2nd hard drive as a backup.

[kairos]

Hi,
I will be fitting a second hard drive solely as a back up for the master hard drive. How do I get my operating system to copy everything across to the slave hard drive ?
If I need a program is there a freeware one that you could recommend.
Many thanks,
Kairos.

 

[S.T.A.R.S.]

Do you want to backup only specific data or the ENTIRE HDD INCLUDING THE OPERATING SYSTEM,ALL THE SETTINGS AND ALL THE DATA AND EVERYTHING ELSE???

 

[kairos]

Hi S.T.A.R.S,
Thanks for the reply.
Everything so as if my hard drive fails I can turn the slave into a new master
or failing that just my documents.
Kairos

 

[johnb35]

Look on the manufacturers website of the brand of hard drive you bought for their cloning software so that you can clone your original drive to the new one. Or find free cloning software online.

 

[jevery]

You can write a little DOS batch file to copy specific files, directories, or an entire drive. Here's an example of one I use to backup my important files.

@echo off
echo.
echo Backup Critical Files
echo.
pause
dir C:\windows\system
rmdir D:\Backup /s/q
md "D:\Backup\Computer Files"
xcopy "C:\Computer Files" "D:\Backup\Computer Files" /e/f/h/k/y
md D:\backup\Contacts
xcopy C:\Users\Contacts "D:\Backup\Contacts" /e/f/h/k/y
md D:\Backup\Favorites
xcopy "C:\Users\Favorites" "D:\Backup\Favorites" /e/f/h/k/y
md D:\Backup\Documents
xcopy C:\My Documents" "D:\Backup\Documents" /e/f/h/k/y
md D:\Backup\Pictures
xcopy "C:\Pictures" "D:\Backup\Pictures" /e/f/h/k/y
md D:\Backup\Zips
xcopy "C:\Zips" "D:\Backup\Zips" /e/f/h/k/y
md D:\Backup\WinRaR
xcopy "C:\Program Files (x86)\WinRaR" "D:\Backup\WinRaR" /e/f/h/k/y
echo.
echo Critical File Backup Complete
echo.
pause

 

[kairos]

Hi,
Thanks Johnb and Jevery.
Checking the manufacturers site sounds a good starting point ,now I know what to look for "Cloning Software!)
Thanks Jerery for the short program I haven't used DOS for years but I will give it a go if I can't find any suitable existing software.
Kairos