What is the best (easiest?) way to make an entire back up of my hard drive? I will be moving soon but will continue working on my current work project so I need to back everything up and take it with me. It would be best if I can get a 100% back up everything - including email and things... essentially take my hard drive/computer with me (without, of course actually taking it with me )

 

This will work for any operating system. This is the BEST way to do it as it is

a complete image of the hard disk.

1 grab a copy of Ubuntu, put it on a USB stick.

2 put an empty hard disk in the computer

3 get the disk names from the disk utility in Ubuntu.

4 boot Ubuntu, drop to the command line and type:

where /dev/sda is the original and /dev/sdb is the new backup. This copies disk A to disk B.



Restore backup is: Each hard disk in Linux is assigned a device called /dev/sd*, just figure out which device is which first. the dd command makes a direct disk image with an Input File and and Output File.



http://www.cyberciti...up-with-dd.html



This is totally free except for the cost of your backup media.

 

There's also RAID mode 5. This is setup in the bios.... you have 3 disks with 3 parts of the disks on them. Any one hard disk on a RAID mode 5 drive can fail.



DiskA contains

Part 1 Part 2



Disk B contains

Part 2 Part 3



Disk C contains

Part 3 Part 1





using this mode you won't need to worry about hard disk failure at all.

 

Acronis True Image. If all you want to do is use a program to copy a hard drive without learning how to deal with a new operating system, Acronis, hands down. Bonus points if your hard drive manufacturer makes it available free at their web site.

 

I've heard Norton Ghost is good for that kind of thing. Not sure if you can get your hands on a copy but I would look into it if you can.

 

I just did this to replace a drive with "hopelessly many" bad sectors. The current attitude online is that Ghost has gone downhill, but any PITA program is better than losing all your data.

 

I use an old version of ghost still. Another cloning tool I use is the partedmagic linux boot disc that has a few different disk cloning utils on it.