Backing up the contents of my laptop

[TheAxeman]

I have to bring my laptop in to Best Buy to get it serviced and I want to back it up and restore the settings so I don't lose all my "stuff" and so I don't have any personal info on there when I turn it in. Exactly how do I back it up?? Do I buy an external hard drive and drop everything onto that?

 

[LDRydr]

Your best bet to backup "everything" is to get an external drive, and get something like Acronis True Image Home Edition. Image backups backup the entire drive to a single file. An image is like a copy of your entire hard drive. This is different from choosing files to backup, then sending them to an external drive. An image backup can be restored to a new hard drive as a whole, putting not only your data but also your OS and programs back, thus saving you the time and effort required to reinstall everything should Worst Buy screw it up.

BTW, if you have Windows 7 the ability to do image backups is built-in. LINK

 

[johnny80s]

If you are not worried about your image and just want to back up data you could use an online program like Carbonite.

 

[TheAxeman]

Holy Mackeral you guys are quick! That is exactly the information I need. I have an external hard drive so now I guess I just have to figure out if it will hold everything. Thanks for the help!

 

[tmc]

Carbonite and Mozy are good, but they take a while depending on how much data you are sending up and your connection speed.

Took me 2+ weeks to upload 230gb over a 3mbps fiber connection.

The ext HDD method is easier. Image files are great, but if you just want to move your pictures, music, & personal docs, I'd just drag and drop to a folder on the ext HDD.

This way if they blow your stuff up, and you end up with a fresh OS copy, you don't re-image your computer with an old and possibly corrupt OS.

We use Ghost for images here, but I will only Ghost a clean, fresh OS install. In other words, one that someone hasn't mucked up yet.

 

[LDRydr]

This way if they blow your stuff up, and you end up with a fresh OS copy, you don't re-image your computer with an old and possibly corrupt OS.

Good point. If it's hardware work you're having done (new LCD screen, adding RAM, etc.) then an image backup is best. But if they're doing something software-related, such as cleaning out a virus, etc. than an image might not be the best option. Although you can certainly choose to only restore just your data and not the OS from an image backup.

And remember, if it is hardware you can also choose to remove the hard drive before giving it to them. Personally, I wouldn't trust anybody with my data (but I'm a computer-security expert so I don't trust anybody h34r: ).

 

[johnny80s]

Personally, I wouldn't trust anybody with my data (but I'm a computer-security expert so I don't trust anybody h34r: ).

amen brother

 

[TheAxeman]

It is a hardware issue. The image on the screen is constantly jittery and scrambled unless I hold the laptop just right.

 

[LDRydr]

If the screen acts that way when it's in the BIOS screen (usually an F2 to get into the system setup) then pull the hard drive before taking it in to them for the screen fix.

For you others that may be reading this thread, except for physically securing your system, the next best way to protect your laptop from unauthorized access is to put a password on the hard drive itself. Don't bother with a Windows password....I have a boot-CD that will remove -any- Windows password in about 2 seconds flat, including the one on your company file-server running MS Active Directory. Generally speaking, all one has to do to read your data is mount your drive in another system. But password-protect the drive and the security goes with the drive. The system won't even boot without the password. To do this just go into the system setup (BIOS) and look for security settings, then look for the drive security. Don't forget the password you assign, there is no way to retrieve it. And the only other option is to remove the password, which first wipes the drive.

And since I'm sure somebody would also mention it, you can also choose to encrypt your entire hard drive with something like MS BitLocker (if you have Windows 7 Ultimate), or TrueCrypt which is free. Walking you through how to do so is beyond the scope of this post.