AAO D150 -Winxp- Backup/restore question

i recently purchased a couple D150's for my business partener and i to use on the road, they are working great as "stock" mini's. But where is the fun in that.??

i want to back it up somehow before i start screwing with it. I have successful intel based desktops runing ideneb and Kaylaway, so i have some confidence i can get macosx running on them.

i just want to backup the whole thing before i start.

I have looked around the forums, in beginer section and the guides. but i have only found how to backup the linux version.

I have the xp home version.

Any pointers is greatly appreciated.

(ps i called acer and they said go buy an external DVD/CD burner and use thier Erecovery program, but i am looking for other options)

Cheers,
R.

 

I just ordered the Acer official OS restore disks. Having those disk is like having insurance. Bought an HP 555s external DVD drive too.

 

You could use Norton ghost to back up your whole OS, without losing any data, i do this before i make a heavy modification, then test the OS out for a few days to see if it's still stable, then back it up again.

I have uploaded the tools you'll need here: http://rapidshare.com/files/272522206/Ghost.rar

You will need the following;

A flash drive (doesn't need to be big)
An external hard drive or somewhere to put the ghost image (you will need sufficient space to store all of the stuff on your computer)

To create the ghost image;

Open unetbootin with your flash drive in the computer (note, backup and format this flash drive first)

In the distribution drop down bar, select freedos (you will need a working internet connection for this part)
Make sure your flash drives letter is showing at the bottom of the screen, and click OK

Wait for it to finish doing its stuff, and once it's finished, don't reboot, just close the window off once it displays "Completed"

Copy the ghost.exe file to your flash drive.

That's the preparation done.

Now, connect your external hard drive (this is not essential by the way, you can create a ghost image onto the internal hard drive which can be moved/copied at a later date)

reboot your computer, and at the screen where ACER is displayed, press f12 and select your flash drive.

It should boot up into a screen where the only option is default. Press enter.

There should now be a command prompt style screen, don't worry about the error saying something about the CD drive being missing.

Type "c:" without the quotes.

Type "ghost.exe" again without the quotes.

NOTE: if "c:" brings up an error, keep trying different letters like "b:" or "a:" etc.

Norton ghost will now be loaded.

follow the menus to create an image, it should be something like "Image> to image > (select your hard drive partition you wish to backup) > select your destination folder, the press enter until it begins to run.

These instructions for ghost may not be precise, but it's fairly easy to use, you should have no problems using it.

To restore your OS if things go wrong, simply do the same thing, but select "from image" and then find your ghost image.

Good luck

 

I love the disc HD-Clone. You boot with the CD and you will be able to copy everything to an external HD. One disadvantage: it will cost you an extra harddisk. The big advantage: You will have your system running within minutes when your HD crash instead of hours.

 

have had no success with this. I created a bootable usb stick using hd clone, when i boot up the acerr and select my usb stick it says No APTE and wont boot off teh usb stick. just continues to next bootable option, HDD, and boots windows again.

Any suggestions?

 

this doesnt work either. i have the ghost usb stick made, it boots just fine. but the ghost software doesnt recognize my 1tb usb Drive that i want to image too.

and you cant store the image on teh drive your imaging.

 

You'll need to load usb drivers. Try downloading Hiren's boot CD and use that to ghost image your hard drive.

I can't remember exactly how i did it though, you'll have to search around in the menus for a usb driver loading section.

Once the drivers for your hard drive are loaded, start up Ghost, and it should then work.

Good luck

 

I've never quite understood why people want to back up whole systems when, if there's a serious hardware failure, they'll probably have to reinstall the OS and applications on different hardware anyway. I've never heard of anybody actually implementing a complete system from a "mirror" without pain.

For sync of essential business document files for three PCs, I'm using Windows Live Mesh (beta) which also enables remote access and control - up to 5 gigs - automatically and almost instantly. Basically just added all the "Shared Documents" files I used to manually share via wi fi to the Live Mesh, and it both syncs and keeps another record online. For business documents, as opposed to photo or video, it can't be beat at the free price. Eventually it will go commercial with more storage. It's still beta, but I haven't had a single glitch in the service over half a year now.

I read below and see I was off base - all this here is about keeping business data backed up and accessible for someone who intentionally chose XP, against hardware failures or hardware changes. Any business with a networked desktop or an $80 external drive or DVD can reinstall. But my comments are not for someone who intentionally puts it at risk with software hacks. These are cheap and hackable little gadgets, and that's legitimate fun. Have at it, ignore this, and good luck.

 

How do u reinstall an os on a machine with no CDROM?

There is a reason we do these kinds of backups.
Make a ghost, experiment with hackintosh/ Linux

don't like it or have little success, ghost it back.

It has nothing to do with hardware failure.

FYI.
R.