I’ve read couple of articles and Raul mentioned 2 back-up system he is using.

Do I have to have external hd for the backup?
Do I need to buy any sofrware? ( I have sony recovery DVD but not sure it has xp professional in it??)

I just dont know what backup is and how it works..
I’d appreciate if someone could walk me through the concept and means and methods..

Thank you.

ok, let me try and explain…

You dont need to have an external harddrive for the kind of backup I referred to…you can simply create a partition (i.e. create 2 logical drives on a single drive) on your drive and have the backup on the second logical drive (you can also save your backup to a dvd or cd provided the backup software allows it). The only time it will create problems is if your harddisk crashes…in this case both logical drives will be affected so you might not be able to restore your backup in that case.

How will the backup help: Incase you are facing problems with windows xp and you need to do a reinstall, you can simply restore the backup you had created within 15 mins instead of going through the painful process of reinstalling which could run into several hours depending on whatall softwares you need to install.

When do u create a backup: After installing windows xp, customizing it, installing all other apps like MS office, antivirus, etc.

Softwares you can use: Acronis true image, Drive image, Norton ghost(?) and may be a few more.

Procedure: That will vary from software to software…some might allow you to create it from within windows (very useful for the TR) while some might need you to boot into DOS mode and then create the backup. You would usually select the entire C drive for backup and start the backup procedure. The software will also need you to create a bootable disk (cd or floppy) for recovery of the backup image. When you need to restore, you simply boot through the cd/floppy and follow the instructions…it would ask you to select an image to restore and then will take a few mins to restore it…at the end you’ll have a working copy of windows xp just like at the time you had made a backup.

Hope this helped…

[quote author=“Rahul”]ok, let me try and explain…

You dont need to have an external harddrive for the kind of backup I referred to…you can simply create a partition (i.e. create 2 logical drives on a single drive) on your drive and have the backup on the second logical drive. The only time it will create problems is if your harddisk crashes…in this case both logical drives will be affected so you might not be able to restore your backup in that case.

How will the backup help: Incase you are facing problems with windows xp and you need to do a reinstall, you can simply restore the backup you had created within 15 mins instead of going through the painful process of reinstalling which could run into several hours depending on whatall softwares you need to install.

When do u create a backup: After installing windows xp, customizing it, installing all other apps like MS office, antivirus, etc.

Softwares you can use: Acronis true image, Drive image, Norton ghost(?) and may be a few more.

Procedure: That will vary from software to software…some might allow you to create it from within windows (very useful for the TR) while some might need you to boot into DOS mode and then create the backup. You would usually select the entire C drive for backup and start the backup procedure. The software will also need you to create a bootable disk (cd or floppy) for recovery of the backup image. When you need to restore, you simply boot through the cd/floppy and follow the instructions…it would ask you to select an image to restore and then will take a few mins to restore it…at the end you’ll have a working copy of windows xp just like at the time you had made a backup.

Hope this helped…

i would like to know from you guys what software for backup is preferable???

Acronis true image is very good.

Rahul:

Your advice always helpful.

Is win xp pro is also included recovery DVD?
If the machine crashes, there would be no win xp pro, right? since sony didnt give me win xp pro cd.

is the backup program autmatically devide the partition or will that suggest making cd?

Thank you.

[quote author=“sp535”]Rahul:

Your advice always helpful.

Is win xp pro is also included recovery DVD?
If the machine crashes, there would be no win xp pro, right? since sony didnt give me win xp pro cd.

is the backup program autmatically devide the partition or will that suggest making cd?

Thank you.

If you use the recovery dvd, it will restore your laptop to the state when you got it first (only as far as software goes i.e.  ) i.e. the default factory install, and that recovery dvd already has windows xp on it, but it also has all the other junk that will be automatically restored if you used the recovery dvd. I haven’t quite understood your last question, but, to create a partition you’ll need a software like partition magic. As far as making the backup on cd goes, the backup software must support the functionality byitself…I think acronis true image does support it.

So Rahul, if I use the software, the recovery DVD is of no use anymore?
Will the software restores win xp pro as well?

I do appreciate enlightening my ignorance…

+1

[quote author=“sp535”]So Rahul, if I use the software, the recovery DVD is of no use anymore?
Will the software restores win xp pro as well?

I do appreciate enlightening my ignorance…

In a way, yes. The recovery dvd contains windows xp + plenty of other sony crap. The backup you make would contain a clean install of windows xp + softwares that you need. Keep in mind however, that after a clean install the camera, function buttons and wireless card will NOT be functional. You need to do some things extra to get them working. Refer to this tutorial to get all those things functioning. At the end of the tutorial I have mentioned to run the backup…this way you wouldn’t need to reinstall windows in the future and spend more time getting the camera and other stuff to function.

And, finally yes, the software will restore windows xp pro as well since it will restore the entire drive you made a backup of (usually C: ) and that contains your OS and all other stuff that you have installed.

However, you should still keep the recovery cd, since you might need some software off it sometime.

thanks much /11 even though there are couple of things that I dont understand some technical terms in your step by step clean install, I wouldn’t bother you anymore until I hit the wall by myself.

Thank you for your help!

lemme know and I’ll try my best to explain them…