Here's my backup issue:

[Jackpine Radical]

I have a Lenovo laptop, a few months old, with XP. Over time it has become more corrupted and a lot of things aren't working right. I suspect that this is due to a combination of garbage & maybe viruses. It has the capacity to go back to earlier versions of itself, and that helps for a while, as does running a registry cleaner program. But I have a lot of software installed on it, some of it stuff like Dragon Naturally Speaking, which won't let me reinstall even on the same machine without going through hell with their Godawful customer disservice people. What I would really like to do is to reset the machine to its original state and then reinstall all my software from backup files. I would happily do that program-by-program if I have to, but it would obviously be a real help to retain my settings in all the software, as well as getting Dragon back from a backup instead of having to get in line on the phone to beg someone somewhere to let me reinstall it. Hell, I'm not even sure I can find my old serial number. It seems to me that if I use disk-imaging software at this point, I will only be making copies of my problems, and modern software distributes so many little files all over the place that it would be very difficult to correctly save and reinstall the software via drag & drop. So what do I do? You may assume that I have my document files backed up, and am willing to buy any hardware and/or software necessary to get my system functioning again.

All of this makes me wish I could just get everything onto my nice, non-problematic Macbook and go with that, but there are some things you just can't do with a Mac, Dragon being a prime example (and I haven't really had good results with Fusion).

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Hunting around online, I find people saying that what I want to do

isn't really possible, that the software needs to be reinstalled on top of a fresh install of the OS. Is this so?

[Fumesucker]

2. They're probably right...

Probably the best thing you can do is reinstall the OS and then go ahead and reinstall Dragon, then make an image backup of your primary hard drive. This way you can reinstall the OS and Dragon both at a later date without having to deal with their customer disservice should the need arise again.

In fact I would install the software that you use and depend on the most and then go ahead and do an image backup.

You can either partition the primary hard drive to make your backup drive or put the backup on another drive. Some imaging software will allow you to span your image over multiple DVDs so that would be a way to go also. I use Swissknife for partitioning/formatting drives, its freeware and works pretty well.

http://www.compuapps.com/Download/swissknife/swissknife.htm

You will also want to make a bootable CD of your XP so that you have some way of running the OS without booting from the corrupted hard drive.

http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. When I build a new PC...

I always beat on the customer to invest in Acronis True Disk and usually win, I do my complete value-added install, complete with any data transfer if needed, then, before they get their greasy lunch hooks on it, I do two backups: one to Acronis Secure Zome, on their computer, and one that I keep here on an external HDD. That way, if they nerf the install, I can get them back up and runnhing easily and with a minimum of drama.

Oh yes, I do setup a backup schedule on Acronis that keeps updating the local backup as well.