How to backup a computer without an image or cloning

W

WillD

New Member
I need to backup my XP computer as I bought a Windows 7 computer. How do I backup the entire C drive on my XP computer easily? I do not want to do an image backup because my new computer has its own settings and OS. I simply want access to everything from my old computer like files, programs, etc.

I cannot just select what I want to backup because I do not know where everything is. I have many programs that keep data files somewhere on the C drive. Surely this should be an easy thing to do right? I'm finding nothing on the internet.
 
Why don't you just copy the files you need to your new computer? You can't copy programs, they would have to be reinstalled unfortunately. Add the drive as a slave to your new computer and then copy files that way.
 
johnb35 said:
Why don't you just copy the files you need to your new computer? You can't copy programs, they would have to be reinstalled unfortunately. Add the drive as a slave to your new computer and then copy files that way.
Click to expand...

That's the issue. I don't know what I need to backup and I don't want to mess with figuring that out right now. I just want to back everything up and get going. I will figure out where the things are that I need in the future. The programs I use keep data in data files and I don't want to lose those or figure out where they are right now.
 
Then the best way to do that would be to just slave the drive to your new computer.

As I said before, your personal files will be located in your documents folder(pictures, music, docs, videos, etc.) You can't backup programs because they would have to be reinstalled anyway, however, you can copy over game saves. There really sense in backing up your whole hard drive and wasting the space of the new computer.
 
For games in steam and origin, you can actually back them up. For origin, all you need to do is copy the game in its folder (example: "Battlefield 3") and move it over into the origin folder. When you open origin, it will install it automatically and will take a much shorter time.

Steam has a similar option where you right click the game on the left hand side and click "back up this game" or something similar. Then you choose where to save the backup, and when you reinstall, just open steam and follow their procedure on how to reinstall the game.

Its much faster than reinstalling from a CD or redownloading it, depending on how you transfer. I have the luxury of USB 3.0 so it was faster than the CD. But since you may slave your hard drive, it should be relatively fast.
 
If you don't want to plug out and remove your HDD from your old computer (in the case you don't know how or simply don't want to) then the best thing for you to do would be the following:

-Create an empty folder called "FULL BACKUP" at the roof of your C: drive.For example:

C:\FULL BACKUP

-Load Linux Ubuntu from the CD-ROM disk...
-When Ubuntu is loaded,locate your "C:" drive (by it's name since Ubuntu doesn't show drive letters) then go in it...
-Select ALL the items there then right click on any of them and click COPY...
-Click the COMPUTER button at the top of the window to go back to your local drives...
-Go again in your "C:" drive then go in the FULL BACKUP folder/directory and there right click with the mouse and then click PASTE.
-The copying process will start so let it finish.It will take some time depending on the size of the data,speed of your computer and HDD and many other factors...
-When the copying process is finished,close the window and shut down Ubuntu by going on the LIVE SESSION USER in the upper left corner and then click SHUT DOWN...
-When Ubuntu shuts down you are done.You now have a FULL BACKUP of EVERY SINGLE FILE from your "C:" drive in that FULL BACKUP folder/directory.
-Now you can move or copy that FULL BACKUP folder/directory wherever you want,whenever you want and do with it whatever you want...





Cheers!
 
If the new computer has a lot of storage, then just network the two computers, and Drag and drop the Documents and Setting Folders from the old Computer to the new one, or put the old Hard Drive in a USB enclosure.
 
johnb35 said:
Then the best way to do that would be to just slave the drive to your new computer.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what "slave" means. What is that?

johnb35 said:
As I said before, your personal files will be located in your documents folder(pictures, music, docs, videos, etc.) You can't backup programs because they would have to be reinstalled anyway, however, you can copy over game saves. There really sense in backing up your whole hard drive and wasting the space of the new computer.
Click to expand...

I realize that about my personal files, but I don't want to risk losing anything. And I won't be wasting space on the new computer, because I'm not going to dump my backup onto it. I'm going to systematically pull things off of it, as I need them, over the coming year.

The nature of my work includes illustration software from many carriers and they all hide that client-specific data somewhere. I desperately need to get Windows 7 up and running TODAY and I just want to know that my entire C drive is backed up on an external so that I can get what I need, when I need it.

This seems like such a simple thing to do, and quite frustrating that Microsoft doesn't make this easier. I feel like it should be as easy as a drag and drop. I'm only talking about 60GB of info and I should be done in a couple hours at most. Thoughts?
 
S.T.A.R.S. said:
If you don't want to plug out and remove your HDD from your old computer (in the case you don't know how or simply don't want to) then the best thing for you to do would be the following:
Click to expand...

I definitely don't want to do that. I'm reformatting the HD and installing Win 7.

S.T.A.R.S. said:
-Create an empty folder called "FULL BACKUP" at the roof of your C: drive.For example:

C:\FULL BACKUP

-Load Linux Ubuntu from the CD-ROM disk...
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I don't know what Linux Ubuntu is. And where would I get such a disk? I really thought this would be a bit easier. I have a flash drive big enough to contain everything.
 
I'm not sure what "slave" means. What is that?
Click to expand...

Slaving a drive just means adding the old drive into your new computer temporarily in order to copy data from it. If your case comes with a extra drive bay for hdd's then go ahead and screw it in place and attach data and power cables to it and your off. This is actually the best way as you get instant access and faster transfer speeds.
 
johnb35 said:
Slaving a drive just means adding the old drive into your new computer temporarily in order to copy data from it. If your case comes with a extra drive bay for hdd's then go ahead and screw it in place and attach data and power cables to it and your off. This is actually the best way as you get instant access and faster transfer speeds.
Click to expand...

Oh, I'm talking about a laptop.
 
Then you can just put the old hard drive in an external enclosure and attach it to your laptop with usb. You would be basically using your old hard drive as an external drive. Is your old computer a laptop as well or was it a desktop?
 
johnb35 said:
Then you can just put the old hard drive in an external enclosure and attach it to your laptop with usb. You would be basically using your old hard drive as an external drive. Is your old computer a laptop as well or was it a desktop?
Click to expand...

Well, I'd rather not buy a new HD and an external enclosure for my laptop. I was able to buy a 60GB flash drive for $25 which is all the space I need. And then my plan was to reformat the HD in my laptop and install the new OS.
 
Answer to your question:

Linux Ubuntu is FREE computer operating system and you can download it form anywhere.After that just burn it to the CD disk and boot it.
After that just follow what I wrote in my previous post and you will be able to copy entire C: drive on your usb flash drive just like you want to.

You can download Linux Ubuntu ISO image file from here:

http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/jaunty/ubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso

Also here is my previous post again:

-Create an empty folder called "FULL BACKUP" at the roof of your C: drive.For example:

C:\FULL BACKUP

-Load Linux Ubuntu from the CD-ROM disk...
-When Ubuntu is loaded,locate your "C:" drive (by it's name since Ubuntu doesn't show drive letters) then go in it...
-Select ALL the items there then right click on any of them and click COPY...
-Click the COMPUTER button at the top of the window to go back to your local drives...
-Go again in your "C:" drive then go in the FULL BACKUP folder/directory and there right click with the mouse and then click PASTE.
-The copying process will start so let it finish.It will take some time depending on the size of the data,speed of your computer and HDD and many other factors...
-When the copying process is finished,close the window and shut down Ubuntu by going on the LIVE SESSION USER in the upper left corner and then click SHUT DOWN...
-When Ubuntu shuts down you are done.You now have a FULL BACKUP of EVERY SINGLE FILE from your "C:" drive in that FULL BACKUP folder/directory.
-Now you can move or copy that FULL BACKUP folder/directory wherever you want,whenever you want and do with it whatever you want...

This way I gave you will do EXACTLY what you need without ANY need to take a hard disk drive out of the laptop.
In my post I showed you how to backup entire C: drive on "C:\FULL BACKUP" folder.But it doesn't have to be on "C:\FULL BACKUP".
It can be ANYWHERE you want.Let's say that your flash memory stick has drive letter "H:".In that case just backup entire C: drive on "H:\FULL BACKUP".

One note: In Windows there ARE drive letters such as "C:","D:" and so on...
However in Linux Ubuntu everything starts with the NAME of the drive and NOT the drive letter.
So if your C: drive is called let's say "WINXP" and your flash memory stick is let's say called "FLASH" then in Ubuntu you would backup entire WINXP data to "FLASH\FULL BACKUP".

If you do not know how to do this,I can show you for 2 days.We can use MSN or Skype or even a voice conversation.
Or of course you can ask here lol.




Cheers!
 
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