Drive Copy suggestions

had a scare so I need a solution

[walkman]

I had a scare that was, thankfully, fixed with fixboot but I need to get ready for the eventual. Is it possible to copy a drive 100%, while running windows, so I can just switch them should the main one fails?

I have windows backup to one drive and then to an external one too, but that still requires a working copy of windows and then extracting to it. I also have a ghost software, but that requires to boot from the diskete and then do it via Dos. Plus, I have to manually answer a few questions each time. Is there an easier program that can ideally do it every x days?
Lastly, I'd rather have the copied files in the same format as they are now, not in .img or whatever.

Thanks.

...and you should /think prepare for it too :-); it happens.

[J_RaD]

Raid 1 (mirroring)
safe but a little slower then a single drive setup.

you'll need 2 drives that are exactly the same.

[bill]

Current versions of Ghost will image Windows while it's running. They've have this capacity since they bought out PowerQuest's Drive Image several years ago. Another potential solution is made by Acronis. It will make image backups in the same manner, while Windows is running.

[walkman]

thanks guys,
ended up with acronis. I downloaded a copy of MaxtorBlast (free if one of the drives is theirs) that is based on acronis technology and works great to clone. Since they had an ad /coupon I got the real deal, Acronis True Image 10, for $30.

I did a drive ghost and it worked great, even though it requires a reboot. I know it worked, since I screwed up and told the program to DELETE the "old" /original drive :-). I had to switch some jumpers and copy it back.

I also backed the PC and laptop into an external drive just in case. In short, I am very happy and I hope that I don't need it, and that it works if I do need to restore. Made boot disks and all.

[jomaxx]

This is a little different from what you were asking for, but there's a product called Carbonite that backs up everything and saves it on an offsite server (via the Internet, encrypted). This protects you if you lose your whole computer or the house burns down or whatever.

I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has had good or bad experiences with this or similar products.

[bill]

I've read a lot of articles promoting Carbonite, but I don't know many users. It sounds like a great idea, but what if you have many GB of data to recover? Even with a fast connection it could take days to get back up and running with a system like this.