Learning the hard way, HD Failure. Replacement/backup advice please.

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15 Mar 2005
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179
So my drive has failed, its completely dead it does not even spin up.

To make it worse I got it from a computer fair so I can't RMA it and I kept no backups :( Silly boy :(

Its very frustrating but fortunately I didn't have too much stuff on that cannot be re-installed. Most of my irreplaceable data is on another machine (that also has no backups at the moment!).

So I am looking for a SATA drive for around 60 quid to replace the failed drive.

More importantly! I am looking for a way of backing up the drive above and also my other machine (80gb). It seems a USB external drive is a good way of backing up so I'll probably go for one of those..

Are there any external drives here on OCUK that include backup software?

Or would it be better to buy the drive and separate software?

I don’t know if all the software does but it would ideally be able to restore images/backups from scratch, I.E. Complete drive failure and that works on both Vista and XP and is able to put both PC images on one USB drive?

If that makes any sense..

TIA
 
OK, SATA drive to replace the failed one - either a Seagate 7200.10 or a WD 320AAKS (or 500AAKS but that might be out of budget).

I'm not sure how good the supplied software that comes with external drives is so I'd be tempted to go with a self build external and then use something like Microsoft's synctoy for file level backups and Acronis True Image for image type backups although I'm not sure if that works with Vista yet.
 
Yes I just checked out the website, it doesn't say whether I can create multiple PC images on one drive, though it sounds ilke it should as its stored as a compressed file..

Also I'm not sure if it will allow backup from 2 machines, would I need 2 copies?!!
 
Strictly/Legally speaking you'd probably need 2 copies... (it won't enforce it however as far as I know...)

Edit: Yes it can create multiple images on one drive etc etc. It's really quite versatile. You can even do backups from the recovery CD if you wanted to.
 
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Cheers for help :)

Ok I am getting

Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £45.99
(£54.04)

External hard drive this seems good value on this week only. Unless there is some reason I should buy a drive and a seperate caddy, after all it is going to be switched off apart from when updating backups.

LaCie Design by F.A Porsche 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
£73.99
(£86.94)


..
 
Might be worth your while checking out the brand of HD in the external hard-drive. About as much as use as a chocolate fireguard if it's a Maxtor.

Could well work out cheaper buy a USB to IDE/SATA adapter, and the hard-drive seperately.
 
basmic said:
About as much as use as a chocolate fireguard if it's a Maxtor.
My Lacie certainly has a Maxtor in it and strangely enough it's lasted longer than either of the two internal Maxtors I had. That's despite being moved about, taken on holiday etc.

I understand that they're now using Seagates though.
 
basmic said:
Might be worth your while checking out the brand of HD in the external hard-drive. About as much as use as a chocolate fireguard if it's a Maxtor.

Could well work out cheaper buy a USB to IDE/SATA adapter, and the hard-drive seperately.
I will second that as a hardware engineer, I bin more maxtors than any other drive
 
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