acronis Migrate Easy (Just disk clone - quite good!)
Drive Image (Basically an alternative)
DriveImage XML (This one is free!)
MaxBlast (I haven't used this, but it's free)
pc-disk-clone (Home Edition: Up to 2GB/min, Pro Edition: Up to 7GB/min)

Imaging: Backs up your entire system, including Windows and data, plus your partition as well. The image can be stored on removable media, such as DVD. And usually takes under an hour (depending on size of image) to fully recover to a blank HardDrive.

 

[scottp88]

The next step

First of all, thank you to to poster who listed the various cloning software. It was monumentally helpful. I used the Acronis disk image creator to create an image, however I have a new set of problems...

One of the major problems so far has been the fact that the new motherboard (the new one listed in the original post) only has one IDE channel on it. This, I have had so constantly switch out the secondary HDD ( I will call it E: - the one that has the image of the system drive) with the CD drive. So, to be clear, I have 2 HDDs (C: and E: ) and a CD drive (D: ), and only 2 of them can function at a time at present. the System drive (C: ) has to remain connected obviously. To perform the Image recovery, I connected both HDDs leaving no CD Drive usable in the system. At one point, I was prompted to insert my Windows CD because the system said it had many "unknown" versions of windows files and in order to keep windows running stably, it required the Windows CD to correct the problem. Well, at the time, I did not have a functioning CD drive... So instead I hit cancel to shut down the system and reconnect the the CD drive and attempted to reboot. no luck... it gets to the load screen and then stalls. I also have tried replacing the boot sector via windows repair, also no go.. What can I do????

 

[kimsland]

Hmm, so now there are two issues!
Regarding the single IDE issue, I suppose you could connect the blank harddrive to an external IDE to USB adaptor. Then image from internal to external drive

Regarding the Windows issue (a Windows issue!, you're trying to work out how to "image" properly, and now this!)

Microsoft's Windows XP Home Repair Install step by step
http://www.windowsxphome.windowsreinstall.com/installxpcdrepair/part3.htm

Oh and 512Meg of Ram is pretty much minimum these days
I'd recommend 1Gig for Xp SP3 (Home\Pro unknown, I guessed Home version)