While I found out I can't boot off of a USB drive, I can still have it copied on to a new hd if my current one crashes.
I use WD hard drives and like the "Data Lifeguard" utility that is a free download from the Western Digital web site. I have removable hard drive bays for my primary "C" drive and backup drive. When I want to make an exact copy of my "C" drive, I slip in one of my three backup hard drives, that I use in rotation, into the backup hard drive removable bay and make an exact copy of the "C" drive. It is fast, simple, and easy to use. This has saved my ass so many times. When I install new hardware, software, or make any questionable changes to my system, I try it on one of the backup hard drives and make sure it works before making the changes on my primary "C" drive. I have been using this system for several years and it has worked great. I would think other hard drive manufacturers would have similar free downloadable utilities. Catoosa
Great advice. I am planning to buy a new system pretty soon. When I do that, I'll go with the removable hds. Thanks!
I buy full tower cases to build my computers so I will have plenty of room to place the removable hard drive frames so they are not directly opposite the power supply. I have found the magnetic fields of the power supply can cause operating system crashes and "The Blue Screen of Death" on bootup if the "C" drive is directly opposite the power supply. I buy my removable trays with frames from computergate.com for $9 to $20 each (they are cheap and easy to install). Any one of the backup hard drive copies can be swapped out with the primary hard drive as they are an exact duplicate of the "C" drive. Just plug it in and reboot. Catoosa
Ghost Rules! I use it all the time. I created a bootable DOS CD with ghost on it. The CD automatically detects your network hardware and allows you to map from DOS a network drive. Then you can run GHOST and save or restore an image to or from a mapped network drive or a CDR. I have also created a bootable floppy for compuiters that can't boot from the CD. The floppy autodetects the CDROM and boot straps the CD. These utilities make GHOSTING a breeze. Mike
I've never been able to get the bootable CDs to boot by themselves with Ghost, despite being able to boot from CD with my mobo. I always have to throw in a Ghost boot floppy. And I agree, Ghost is bombs, but again, you have to fool with it (and get frustrated a bit) before you get it workin' for your system, but once you do your life is easier... Another thing you can do with Ghost 2002 (if your CD-R/RW drive has trouble being detected) is just make an image of your boot drive (usually C) to either another partition on that same drive, or to another hard drive, if you have one. Then you can simply boot back into windows and burn the image onto CD (provided the image will fit onto one CD, which shouldn't be an issue if you Ghost your drive after a clean install). Before you buy it, though, make sure your CD burner is supported by Ghost, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't recognize any USB drives as DOS does not recognize USB.
Windows backup is a little bit weak to really rely on, but if you must use it and want to back up to CD that is no problem. Just write the backup to file and burn it to a CD.