My old Dell that croaked(?) the Sunday before Labor Day is still in the shop. I'm may only be able to recover the data on DVD.

Anyway, I'm checking out a replacement and I'll go with Win 7.

It occurred to me it might be a good idea to factor in a backup plan.

What I'm shooting for is an external drive (probably LaCie) with a firewire connection.

I want to be able, should the new drive die some day, to be able to boot from the external drive and transfer the OS, data onto a replacement HD, seamlessly, if possible.

Is there third party software that will handle this that you would recommend, or does Win7 have that capability?

I've been on my old box so long I haven't kept up with the march of progress.

Thanks for your recs.

backblaze.com

I'm going to overbuild this one to take me way down the road. win7 pro is fine!

And thanks, g2142 , for the tip on backblaze. I'll check it out.

I still haven't heard from the computer shop on the status of my machine. I just remembered, all the history of my firearms is on it. I'm hoping to atlleast recover the data, which the owner said should be no problem. They are dicking around on checking it out. I'd raise hell, but I'm afraid they'd just decide to skip the fix and dump a bunch of DVDs on me.

What’s nice about online backup is if your house burns down then your files can be recovered.  With an external drive if it’s in the house then you lose it also.  The problem with online backup is that they don’t backup your operating system or drivers.  If you have to replace your hard drive then you will need to reinstall the OS and updates and drivers and programs.

IMHO the best plan is to do both.  Use the online backup to make sure your stuff is safe in a different location.  Then use a program like Acronis true image on an external drive to recover your entire system state if your HD crashes or you get hit with a nasty virus that knock out your OS.  And make sure you have a good back up plan.  Your recovery is only as good as your last backup.

http://www.acronis.com/

That is exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks! It's even backward-compatible with my old setup should they be able to fix it.

I could make a bootable DVD with the OS/apps and setup my "AllData" folder to backup online.