PC backup.

[damian 0]

I asked this question yonks ago but never acted on it and cant recall the solution.

 

I have a brand new bottom of the range desktop (my 7 year old machine died recently). The only reason I need the desktop PC is to backup my laptop. I don't just want to back up very valuable data, I also want to make a bootable replica of my PC laptop a few times per week. The idea is that should my laptop be stolen, lost, broken, I can simply turn on the desk top machine and continue with business on an identical data and software set up without a hitch. I don't even want to partition my desktop HD, I simple want an exact replica of my laptop.

 

Is there a good bit of reliable easy to use and automated software that will do this for me?

 

(I used to do this once per week by hand and it took ages, now that I have a new clean sole purpose desktop machine, I want to set it up right from the start)

 

(by the way, I bought an Acer TravelMate laptop a few months ago. It is the first machine that has made me enjoy using a PC. It is nice hardware with a very good screen size and resolution. Keep in mind if you are in the market. It even looks nice, which is rare for a PC. My only complaint is that the mouse trackpad is too slow).

[yamayamayama 2]

Isn't there some Norton software for that? (Ghost?) I'd be interested to know as well actually if anyone has any experience of this

[osoroshiijinbutsu 0]

Not sure if this is what you want but I used to use the Norton ghost thing

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/det...ftware&n=507846

 

It worked well for me. Heard some bad things about the later version though (?)

[damian 0]

For the time being I have gone for a much easier option. The complication is that I have an Acer Laptop and a Dell Desktop. Being a Mac user I am used to one machine being the same as the next (almost). Within teh Windoes world, there is actually far less in common between an Brand A Laptop and a Band B Desktop than you would think.

 

My solution so far has been free and good enough:

 

1. use freeware called 'Always Sync' to ensure vital files and folders are asymmetrically synchronised (ie, in one direction only).

2. fall back: use the Backup utility that ships with Windows.

 

Thanks for everyone's input anyway.