Looking for freeware to backup entire hard drive
 

Looking for freeware to backup entire hard drive including Windows OS onto an external drive.

I purchased a used notebook without an OS disc and I want to backup the entire drive for reinstallation after a format. Lots of cool expensive software installed on this unit and I do not have any of the registration keys.

Anyone use anything good?

Then don't bother formatting, since you'll just be dumping the same thing on. When you install a windows app it scatters DLLs in a few directories, makes registry entries, etc. Very hard to put it all where it needs to be.

What you need is some way to pull the keys out... and then some install media to reinstall the apps with the keys you now posses...

If you really want to just back it all up though then an ubuntu cd and plain 'ol copy (cp actually, or use the nice desktop you'll be dropped to and do the GUI - just 'cause its Linux doesn't mean its command line only)

you want to swap drives - either put that drive in another computer or add another drive to that computer.

What you need is a widows disk.

It ain't worth dying over :)

I think the best option is to image the drive with something like Drive Image. It's not free, though it does work very well. Essentially you boot from the CD and it creates a copy of the whole drive to another attached drive or a network attached drive.

Try getting a copy of Acronis

Acronis appears to be what I am looking for. Have you ever successfully restored a system with it?

Absolutely.... When I do fresh formats to machines I put the software I want on them and make Acronis images...then when they get crapped up or start bogging down I restore the acronis image to them and its like starting over....I have great luck with it. It also works great for server managed backups of various machines in a network situation...its good stuff.

Thanks for the tip.

Boot a Knoppix CD, and dd the internal disk to an image and store the image on the external disk.
dd if=/dev/hda of=/some_dir/foo.img bs=512 conv=noerror,sync

*sniff* makes me proud to see someone else recommending dd. Of course, rsync may be better, since dd will copy empty space as well. That and ya probably out to run it thru split

Oops, didn't see your post with the Ubuntu recommendation ... recommended dd over rsync as he would end up with an img file that would be easy for him to keep pristine, whereas rsync would give him a filesystem on the external that could accidentally be modified rather easy .. although if you still prefer
rsync -avp /dev/hda/* /some_dir/ --exclude=your_page_file_location_and_a_whole_craplo ad_of_others ;)