Backing up on an external hdd

Hi guys, not posted on here for a while I hope your all keeping well?

Yea my problem is that I want to create a full back up image on my external hdd preferably with Acers thingy (sorry I can think of its proper name lol) as I feel comfortable with it, but it won't let me do it! And I'm wondering if I need to install the program on my external hdd first? If anyone has a solution or a better method I would love to hear it please!

 

Have you tried transferring the image files to your external hard drive? It may screw you over in the future if you want to boot the file off your exhdd

 

Most external drives come with backup software installed on the drive itself, or with a DVD/CD to install the program on your system. Check your external drive - newer drives have the install files in folders on the drive, and all you need to do is run the install program.

If it's an older drive requiring a CD/DVD program install, you can usually get the legacy program at the drive manufacturer's site, download and install it.

The program needs to be installed on your system. Once installed, you setup the files you wish to backup, and the scheduled times you wish to backup.

 

Hi there, just wondering if the external is attached to the laptop (usb) or to the LAN.

I would think that if explorer can write to the drive then Acers eRecovery should too.

 

Hi again guys, thanks for all of the replys.

Im not actualy at home at the min so i cant try anything yet, nor have I tryed this at all for a while so I cant realy remember the exact problem that I was having, but my external is usb and I think that it was a case of even though I had my external connected when it came down to me having to decide which hd ( E and D in my case) to save the image on, the external just was'nt showing up what so ever like it was'nt even an option, though I'm not entirely sure so as soon as get home I will try again and I will post back.

the main reason I'm asking this is because the other day I made a user back up and when it was finished it ended up taking up 75gig of precious space on my d: drive, and I can be doing with out it tbh as im rapidly running out of space across both disks, im sure you guys know how it is lol

 

I've just tried it again, and it does in fact recognise that there is an external drive connected but it just says that this is invalid when I click on it, so now I’m going to try the manually drag the image over and re-move it when I need it method, I'm just going to try to move it and then move it back to see if it recognises it afterwards.............hopefully this works

 

yep i did a full back-up to external hard drive. and just as a check did fresh install of vista and then restored the back-up from drive F.(usb external).

all was as was, so it can be done.
one point, i had to make sure the external hard drive was formatted as NTFS.
because in the old Fat32 it wouldn't do the back-up. but it worked.
i used acer eRecovery and the windows back-up system.
i used mozBackup for firefox & Thunderbird.worked a treat.
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

hope this helps in some way.
Phil

 

Sorry to bump this as it's nearly a week old.

I managed to do it in the end and as it turnes out it was realy easy to do, just went start menu, my computer then right click on the external hd and then down to properties and enable some some of the security features, I stumbled into this tbh but it's worked and I'm a now happy man. I would lastly just like to say a big thanks to anybody that offered any advice as it most welcome and hopefuly this thread may go on to help someone else down the line