backup to external

[jdbic]

How do I backup everything on the hard drive to a external hard drive and be able to boot from the external? This is for a lappy because we need to bring it in for a new battery. And the power port is not working correctly. This is under a extended warranty. I hope they do the right thing.

[nemowolf]

copy/paste? Do you have any imaging software you can use to image the lappys HD?

The problem with running it from an external is that none of the hardware is the same, your best bet would be to image it to a similar lappy model and go wild from there.

If imaging and running it on another lappy isnt an option then just use the XP backup tool and back up everything you can and hope that everything goes alright with the laptop repair.

[EXreaction]

If you are getting the same model laptop back with the same specs, it would be best to have them remove the hard drive and give it to you before sending it in for repairs.

I would never send a PC in for repairs with a hard drive in it (not only because then do not need a hard drive to repair it, but also they should have no access to any of my customer's information). At the very least, I would create an image (backup, like with Norton Ghost) of the drive, store the image on an external drive, completely wipe all data from the hard drive with something like Kill disk (normal deletion does not actually delete the files), then send it in and put the data back on the drive with the image when it comes back.

You wouldn't be able to boot from it with different hardware though, even on an external drive (like if you connected it to a different PC), it'll probably just BSOD from having different hardware/drivers.

[jdbic]

This lappy came with xp home. It doesn,t have the backup utility. I looked on the recovery disk but couldn't find it.
I have a xp pro disk. Can I put the back up utility to the xp home from it?