The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Vista Backup Ques Before Win 7 Upgrade

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by radjxf, Feb 21, 2011.

  1. radjxf

    radjxf Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    22
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I've currently got a 3 y/o HP laptop running Vista 64-bit, and am contemplating doing an upgrade (not clean install) to Win 7 64-bit.

    I'm ashamed to say I have never done a backup of any type on this computer! I have a Western Digital 320 GB external drive currently on order that I intend on using in the future.

    Should I use an app like Clonezilla to copy the entire HD onto the external drive in the event the upgrade goes bad? Or should I simply just drag and drop whichever files I need onto the external drive?

    Just trying to prepare myself for the worst, and need to get into some type of backup process in the future.

    Thanks in advance for any advice.
     
    radjxf, Feb 21, 2011
    #1
  2. KLF

    KLF NBR Super Modernator Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    2,844
    Messages:
    2,736
    Likes Received:
    896
    Trophy Points:
    131
    1. create recovery discs just in case
    2. copy files just by drag'n'dropping them to external drive, because...
    3. if upgrade fails, you can do clean install with the Upgrade disc anyways

    nr. 1 is done because when you eventually sell the computer, you can keep the Win7 Upgrade yourself since it's retail license and still have functional OS in the computer, worth some $$ when selling. And it's also a fallback, if something really fails :)
     
    KLF, Feb 23, 2011
    #2
  3. DetlevCM

    DetlevCM Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    4,843
    Messages:
    8,389
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    205
    Different approaches really...

    I would definitely second the recovery discs - else you need to buy them from HP.

    Then you can just copy files to your external HDD -> it will save the files, BUT it increases your workload if the update goes bad (although it shouldn't).
    On that note - possibly cloning the drive onto a partition on an external HDD and copying the files might be your best bet.

    -> If the update goes wrong, use the clone to restore the original HDD, else get rid of it and keep a copy of the files.

    On that note though:
    Is there a specific reason why you want to waste time and money to upgrade to Win7?
    Unless you have a specific problem you'll have little gain from the update.
     
    DetlevCM, Feb 23, 2011
    #3