Thanks for the reply Cromwell. Unfortunately I'm 80 percent computer illiterate and don't know what you mean by copy the root drive to the other drive. I also looked at the site you mentioned and am not sure how that works. Can you provide me more guidance on how to copy the root drive to the other hard drive. I'm assuming I plug both externals into my laptop via the USB and then go from there some how, but don't know what to do next. I'm afraid if I experiment I'll mess up the drive I'm trying to back up. Any further help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.