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Solve : How to back up before moving house??

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Hello and thank you for taking the time to look at my question.

I am going to move my computer to another location, eg another State and new house.

I want to do a complete back up before the move just in case of a failure during or after the move.

My Dell computer has a 500 Gig drive, of which about 160 to 180 Gig is used. Now obviously that is not all data but programs and data.

I have run through the backup facility in XP SP3 and set it to put the backup on the desktop.
The backup program tells me there is 81,576,577,488 bytes to process.

1. Will a back up to desktop use additional space on my drive?
2. Can I transfer that file to another source, say a CD Data disk?
3. Will I be able to put my backup on just one disk?
4. If there are more than one disk required how do I continue with the data transfer to the second and third disk and so on?

5. AM I DOING THIS THE RIGHT WAY or is there an easier way to do it please?

Thank you ImnoGuru.
5. AM I DOING THIS THE RIGHT WAY or is there an easier way to do it please?

For me, and I emphasize that this is a personal choice, the easiest way is to clone the source disk to another disk which also becomes bootable thereby having two "identical" disks which can be booted. The destination disk can be removed and wrapped in cotton-wool for the trip.

I use XXClone. It comes with comprehensive instructions and can make the destination disk bootable. The destination disk does not need to be the same size or larger than the source but must be big enough to contain all the data/program files/system files being transferred.

Cloning software may be freely available on your hard disk manufacturer's web site.

Also see this discussion.

Good luckThank you Dusty for your reply.

There is very good information in your reply.

I looked in the CH pages before making a post, but didn't see anything on doing a disk image. I didn't think of it either. (I just searched under backup)

With the size of the disk required, is the figures I stated above, MEAN that the files I have selected to backup, equal approximately 81.5 Gigabytes?

The files and programs, size used on my 500 is about 250 Gig, so will I then need at least a 250 Gig hard drive to clone my image?

The link you gave me for that other post had great discussion on exactly what I want to achieve as well.
I will have a look around now that I have a bit more direction on what I might need to do for my computer/s. ( I use 4 computers mostly ). Maybe a licensed software for a few computers would be best for me.

Thank you for your help.
Imnoguru.Use disc imaging software (ie, Acronis True Image or Macrium Reflect) and put the image on an external drive.Quote from: ImnoGuru

With the size of the disk required, is the figures I stated above, mean that the files I have selected to backup, equal approximately 81.5 Gigabytes?

Theoretically if you only want to backup 81.5 Gb then an 81.5Gb capacity disk, if such a thing was available, is sufficient but you will know that for some purposes the OS requires at least 15% free space so using a minimum 100Gb capacity disk seems a much better option.

Quote from: ImnoGuru
The files and programs, size used on my 500 is about 250 Gig, so will I then need at least a 250 Gig hard drive to clone my image?

Yes, but if the source disk has more than one partition, you could opt to clone selected partition(s) without making the destination disk bootable thus reducing the required size of the destination disk.

There are many options available, perhaps imaging is, for you, a neater solution.1. yes the back up file will use space but usually not as much as normal as it is compressed
2. yes you can teat it as another file you can even UPLOAD it to a ftp (that would take forever, don't do it)
3. It rely depends how big the backup file is if i was you i would use a DVD as it is MUCH bigger 700mb to 3gb (3000 mb)
4. You might want to download a program called "win rar" and you can add it to a archive and split it so it can fit onto a DVD or CD

Instructions on how to split backup file (or any file):

1. Download and install winrar http://www.rarlab.com/rar/wrar393.exe
2. Right click on the back up and click on "Add to archive"
3. Chang the compression method to suite your needs (Store = BIG and FAST....ER. Best = small but slow...er.)
4. Select the split volume to what you want CD/DVD
5. Press ok and it will split the back up into "rar" archives the right size to be wrote to CD/DVD what evenone you picked earlier (one file = one CD/DVD).

Instructions on how to restore backup file (or any file):

1. Download and install winrar http://www.rarlab.com/rar/wrar393.exe
2. Right click on the rar and click on "Extract files"
3. now you have your backup file, you are ready to back it up

if you need more help, ask Both Acronis and Macrium will do image "spanning"....
No need for a third party solution.Thank you Allan, Dusty, brentbmwh and PATIO for your replies.

Quote from: Dusty on September 17, 2010, 08:58:12 PM

Also see this discussion.


Dusty led me to a discussion about disk imaging in his post, in fact patio's suggestion there, was for Acronis True Image or Macrium Reflect and with such overwhelming support and recommendations from Allan and patio for them both, I am exploring which I will use. Dusty had also recommended XXClone, so, also a concideration.

Wouldn't you know it my 200 Gig external has blown the power supply. (it never rains... It pours!! )
Thank you too Dusty for reminding me of the additional space required. My drive only has the one partition that I know of so all good there I think and once I get a replacement power supply, my 200 external should be OK.

I like the idea also though, of having a disk copy for a backup that I can store off site, (just in case), so XXClone maybe what I might use there. That requires me to get a physical hard drive though?, of at least the same size consumed on the current hard drive in my Dell computer? ( So that is about 250 Gig plus 15%= (a silly number) say 300 Gig drive). They dont make one, so a 500 Gig then should do it.

brentbmwh, I have winrar already... never used it though. I'll have a play around with that and see where I end up. Thank you for your post on it.
It seems easy enough, even ImnoGuru might be able to do that. I wouldn't ordinarily consider it because I know nothing of winrar.

I downloaded Macrium reflect so far, so I'll have a go with that one first.

Thank you all, I will do a bit of work on these suggestions and LET you know how it turns out.
(Should go well... I have good instructors hehehe.)


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