OT: Advice needed backing up Dell Inspiron 6000

Hi Everyone,

I know this is rather off topic, but I thought that maybe some of the
experiened users in the group may have experience with backing up modern
laptops. I recently took delivery of a Dell Inspiron 6000 with 60GB HDD. I
notice that its the first laptop I have had which doesn't come with full
system restore CD/DVD. I am now contemplating getting Ghost backup
installed so that I can make a full backup of the system before I start
using it further. I really like the idea of a backup, but it seems Dell
arn't so keen. Shame on them.

If this hard drive failed for any reason I would lose the whole operating
system, so it important that I should do something to make sure I can get
out of a messy situation, should anything nasty happen. My questions are:

Does the Dell Inspiron ship with and IDE hard disc, as opposed to SATA?
Is there any reason I should not attempt to use Ghost backup?
Is there any reason why I cannot use the internal DVD+-R to create a Ghost
backup directly to DVDR?
Does Dell do anything strange regarding partitions etc, that might cause
problems with Ghost?

I'm itching to try out the Dell, but think its probably much wiser to make a
backup before anything goes wrong when installing new software etc.

ps. I'm already familiar with Ghost, but I was recently told of a complete
disaster when trying to backup a brand new Sony Vaio laptop, due to the
drive being a SATA, and the fact that it was weirdly partitioned. The
backup went complely wrong and the whole operating system, drivers and
everything else that it had was lost.

I dont want that to happen here if I can help it.

I would appreciate any advice on backing up this Inspiron 6000 if you have
experience dealing with it.

Thanks very much.... Tony

Tony wrote:
>
> ps. I'm already familiar with Ghost, but I was recently told of a complete
> disaster when trying to backup a brand new Sony Vaio laptop, due to the
> drive being a SATA, and the fact that it was weirdly partitioned. The
> backup went complely wrong and the whole operating system, drivers and
> everything else that it had was lost.
>
> I dont want that to happen here if I can help it.
>
> I would appreciate any advice on backing up this Inspiron 6000 if you have
> experience dealing with it.
>

I've not found Ghost to be very good and I had all sorts of problems
trying to run it on the fast interfaces on laptops i.e. firewire or
USB2. What I would suggest is buy yourself another USB2 or firewire
hard disk - if you get a 2.5" one and a case kit you can assemble it
reasonably cheaply. Get yourself a copy of Acronis True Image
(http://www.acronis.com - costs but is well worth it) and create an
image of your laptop drive onto the backup drive via firewire/usb2. If
you ever have a problem you can either extract files from the image or
if the hard disc fails, simply take it out and put the backup one in in
its place.

--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, Tony
<private-(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Hi Everyone,
>
>I know this is rather off topic, but I thought that maybe some of the
>experiened users in the group may have experience with backing up modern
>laptops. I recently took delivery of a Dell Inspiron 6000 with 60GB HDD. I
>notice that its the first laptop I have had which doesn't come with full
>system restore CD/DVD.
If you search the documentation that comes with it, you'll find a little
CD sized piece of paper that tells you how to get a set of disks.
> I am now contemplating getting Ghost backup
>installed so that I can make a full backup of the system before I start
>using it further. I really like the idea of a backup, but it seems Dell
>arn't so keen. Shame on them.
Nope. Don't use Ghost for backups. If you really must, make sure you
have plenty of storage space.
>
>If this hard drive failed for any reason I would lose the whole operating
>system, so it important that I should do something to make sure I can get
>out of a messy situation, should anything nasty happen. My questions are:
>
>Does the Dell Inspiron ship with and IDE hard disc, as opposed to SATA?
I think PATA, not SATA. You could find out in Device manager, run the
disk model number through Google and you'll find loads of hits, you
should also see SATA listed in the Device manager if it's installed.
>Is there any reason I should not attempt to use Ghost backup?
Several.
>Is there any reason why I cannot use the internal DVD+-R to create a Ghost
>backup directly to DVDR?
DVDR, like CDR, are very easy to damage and you're going to need a few
blanks for every backup.
>Does Dell do anything strange regarding partitions etc, that might cause
>problems with Ghost?
Don't know.
>
>I'm itching to try out the Dell, but think its probably much wiser to make a
>backup before anything goes wrong when installing new software etc.
>

>ps. I'm already familiar with Ghost, but I was recently told of a complete
>disaster when trying to backup a brand new Sony Vaio laptop, due to the
>drive being a SATA, and the fact that it was weirdly partitioned. The
>backup went complely wrong and the whole operating system, drivers and
>everything else that it had was lost.
Ummm, suspect finger trouble rather than any laptop/Ghost/Partition
problem there.
>

--
Clint Sharp

Clint Sharp wrote:
> In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, Tony
> <private-(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>
>> I am now contemplating getting Ghost backup
>> installed so that I can make a full backup of the system before I start
>> using it further. I really like the idea of a backup, but it seems Dell
>> arn't so keen. Shame on them.
>
> Nope. Don't use Ghost for backups. If you really must, make sure you
> have plenty of storage space.
>

Why not?


>> Is there any reason I should not attempt to use Ghost backup?
>
> Several.
>

Such as?


--
[ste]
This week's ebay, games & other bits 'n' bobs
Now with added PC games and parts!
http://tinyurl.com/6o5uu

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, "[ste parker]"
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Clint Sharp wrote:
>> Nope. Don't use Ghost for backups. If you really must, make sure you
>>have plenty of storage space.
>>
>
>Why not?
Sorry, thought you meant for regular backups, my bad. Get the CDs from
Dell though, they are available.
>
>
>>> Is there any reason I should not attempt to use Ghost backup?
>> Several.
For an initial system backup, none, for regular backup, lots.
>>
>
>Such as?
Storage space, speed, cost.
>
>

--
Clint Sharp

"Clint Sharp" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:8qu+RuFiy+(E-Mail Removed)...
> In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, "[ste parker]"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
> >Clint Sharp wrote:
> >> Nope. Don't use Ghost for backups. If you really must, make sure you
> >>have plenty of storage space.
> >>
> >
> >Why not?
> Sorry, thought you meant for regular backups, my bad. Get the CDs from
> Dell though, they are available.
> >
> >
> >>> Is there any reason I should not attempt to use Ghost backup?
> >> Several.
> For an initial system backup, none, for regular backup, lots.
> >>
> >
> >Such as?
> Storage space, speed, cost.
> >
> >
>
> --
> Clint Sharp

I suspect that Clint has little or no experience with ghost backup. What do
you mean, by storage space? The Dell Inspiron has a built in DVD recorder
to make the backup to. Speed? The Dell has an fast 8x DVD recorder to
backup to. Cost? Are you referring to the price of the software here or
the price of DVD recordable media?

Ghost is an excellent bit of software, and it has saved me hours and hours
of work reinstalling software and drivers.

I would recommend ghost to everyone. If everyone used ghost, they wouldn't
spend half their time re-installing windows every time it picked up a virus
or screwed up with a CD cover disc etc.

In article <8qu+RuFiy+(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, "[ste parker]"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
> >Clint Sharp wrote:
> >> Nope. Don't use Ghost for backups. If you really must, make sure you
> >>have plenty of storage space.
> >>
> >
> >Why not?
> Sorry, thought you meant for regular backups, my bad. Get the CDs from
> Dell though, they are available.
> >
> >
> >>> Is there any reason I should not attempt to use Ghost backup?
> >> Several.
> For an initial system backup, none, for regular backup, lots.
> >>
> >
> >Such as?
> Storage space, speed, cost.
> >
I would have agreed with you until I read Symantec's blurb for Ghost 10,
when I learned that it now does incremental backups.

John Moss wrote:
>
> I suspect that Clint has little or no experience with ghost backup. What do
> you mean, by storage space? The Dell Inspiron has a built in DVD recorder
> to make the backup to. Speed? The Dell has an fast 8x DVD recorder to
> backup to. Cost? Are you referring to the price of the software here or
> the price of DVD recordable media?

How many DVDs to back up the Dell disk?

>
> Ghost is an excellent bit of software, and it has saved me hours and hours
> of work reinstalling software and drivers.
>
> I would recommend ghost to everyone. If everyone used ghost, they wouldn't
> spend half their time re-installing windows every time it picked up a virus
> or screwed up with a CD cover disc etc.
>

I used Ghost to back up onto a firewire or USB2 drive (the only
practical option with a laptop and a large drive). At first it didn't
work and Norton blamed my drivers. Then they updated it and it went
through all the motions and crashed after a few minutes and Norton
blamed my drivers. And then they updated it and it went through the
motions of the whole backup process but not an iota of data was recorded
on the back up drive and Norton blamed my drivers. At that point I saw
the pattern, blamed Norton and threw it in the bin. I have bought a
copy since of Acronis and it worked first time flawlessly. Acronis
didn't blame my drivers ;-)


--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, John Moss
<not-a-(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>I suspect that Clint has little or no experience with ghost backup.
I suspect I have considerably more than you in a professional
environment, using fully licensed Enterprise versions.
> What do
>you mean, by storage space?
Where do you store a Ghost image when it's over 30GB? Please don't say
DVD-R or I'll start laughing.

> The Dell Inspiron has a built in DVD recorder
>to make the backup to.
For an initial build, that's fine.
> Speed? The Dell has an fast 8x DVD recorder to
>backup to.
Lovely, I wish you much success. When you need to restore an image and
find that the second disk in the set has gone corrupt or wasn't written
properly in the first place do you cry?
> Cost? Are you referring to the price of the software here or
>the price of DVD recordable media?
Software and ongoing media costs. You can buy cheap media, but I value
my data enough to make it a stupid idea, you may not which begs the
question, why bother 'backing-up' in the first place?
>
>Ghost is an excellent bit of software, and it has saved me hours and hours
>of work reinstalling software and drivers.
I am happy for you, really. Hopefully you got a good discount when you
bought the software, because I'd be upset to find out that I'd paid for
a piece of software that was only marginally suited for the job and my
operating system came bundled with something that was eminently more
suitable for the job at hand.
>
>I would recommend ghost to everyone. If everyone used ghost, they wouldn't
>spend half their time re-installing windows every time it picked up a virus
>or screwed up with a CD cover disc etc.
Well, if you are the kind of person who re-installs every time the
computer farts, the Ghost is a good idea, despite all my reservations. I
wouldn't.

Mind you, if V10 does what it says on the tin, I may have to change that
opinion. I still wouldn't back up to DVD-R or CDR though.
>

--
Clint Sharp

In message <(E-Mail Removed)> , Rob Morley
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>
>> >Such as?
>> Storage space, speed, cost.
>> >
>I would have agreed with you until I read Symantec's blurb for Ghost 10,
>when I learned that it now does incremental backups.
Ahh, not seen that yet. If V10 does do incremental backups, I might have
to re-consider telling people to avoid it.

For making an initial image of a new machine, Ghost is great and that's
where I misread the OP's original post. I'll still rely on Veritas
Backup Exec and my SDLT for my regular backups though if you don't mind.
--
Clint Sharp