Restore from extenal HD backup with Casper XP

[Pazuzu]

I have an 80GB external hard drive which I use to copy the contents of my PCs internal hard drive (80gb). Recently I tried to restore by copying the contents of the external HD to my PCs internal HD but found that Casper XP would not allow this as the only target had an active windows partition.
Is the solution to fit a second internal hard drive?
OS is windows XP home.
It is a good idea to have backup, but if I don't know how to restore from it .....that is a bit dumb

 

[mscrx]

as far as I know Casper XP creates something like a clone of your system drive on the backup drive. this makes it possible to use the backup drive as system drive in case of the system drive crashed. you should be able to restore file manually from disk to disk using the windows explorer. not sure on how the restore works from within the Casper XP software.
did you try to copy your files from disk to disk in windows explorer?

 

[Pazuzu]

I did not try windows explorer - only Casper XP. Thanks for the suggestion - but since I cannot boot from the external USB hard drive, how would I do that?

 

[mscrx]

well, this was just what it could be used for. cloning the system to a second harddisk drive in your computer. then you can boot from it easily.
if your bios supports booting from usb drives then it should also be possible from the usb disk. you may need to enable usb boot in the bios and change the boot order to do so.

 

[Blind Dragon]

I am not sure on this but wouldn't the external hard drive have to be formatted for NTFS

 

[Pazuzu]

Casper XP Booting from a Backup Hard Disk

I quote from Casper XP user guide

Booting from a Backup Hard Disk
If you have used Casper XP to create a bootable backup of your computer’s primary hard disk, and your primary hard disk fails or its contents become corrupted, you may boot your computer from the backup hard disk.
When the backup hard disk is installed as an internal hard disk, or installed via a mobile rack, booting from the backup hard disk is generally just a matter of changing the computer’s BIOS boot priority setting to designate the backup hard disk as the boot device. If the computer’s BIOS does not offer an option to designate a specific hard disk as the boot device, or if the original hard disk fails completely, the backup hard disk is reconfigured to replace the original hard disk by changing the hard disk jumpers and cable connection as required to make the backup hard disk the master on the primary IDE or SATA controller.
For a backup hard disk installed in a secondary media bay of a notebook, or installed in an external USB, Firewire, or PCMCIA enclosure, the backup hard disk is removed from its enclosure and exchanged with the original, internally mounted hard disk.

User Guide 27 Casper XP 3.0
© Copyright 2005 Future Systems Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. April, 2005

I wonder if there are any other strategies for backup & recovery? I am currently dealing with an ethernet problem - Pro 100 VE Network Connection Orange light on Ethernet port which & need to install a NIC & deal with BIOS settings. These are both firsts for me so I would feel much more confident with a reliable backup & restore facility