What's the best way to backup my AA1?

I got this thing all setup to my liking then had it crash and burn this past weekend and had to do a system restore with the eRecovery software. Now I have it back to my liking, how can I create a new backup? I'm afraid of using the XP Restore points because if XP will not load at all (not even in safe mode, like this past weekend) then I'm not sure the Restore point will do me any good. Any suggestions? Should I be using software like Norton Ghost? I could install the image on another partition on this hard drive or on my 1tb external (or even on my 8gb usb flash drive, for that matter)

Thanks for the help.

 

Two pieces of software I use constantly are Partition Magic and Ghost. Partition Magic to create a new partition and Ghost to image the C:\ drive. There are many imaging tools available, Ghost being just one. I have seen DriveImage mentioned here a few times but I have no experience with that particular piece of software.

Ghost has saved my a** a few times.

 

I've used Acronis TrueImage for my initial backups - used an external drive to accept the partition images.

 

I use PING for both Windows and Linux. See: http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=3182&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=30#p31803

If you have a 160GB partition with 10GB of files the image is usually 5-8GB in size so you may need to use your external hard drive rather than store the image on the USB flash drive.

 

I never had any success with bootable USB sticks made with unetbootin. I made a Parted Magic Live USB using sysconfig.exe and this booted fine. I can now dd an exact copy of my C: drive to an external HDD in a USB enclosure using GPartEd.

 

I use the Windows version of Unetbootin version 2.82 which works great. Downloading the latest, version 2.99, to try now.

Macles* gives the steps to install unetbootin on the AA1 at http://macles.blogspot.com/2008/07/flashing-bios.html. It makes a bootable USB flash drive with point and click using either an .iso file or an internet download. I have PING, FreeDOS (for BIOS upgrades) and Gparted (disk partitions and formatting) on three separate flash drives. If you still have problems, check the wiki at http://unetbootin.wiki.sourceforge.net/.

Using dd will take longer and make a larger image than PING which is based on PartImage. I get a 1GB image of 2.8GB total files in 12 minutes. Restoration is even quicker - I've already done a couple. PING does use dd for the disk mbr and first sectors of each partition.

 

I'm using this (it's free)

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db ... index.html

 

I'm using the built-in XP backup software, which lets you copy everything (Windows' system files, and all). It is not installed unless you are using XP Pro. If you're using Home version, you have to look in your Program Files for a folder called "Valueadd". Open that folder, and double-click on "NTBackup". Double click the installer, and follow the Install Wizard's guidance. When you do a backup, just choose Advanced mode, and it will offer an option to "Copy All Data on This Drive", or something along those lines. It will copy your entire C drive. Still trying to figure out how to trick it into copying the hidden partition.

BTW, if you have alot of stuff on your drive, and will be writing a file larger than 4 Gb, you will need to format your USB with NTFS. Easiest way--Command Prompt-- Open command prompt, and type "Convert x:/FS:NTFS", where x is the letter that your USB drive is assigned. (I was slightly irritated after getting through to 4 gigs the first time I tried this, and got an error message. I learned this the hard, time wasting way...)

Don't know why they hid the built-in backup utility, instead of preinstalling it like in Vista???

 

Acronis True Image. Make back ups to anywhere and can run off a memory stick for a complete crash.

 

Backup manually with external hard drive.

With Acronis you'll need to create recovery CD to safe boot Acronis and recover what you've backed not mention a large USB drive to hold the backup files. Problem is the AA1 does not have a CD/DVD drive!

I got a 320GB WD Passport for backup and storage of important files and a 2GB Sandisk Cruzer for updating BIOS and re-installing Windows if needed. Still you can use the eRecovery option to recover you Windows XP just so long you've got your important files backed up.