Bootable Backup CD of OS?

Question

I know it has been asked before, but most of the answers are two years old or older. I just purchased XP Pro. I installed it fine. I can copy the disk, but that does not make it bootable. If my C. drive crashes, yes I can put the original OS disk in re-install everything. But, and this is the but, I would like to have the original CD backuped for archive purposes and just in case the original becomes unreadable. Yes I have heard of BARTS PE, but then I have two disk to worry about. I have Nero 8, but could not see how to put the original files on the created bootable CD. Plus there was caveat about the disk might not be readable on certain drives. So question, is there away to back up an original Microsoft disk to another disk that is bootable? If the answer is YES, then help with some explanation, please

Answer 1

you mean cloning your hard drive ? use like partition magic

Answer 2

Yo, I've done this before. By just copying my instal discs and using the burnt ones and keeping the originals in storage. Using Nero also I just burnt the discs.

There are some stuff you can do to make a disk bootable but I've made bootable discs with out selecting any options, just clicking copy disk.



If you're short on DVD or cd blanks then just open nero and start the Nero burning Rom, (not sure which version you're using) select create a bootable cd then add all the files on the xp disc.



Boot your PC from the disc, then you'll know if you're successful.



BTW... if you think the bootable options are too difficult, give the regular 'copy' a chance.

Answer 3

Hmm....this is what I would do becuase what your saying is not really functional.

1. If you want to make a back up of your XP disk.Do a disk copy using ROXIO or whatever burning software you are using. Just a straight diskcopy (disk to disk) .

2. If you want to make a hard disk backup image...well thats different. You will need to get a copy of Ghost and then you can make an image an burn it to a dvd or cd and Ghost can make it bootable.

3. Just create a restore point and you can restore it to that point if needed.

4. Windows has a built in back up manager in CONTROL PANEL that works pretty good for backing up data.



Overall, it sounds like you want to make a hard disk image...so get a copy of ghost and start playin with it. Its pretty cool and works really good. It will truly create an image that you can put on disk so you can pop it in the cd and boot up if ur hard disk crashes...

Also one more thing...if your HDD crashes...then the image would have to fit on a similar size drive. You cant put an image from say a 200GB HDD to a 60 GB HDD. It has to be the same size. Good luck. You can ask me more if you would like.

Answer 4

How are you making the "copy", because the filesystem you see on the disc is not the whole contents, the boot sector is hidden from normal view, especially in windows.



You need to make a raw copy of the disc somehow (you can do this easily with standard linux tools such as "dd" and "mkisofs") or, IIRC, most software like nero will have a "copy cd/dvd" option ... you should use that rather than "drag-drop" the disc contents.



Though, if you are trying to include any modifications (added service packs or SATA drivers being the two most common) then you do indeed have to actually make the boot sector on the disk yourself (you can do this by using a block-reader utility such as "dd" and copy the bootsector blocks to a file for you to use).

Answer 5

Copying a bootable disk "WILL" make it bootable. However, you have to do a disk to disk copy. If you're importing files then writing them to a data disk...that's not going to work.



If your burner burnt the disk...it should be able to read the CD...so I wouldn't worry too much about that.



So the short answer here is YES, do a disk to disk copy.

Answer 6

You can download an ISO Utility. It will create an image of your CD and then you can burn that image whenever you wish. Personally, I have never had a problem burning a bootabel disk right out of XP, using the built in burning functions of XP. I just copy the entire disk to another disk. It works like a charm as I recall.

Answer 7

Follow these instructions...



http://www.howtohaven.com/system/createwindowssetupdisk.shtml

Answer 8

I really don't know because I only use Macs