Computer problems......

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tcdave

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I have had some computer problems in the last few months. I called my computer manufacturer and we have determined that my Windows is corrupt. So, before I totally lose everything due to an unstable windows, they suggested I backup the Hard drive. So I went out and bought a 60 Gig USB hard drive and I bought Norton Systemworks (it has ghost in the bundle).

What are some suggestions before I reformat the harddrive and start over in building up my computer.

Win 98
AMD 1.4 ghz athlon
yada yada yada............

tcdave
 
Well, first of all, after you do the ghost, try a reinstall of windows over the top of the old one, like an upgrade. Sometimes this works, and youve got nothing to lose. What kind of problems are you having? Also, you might consider switching to XP if your going to reload anyway.
 
You dont want to make a ghost image of a corrupt OS. When you restore you will be right back where you started.

Just transfer over any files you want to save. You will have to reinstall your programs but that is part of the process of a clean rebuild.
 
YES! TexRoadkill has the correct advice!! Do not ghost or transfer a bit image of the bad drive! Simply install a fresh os on the new hard drive.

BACK up all of your files now.

You'll have to get a boot floppy disk with the cd driver on it. Then you can place the windows cd in the puter and run the install. After Windows is freshly installed. Update your graphics and sound drivers (if needed) before installing any software. MAKE sure your puter is running fine before proceeding. Next I would install your virus checking software if you have any. This way when you start bringing back over your previous files you'll know if anything is corrupt.

Finally install programs/applications, one at a time. I would also REBOOT after EVERY program/application is installed. This allows Windows to completely refresh the system files with the newly installed software.

Proceeed with caution. I've had to do this on more than one occasion. The cool thing is, the system runs sweet right after doing this. :)
 
Because with ghost you can go back and get individual files, not just do a total restore. So basically your doing a complete, compressed backup of all files, so that if down the road you realize that the file you needed somehow got stored in the wrong place, its there. After a while, once your sure you got everything you needed, then you can erase the ghost file.
 
the hard drive......

Well, I'm in a middle of trouble shooting ghost. It will not recognize my usb hard drive. I called symantec and I waited on hold for almost an hour, I got thru to someone. That "someone" told me that there was a ghost department and that they all have gone home for the day (it was a little past five pm). He told me to go to http://service.symantec.com and then go to the Q & A section to see if my answers were there and then call back on monday. So, I did. Apparantly, I have found that ghost does not support a USB hard drive. So, I will still call them to confirm this on Monday.

This is a major problem for me. My Hard disk in the puter is 30 gigs and the usb hard drive is 60 gigs. So in the meantime, I went to "my computer", drive "C", and "drag and dropped" copied everything over to the usb hard drive. I know I am not using compression but since I have twice the anount of storage space on the usb HD, it shouldnt matter (btw - I went to my USB HD after making the backup and I was running programs, like Sonar with no problems).

What do you think? What good is ghost if it won't recognize a USB or Firewire HD? Thats a huge oversight!

tcdave

PS - I have another idea. I need to see if I could make a copied "image" in ghost in drive C, then copy it to my usb hard drive. After I rebuild the puter, install the usb hard drive, and then transfer files. Hopefully, if ghost does a really good job at compression, that might work because I have about half of my HD (about 15 gigs) free of space.

Or I could do the backup the really hard way, one cd-r at a time thru ghost!!!
 
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