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Backing up hard drive

cujo9999

Lurker
I have a 250gb hdd. I also have a 2tb external drive. I was wondering if creating a 250gb partition on the external drive and copying my main drive to that partition weekly was a good way to back up my hdd. Also, is there a program that would automate this process? TIA.
 
Backing up a entire hard drive is a awful idea.
You should backup things that are personal only (Family Photos, Emails, Home Videos, Code You created, Etc.)

By the time you have a hard drive crash,
Their will be new OSes, New Programs, etc...
Hard Drives have a pretty good lifespan. It is better to get a fresh start when/if your hdd fails.
 
Hard drive failures from individual perspective are rather unpredictable. I've had brand new drives fail after 30 hours, and I've had hard drives pulled from other computers not fail on me yet. Windows backup can schedule and maintain backing up to another drive just about any way and any time you want. Using a 250GB partition isn't a bad idea but having an external separate drive is a better idea. RAID 1 is a better idea for more advanced users.
 
I agree with priest I never backup my entire drive just my personal files. anything else is pointless most things update to much and need to be backed up constantly. I use simple bash files to do this task.

Also you would want to have about 15% more diskspace then what you are backing up so if you have 250 then you would want to make it 15% larger. This allows for defraging the drive if its windows based
 
It really depends. If you're looking for a quick recovery, a monthly full backup is a good idea with a separate weekly backup of your personal items.
If downtime doesn't matter, just stick with the weekly personal items.
 
The thing with backing up a entire hdd.
Over time whether you try to or not, You hard drive will get cluttered with useless/corrupt/bad files.
Their is a greater chance of malware causing hdd errors(on a name brand hdd) than time, Thus if the malware exists on the backup, then you will end up wasting money.

Also, How many programs that you currently have do you actively use?
Most users do not uninstall programs they no longer want/need.
 
I believe you misunderstand what a bad cluster is. Malware doesn't cause bad clusters. Bad clusters (or just sectors) are physical damage to the disk or the magnetics of that spot on the disk got stuck.
As for the programs, I use tuneup utilities, which gives me a reminder if I haven't used a program in 3 weeks and asks if I want to uninstall or keep the program.
 
To be honest, I still facepalm when I find that people fall for that BS. Nobody stops to think "why have I never seen that on my computer before" or "wait, I never installed this". Not to mention some of the more obvious signs like the task manager being blocked from opening.

And that is true. I regularly use TuneUp Utilities to clean the registry and extra files off the computer, paired with CCleaner for all the other tins such as browsing cache, temp files, and the like. On top of that, I use Defraggler on a weekly basis.
 
To be honest, I still facepalm when I find that people fall for that BS. Nobody stops to think "why have I never seen that on my computer before" or "wait, I never installed this". Not to mention some of the more obvious signs like the task manager being blocked from opening.

And that is true. I regularly use TuneUp Utilities to clean the registry and extra files off the computer, paired with CCleaner for all the other tins such as browsing cache, temp files, and the like. On top of that, I use Defraggler on a weekly basis.
I just use Norton 360 for all my needs.
 
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