Hi,

woke this morning to find the laptop which I use mainly for emails and surfing in the living room had crashed. So on rebooting I find it is very slow and the hard drive is clicking and crashing about. You remeber what the original drives used to sound like? Bit like that but louder.

Ok I've transfered the critical files to the network drive but idealy I'd like  to be able to just transfer the whole lot and then put it onto the new hard disk when it arrives. tried using XP's file transfers utility but it just crashes.

Any thoughts?

cheers,

Kevin 

Kevin,

What you need to do is an Image backup which means everything on your new hard drive is 100% the same as the old.

I suggest you use a product that I use called Drive Image from R-Tools, it works very well and you can even open the backup image up on another machine as a virtual drive.

You can download it from HERE

Keith..

Kevin,

 you might want to look at

http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html

to help you.

Regards

Ralf

Keith Saunders:

Kevin,

What you need to do is an Image backup which means everything on your new hard drive is 100% the same as the old.

I suggest you use a product that I use called Drive Image from R-Tools, it works very well and you can even open the backup image up on another machine as a virtual drive.

You can download it from HERE

Keith..

Well the news is not good[:'(] tried both products. The first requires a 2nd writeable drive usb etc requires the upgrade so no go there and the 2nd which I shall use when everything is up and running didn't get a chance 'cause the blue screen appeared and the final reboot led to the inevitable "no operating system" message.

Thanks for all the advice and help though.

Just have to wait for the new drive  and get on with loading everything on again ... yawn!

cheers,

Kevin 

Hi Kevin

Look at your PMs

Yann.

Thansk for your help Yann I've sent you a PM back.

Justa quick update.

The drive died altogether before I was able to do anymore. I'm still rebuilding with all those usefull bits of software that have to be uploaded but at least I'm surfing again.

cheers,

kevin 

In hindsight everyone is an expert. Have you thought about two drives, connected with a RAID something so that they automatically duplicate themselves.

With memory coming down in price this is a good way to protect your stuff without actually having to do anything (after it's set up).

Cheers

Brian

No raid won't work but Brian I am connected to a network which has dedicated network drive so I intend to do something similar as you suggest and use the image software to do a back up image.

Unfortunately the drive was not the only problem, it looks like the hard disk controller on the motherboard is down and the thing just won't play any more. Just waiting for a replacement at the moment and can then hopefully just swap drives.

just an update.

The new laptop arrived yesterday I got a refurbished IBM T40 cosmeticaly in perfect nick with all the IBM goodies on it including Ghost for 400€.  Still have to get used to the German keyboard thogh so excuse any typing errors lol 

Great laptop though! Stick Linux on it and it'll be bombproof...