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Hi,<br />
<br />
Thanks very much for your input. &nbsp;Through following your links and advice I have found something called Clonezilla at <a href="http://www.clonezilla.org/" rel="ugc">http://www.clonezilla.org/</a>&nbsp;which from the looks of it will do everything I need it to.<br />
<br />
<br />
Thanks for you help<br />
<br />
:)<br />

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Hi,

Thanks very much for your input.  Through following your links and advice I have found something called Clonezilla at http://www.clonezilla.org/ [http://www.clonezilla.org/] which from the looks of it will do everything I need it to.


Thanks for you help

:)


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Great.<br />
<br />
Please close and grade this.<br />
<br />

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I have a test environment with 3 different PC's. &nbsp;I have an XP base build for each which is slightly different.<br />
<br />
I would like to be able to make copies of each system to an external usb drive ( all 3 on same disk ) and have the ability to restore easily by booting from the external drive.<br />
<br />
I am not sure of the best way around this. &nbsp;Any suggestions
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I have a test environment with 3 different PC's.  I have an XP base build for each which is slightly different.

I would like to be able to make copies of each system to an external usb drive ( all 3 on same disk ) and have the ability to restore easily by booting from the external drive.

I am not sure of the best way around this.  Any suggestions

Imaging XP to external drive and restore back from external drive

Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media used to retain digital data. In addition to local storage devices like CD and DVD readers, hard drives and flash drives, solid state drives can hold enormous amounts of data in a very small device. Cloud services and other new forms of remote storage also add to the capacity of devices and their ability to access more data without building additional data storage into a device.

Storage

Storage devices include any device used for storing and retrieving digital information. Hard disk drives (HDDs) use one or more rigid ("hard") rapidly rotating disks (platters) coated with magnetic material. Data is accessed in a random-access manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order and not only sequentially. The primary competing technology for secondary storage is flash memory in the form of solid-state drives (SSDs), but HDDs remain the dominant medium for secondary storage due to advantages in price per bit and per-device recording capacity. CD-RW (Compact Disc-ReWritable) is a digital optical disc storage format that allows information to be stored outside the mechanical HDD.

Storage Hardware

The term "Backup" means the methods and processes involved to copy computer data (system data as well as application data) to media other than the ones where the data originally live (disk, tape, optical, cloud). "Restore" in turn means the methods and processes involved in data recovery, i. e., bringing back copied computer data to their original location. Backup/Restore primarily serves as a means of protection against data loss, be it due to disaster, corruption or sabotage. It can also be used for recovering data from an earlier point in time and even for cloning machines or applications. There is a wide variety of backup/restore software available, from expensive commercial products to free or open source tools.