Need help on how to backup harddrive for my W5F

I need to send my W5F to Asus to fix some problem with the LCD display. But before doing so, I would like to backup the notebook harddrive to an external harddrive. I understand I can use the Window Backup Utility to do this. But my notebook comes with XP Home and XP Home does not auto load the backup utility. I have to load it myself from an original XP Home CD. The problem here is that I only have the Asus recovery CDs. The XP Home CD did not come as a bundle when I bought the W5F. So I'm not able to reload the Windows backup utility.

Can anyone advise what I should do to perform the backup of my harddrive?

 

Just found this. Will see if it works.

http://www.winxptutor.com/ntbackup.htm

 

Joyce, I can't believe the dearth of software available to do this really critical task. I've looked at some articles written by Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal, but most of his solutions center around the regular back-up of all your PC files, not the mirror "ghosting" you're looking for.

The only program I found with some decent visibility while Googling was this program called Casper XP. Does anyone have any experience with this product?

 

I'd just backup the important files and do a fresh reformat, mind as well since it may be wiped anyways, clearing the registry from junk and the junk in general every once in a while is a healthy way to keep your HD fresh and alive, while making it load much faster.

However, if its really important, you can always phone/ask beforehand and see if you can take your HD out and send it in, as they are only fixing the LCD(Perhaps they can use a dummy HD(or something like that) to test the LCD after being fixed?

 

There is always Norton Ghost.

It's been around for a looooong time.

 

Agreed. The only critical things that get wiped out are your prefs files for copy-protected programs like Creative Studio and QuarkXpress, which can be annoying, but the benefits of a clean re-install are unquestionable.

 

Thanks for all the responses and suggestions.

I downloaded the Windows Backup utility from the link mentioned on my earlier post in this thread. Managed to backup the C drive where all programs reside. I then used the simple "copy & paste method" to save a copy of my data files, which reside on my D drive, into the external harddrive. The notebook is already on its way to Asus Notebook Support via UPS.

Coriolis, I use CCleaner almost everyday. Also, when I spoke to Asus tech support, they said they will not do anything to the HD. But I just wanted to back it up anyway, only to be on the safe side.