Advice needed backing up Dell Inspiron 6000

Hi Everyone,

I recently took delivery of a Dell Inspiron 6000 with 60GB HDD. I notice
that its the first laptop I have had which doesn't come with full system
restore CD/DVD. I am now contemplating getting Ghost backup installed so
that I can make a full backup of the system before I start using it further.
I really like the idea of a backup, but it seems Dell arn't so keen. Shame
on them.

If this hard drive failed for any reason I would lose the whole operating
system, so it important that I should do something to make sure I can get
out of a messy situation, should anything nasty happen. My questions are:

Does the Dell Inspiron ship with and IDE hard disc, as opposed to SATA?
Is there any reason I should not attempt to use Ghost backup?
Is there any reason why I cannot use the internal DVDR to create a backup
directly to DVD?
Does Dell do anything strange regarding partitions etc, that might cause
problems with Ghost?

I'm itching to try out the Dell, but think its probably much wiser to make a
backup before anything goes wrong when installing new software etc.

ps. I'm already familiar with Ghost, but I was recently told of a complete
disaster when trying to backup a brand new Sony Vaio laptop, due to the
drive being a SATA, and the fact that it was weirdly partitioned. The
backup went complely wrong and the whole operating system, drivers and
everything else that it had was lost.

I dont want that to happen here if I can help it.

I would appreciate any advice on backing up this Inspiron 6000 if you have
experience dealing with it.

Thanks very much.... Tony

I would suggest to every novice to get one of those maxtor usb external one
touch
hard drives.



Tony wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> I recently took delivery of a Dell Inspiron 6000 with 60GB HDD. I notice
> that its the first laptop I have had which doesn't come with full system
> restore CD/DVD. I am now contemplating getting Ghost backup installed so
> that I can make a full backup of the system before I start using it further.
> I really like the idea of a backup, but it seems Dell arn't so keen. Shame
> on them.
>
> If this hard drive failed for any reason I would lose the whole operating
> system, so it important that I should do something to make sure I can get
> out of a messy situation, should anything nasty happen. My questions are:
>
> Does the Dell Inspiron ship with and IDE hard disc, as opposed to SATA?
> Is there any reason I should not attempt to use Ghost backup?
> Is there any reason why I cannot use the internal DVDR to create a backup
> directly to DVD?
> Does Dell do anything strange regarding partitions etc, that might cause
> problems with Ghost?
>
> I'm itching to try out the Dell, but think its probably much wiser to make a
> backup before anything goes wrong when installing new software etc.
>
> ps. I'm already familiar with Ghost, but I was recently told of a complete
> disaster when trying to backup a brand new Sony Vaio laptop, due to the
> drive being a SATA, and the fact that it was weirdly partitioned. The
> backup went complely wrong and the whole operating system, drivers and
> everything else that it had was lost.
>
> I dont want that to happen here if I can help it.
>
> I would appreciate any advice on backing up this Inspiron 6000 if you have
> experience dealing with it.
>
> Thanks very much.... Tony

"Tony" <private-> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I recently took delivery of a Dell Inspiron 6000 with 60GB HDD. I notice
> that its the first laptop I have had which doesn't come with full system
> restore CD/DVD. I am now contemplating getting Ghost backup installed so
> that I can make a full backup of the system before I start using it
> further.
> I really like the idea of a backup, but it seems Dell arn't so keen.
> Shame
> on them.
>
> If this hard drive failed for any reason I would lose the whole operating
> system, so it important that I should do something to make sure I can get
> out of a messy situation, should anything nasty happen. My questions are:
>
> Does the Dell Inspiron ship with and IDE hard disc, as opposed to SATA?
> Is there any reason I should not attempt to use Ghost backup?
> Is there any reason why I cannot use the internal DVDR to create a backup
> directly to DVD?
> Does Dell do anything strange regarding partitions etc, that might cause
> problems with Ghost?
>
> I'm itching to try out the Dell, but think its probably much wiser to make
> a
> backup before anything goes wrong when installing new software etc.
>
> ps. I'm already familiar with Ghost, but I was recently told of a complete
> disaster when trying to backup a brand new Sony Vaio laptop, due to the
> drive being a SATA, and the fact that it was weirdly partitioned. The
> backup went complely wrong and the whole operating system, drivers and
> everything else that it had was lost.
>
> I dont want that to happen here if I can help it.
>
> I would appreciate any advice on backing up this Inspiron 6000 if you have
> experience dealing with it.
>
> Thanks very much.... Tony
Tony:

I have one too. You can get an external drive to do the back up. You can
also...for a small price.. get the restore disks from Dell. I recommend you
do both. Eventually every hard disk dies. Having the system restore on a
seperate partition on the dead drive is pretty much useless. That being
said, you can use the restore feature using that partition to get back to
the initial computer OS state. (But you lose everything you already
installed after that point.) It is better to use the external drive to
restore your machine to the last back up.

Rich

"Richard Johnson" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
>
> I have one too. You can get an external drive to do the back up. You can
> also...for a small price.. get the restore disks from Dell. I recommend
you
> do both. Eventually every hard disk dies. Having the system restore on a
> seperate partition on the dead drive is pretty much useless. That being
> said, you can use the restore feature using that partition to get back to
> the initial computer OS state. (But you lose everything you already
> installed after that point.) It is better to use the external drive to
> restore your machine to the last back up.
>
> Rich


Hi Richard,

Thanks for the reply. Have you any idea how much the restore disks cost?
I'm pretty happy using Ghost if the hard disk is EIDE and not SATA.
You don't happen to know what type of hard disk is fitted in the Inspiron
6000 do you?

I opted for the 60GB model, but don't know the manufacturer. I will have to
install some diagnostic software to find out if no-one knows the answer.
Thanks Richard

Tony

Tony wrote:

> I'm pretty happy using Ghost if the hard disk is EIDE and not SATA.
> You don't happen to know what type of hard disk is fitted in the Inspiron
> 6000 do you?
>
> I opted for the 60GB model, but don't know the manufacturer. I will have to
> install some diagnostic software to find out if no-one knows the answer.

You shouldn't have to install any diagnostic software to find out what disk
you have. If you are running Windows, try the Device Manager: Right-click
on My Computer | Properties | Hardware tab | Device Manager button | Disk
drives node.

Gerhard