Storage Solutions Well ive got my self a new 320GB external USB HDD

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mypenry

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Well ive got my self a new 320GB external USB HDD
With the intention of backing up my computer,
The new HDD is formatted in NTFS, with one large
partition. So I would like to now find if possible a freeware
application which would allow me to not only back up all
my important files, and Photo’s Etc but also to do a full
image and copy all that’s on my computer including
the operating system. The other thing I am not too sure on
is how( or if I have to ) to partition my new external HDD, so I could
may be have one partition for the O/S and a second
partition for my individual back up photo / Document folders.

As you can no doubt tell this is my first time down the backing
Up road , so any advice and comments on the above are most welcome

I am using Windows XP , my internal HDD ( 250GB ) has 3 partitions

C. Capacity 78.1GB
Used 17.1GB
Free 61.2GB
FAT 32
This partition contains the O/S and program Files Etc

D. . Capacity 75.5GB
Used 841MB
Free 74.6GB
NTFS
This Partition contains un needed folders

E. Capacity 78.00GB
Used 4.30GB
Free 74.5GB
NTFS
This Partition Contains The Folders…..

Microsoft updates
Directx 9cRedist
dotNet Framework
Microsoft Visual Machine
VB.6.0 SP5 Runtime
Windows Media Encoder 9
Windows Media Player 10

I am not too sure why these folders are on this partition..?

also is it necessary to change my C partition from FAT32 to NTFS ..?

Thanks
 
There is really no point in keeping c: as fat32. After you back up your data format c: as ntfs.
 
What do people do when they have lost clusters or something like that in an NTFS file system? In FAT32, I can simply run scandisk. Not so in NTFS. Are there some good NTFS disk checking tools?
 
NTFS auto corrects file systems using bitmap recovery and file indices. It's much, much more robust than FAT32. The only thing the older systems do better at are read speeds, but it's not worth the added risk of data loss.

NTFS.com NTFS vs FAT32 FAT16 FAT.Comparing.Performance.

I've lost or damaged over half my music collection on a FAT32 drive. After finishing the recovery process I had to rename all the .chk files to .mp3, and then play each of them to find which song it was. Then edit all of them to match the bitmaps point to point as the starting and ending of all songs were screwed.

This was 8 years ago, when Napster was king. I only had about 1500 songs then, so this process took me two months to do.

Yeah, use NTFS. I don't bother with fAT32 at all. I used to format my C: with FAT32 to be able to access it with a floppy drive, but that was ages ago. I usually go straight to NTFS.

And oh yeah, XP automatically detects drive problems and runs a check the next boot. Works fine and doesn't mess with the data 99% of the time.
 
I agree with NTFS being a robust file system. My PC goes through countless reboots everyday. With the poor state of Bangalore's power supply, the power goes on an average 3 times per day. My torrents resume with minimal problems.
But CHKDSK does not autorun for me. My OS is on drive F. I wonder if that's the problem. I once had to use my WinXP boot CD just to get CHKDSK to run on my PC to recover some lost clusters.
To me, it seems that NTFS works great until you get lost clusters and chains. Then, if you do happen to be unfortunate to get some kind of corruption(rollbacks don't always happen with power failure) CHKDSK refuses to run on your HDD on bootup and if you have a HDD > 120GB, you're screwed.
Also, NTFS being Microsoft proprietary, not many 3rd party free utilities exist that can fix such problems.
 
No space to keep any more comp junk :no: . UPS is like another cabby. Just can't afford to keep anymore eqpt around my work area.
 
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