Hi guys. Here I am again with my ghosting/copying of my hard drive on another drive to keep a back-up of it. I have a straightforward question for you: why do I need to use a software (like Ghost) to do this? Why isn't simply possible to copy and paste C:\ to D:\ via Explorer? Thanks for clarifying this for me. Have a nice day. Francoise

To answer your question, copying and pasting in windows explorer is possible. However, doing it that way doesn't compress the files. A ghost or backup will. Also, this is rather tedious as you would have to do it manually or create a batchfile to backup the folders/files. Why don't you look into using the built in ntbackup program that comes with XP Pro? You don't need to back up every single file...just the system state data and whatever personal files you consider important. Ntbackup is included in XP Pro and that means not having to spend extra money on more software you don't really need. I use ntbackup at home myself and have it run an automatic nightly backup of the system state, my documents, favorites and some saved game data. Once a week I burn it to DVD (on a rewritable). I also have the other PC's in my house backing up the same way and they copy their backup file to my PC so those can be included. Yes I realize with ghost you just restore the image and you're done but installing XP and then running a restore from ntbackup doesn't take a whole lot longer and the final file in ntbackup is a lot smaller as you're not backing up everything.

A simple analogy is document zeroxing, let's say you bought an item from Target and you need to show proof of purchase for a refund. If you've lost your receipt but you have a photocopy, and you also have a piece of paper that you manually copied everything from the receipt on. I bet you'd have problem with the manual copy as proof. When you use Ghost, you are able to copy the entire disk, including the entire boot track, all sectors, and unpartitioned space and so forth, as opposed to the copy/paste method via explorer. My sig is on sabbatical.

Explained here. http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_1.htm http://computervitals.com/

You can not copy and paste... There are certain system files that cannot be copied. If you try XP will either refuse or it will change the file attribute when the copy takes place. If the file attribute is changed on some of the hidden system file then they will be considered invalid.

suggest you a free disk copy software EaseUs Disk Copy you can use it backup part or whole hard drive

Moving to a different partition is a different story. Each partition has it's own table and for all intents and purposes, is considered a whole different drive. So moving a file will create a new file on the new drive, update the table and of course delete the file from the table on the other drive.