backup options

hey guys i'm getting a new rig in the next couple of months. Pretty good pc for about 800. I was wondering if maybe i should buy two hardrives one to boot windows xp and one for vista or just partition it to dual boot. How would i set this up? And also what do you suggest for backing up data, i was thinking of just getting an external and backing up movie files and apps and junk. Also i looked into a lot of backup stuff but still cant decide whats my best option. Should i have an extra hardrive plugged in and when i think i have my primary harddrive the way i want, just replicate the primary drive (in case of whole drive crashes). And then an external or something for just files. What do you guys think? (oh and how would i replicate drives without full time mirroring in case i want to test stuff out and be able to just reboot to the original)

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Mulitbooting different OSs is always a new experience where having drive space available "in case of?" for backing things up does actually save yourself from a lot of headaches! After needing a large amount of storage space at the same time as running two versions of XP along with Vista the second sata here is strictly a storage drive in the event of? repartition for reinstallation of ? It's always fun! trying to decide which OS goes where.

yeah just in case a drive dies or the system crashes i can ust safely boot from my other drive without need of fresh installs. Can i mirror a drive once in a while so i have my working drive (dual boot how?), a drive that i use to mirror the working drive once in a while (for drive total backup complete carbon copy(also do as long as they are the same size its all good right?)), and an external for files. What do you guys think?

There that should clear it up a little

(read rules and thanks for the welcome)!!

The external drives are good for storage but not for an OS. They were intended for anything more then backup and allowing file transfers between systems. Plus since they can unplugged at any time your files are usually safer from viruses. With 4 drives here I have two mainly for storage while one has a working copy of XP Pro on it. The two ide drives have XP Home and Vista on the second.

If the primary ide drive fails here a repair then has to be done on the other two versions of Windows there. Instead of mirroring or cloning drives one tip was to regularly copy different files and folders between drives in case of...? In addition to that periodically I'll burn data dvds for backup there. In XP and even easier in Vista is a newer backup wizard where you can choose a partition or drive and let Windows automatically back things up for you.

oh ok i see i think i got it figured out i see how i'm going to set it up. Can i duplicate a drive without fancy hardware?

Raid?

without full time mirroring from what i read, raid is full time mirroring

What RAID does as well as a SATA array is basically treat two separate hard drives as one logical drive. If one goes foobar... ! you lose access to everything then without a recovery option usually. Here one sata is OSed while the second is strictly a storage drive. The drive space is a little cluttered on the OSed sata however. But the daily backup between drives rules out the need for any mirroing. You simply backup as you go along. With Vista the process is now automated to some degree. You simply select where.

The problem with mirroring is, if you get a virus, corrupted software, spwyare, or malware then that same damage is mirrored to your other drive(s)



Now, really the best back up methods are, saving personal data regularly to a different source (external HD, network drive, DVDs, etc), multiple sources is even safer. Then create a master image of your OS and Applications with an imaging software solution, ie Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage, etc.



Then, if something goes bad you can reimage your comp with your image you made and then just copy back your data over to the newly imaged computer.

thats exactly what i wanted to do awesome thanks man...but for imaging is it a bottable image i can install or is it just a run image.. how is the process

by the way thank you all for your help