[megabyte]

I have a 500gg back up drive, because i have to use dial up for the present i want to back up my complete system now i have all programs and updates installed onto this drive just in case, so in theory if for any reason i have a hard drive crash or major infection i can be up and running within minutes.

Is it possible to copy the complete system onto my back up drive???

Can i copy complete programs from my pc to my drive??

Can i then protect and update this backup system whenever i choose??

I did have a little mess the other day but it told me i cant copy this programme because it is in use elsewhere.

[cheesewheels99]

for the programs you will also need a complete copy of the registry and was the program you were trying to backup open? if you dont see it look in the taskbar were the clocl is or ctrl alt del and go to prossesses tab and find it in there and terminate it

[serverguy]

Yes you can do what you want, it is know as disk imaging or disk cloning.

Look here for lots of information
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.c...eid=418&page=2


You will need some software to do the clone and there are freeware varieties available.

You cannot do as Cheesewheels99 said and just copy and paste it. That won't work. You need to copy all the data off your drive and place it exactly the same onto the backup drive.

It is a very good idea to do this once you have your computer running well.

BTW, this was not a stupid question

[cheesewheels99]

o ya lol wow sometimes i am so stupid! unlike all questions!