How can i take backup of my HDD on an external Drive?

[rohit007]

Hi,
How can i take back up of my HDD on an external Hard Drive?
I have windows XP pro.
How to do this?

[Jerzy]

Hi Rohit,
Welcome to TechArena Community forum.
You want to take backup of your HDD on your External Hard Drive & you have XP installed, so what you have to do is very simple. Just connect your External HDD to your PC with USB connection. Now You can use a simple system tool from Windows XP.
Let me ask you before taking the backup thatyou must have enough free space on your external Hard Drive To take the complete back up of your HDD. Say you have 250GB External HDD & you have more data to back up from your Hard Disk then it will not be possible to take complete back up.
Now follow these steps!
1) Click Start, Accessories, System Tools, and then click Backup. If the Backup option does not appear on the System Tools menu, you can install it.

2) The Backup or Restore Wizard appears. Click Next.

3) On the Backup page, click Next.

4) On What to Back Up page, click All information on this computer, and then click Next. Here you have options what you want to back up?

5) On the Backup Type, Destination, and Name page, Choose a place to save your backup, and select your external hard disk drive. Click Next.

6) On the Completing the Backup or Restore Wizard page, click Finish.

7) Windows Backup saves a copy of your files to your external hard disk drive. When the backup is complete, click Close.

[rohit007]

Hey thanks for the quick reply
This was really helpful I will teke entire backup of my HDD right now!

[JamesMK]

Some information on External Hard Drive
-->An external hard disk is a normal hard disk which is located outside of the system block. It is usually enclosed in a special case and can be connected via the USB port. External hard disks are becoming a popular storage for backups. It may be fast, safe and can be performed without supervision, unlike backup to CD or DVD. External hard disks are also convenient for exchanging large amounts of data with nearby computers, not connected by a network.

[san1234]

It seems there many utilities and backp software available in market. I was looking for simple utility which will transfer all new/modifed files to my external hard drive. and I should be able to access them as simple folder. not like someBigfile.bkf, it takes out freedom to get specific file you need to restore all.

Here is smiple trick can help. since we usually keep all our file in particualr folder i.e samPersonal, myOfficeFiles. H: indicates your external drive

1. create synchMyData.bat file
2. edit synchMyData.bat file and add following lines

xcopy /E /Y /D c:\samPersonal H:\samPersonal
xcopy /E /Y /D c:\myOfficeFiles H:\myOfficeFiles

3. now keep synchMyData.bat in your External HDD. and run whenever you feel that you not take back for many Day's,month...

4. Just connect your external drive, make sure Drive letter is "H:" or if it's different modify same in synchMyData.bat. click on synchMyData.bat

5. If you are running First time it will take bit loner depending on size of folder
. but Next time you will run it copy only files modified/new. It will be very quick

7. Note : This process Does not maintain any version. This just takes backup wil latest files

It's advisable to have 2 External HDD, if you are not retaining folder in compter HDD. Just in case if one External HDD failed. you will have other HDD.

Hope this will helpful.


Regards
San

[JohnnyBoyClub]

Well i don't really know your reason and why are you buyed a external HDD to backup your drive.
There are a lot of softwares and services that you will be able to store the backup online on their server with much more low costs.
A software like that is : Dmailer Backup you have up to 3gb for online storage for free members and the software is 100% free and in your case as you allready buyed the external hdd you just backup and store it on the other hdd and when you need it you just simple restore it .