I am here because I am wondering if we can backup on the same physical disk. I am asking because I got an message in 'Set up backup': The drive that you are saving your backups is on the same physical disk as the drive that your computer boots from
or that Windows is installed on. If the disk fails, you will loss all of your backups.

Can we backup on the same physical disk?

You can backup on the same physical drive, or on a separate partition on that drive, but why would you want to?

What happens if the drive dies. There goes the back up. Drives die all the time. That's one of the prime reasons why people have to restore from Images for example, their HD fails and they have to replace the failed HD with a new HD.

If the OS is corrupted, then an Image in another partition on the same HD is the fastest way to restore the OS. If you want to back up to the same HD, make sure you have a second backup on a remote location off the PC, say on CD/DVD or Ext HD (mine are on Ext HD)

Doing backups, of C: to D: on the same physical disk is quick and efficient and the best bet for someone with only one HD and no room to install a second drive. For OS testing, like we're doing here, it's sufficient.

But for your everyday OS, on which you get your email, do your banking, play your games, etc., doing backups to either a second Hard Drive or to an External HD is much safer.

I do all of the above. My quickie backup like daily, is to my D: partition, my weekly backup is to an Internal second drive and my bi-monthly backup is to an External Hard drive (USB) that is only connected and powered up when I'm actually doing my backup.
And last but not least, is a Monthly backup to DVD's. That is the slowest backup, so I only do that when I know I won't need my computer for several hours.

However you do your backups, DO Clean out all the junk in your hard drive before you do the backup, to keep your backup Image file as small as possible.

Good Luck,
TechnoMage

I have done that, but it's been awhile since I have, for the reason that Ted mentioned. For awhile, when I had notebooks with 40 to 100GB HDD's, I was backing up to DVD's, but never had to recover with them.

Finally I bought my 1st backup drive back in '08, a WD Passport, which didn't need external power. Today, I have 4 backup HDD's, one of which is in it's OEM enclosure (500GB Seagate FreeAgentExtreme), & have a few other HDD's that I use in my docking station.

Backup drives are beginning to drop in price, oftentimes a 1TB one can be had for $99 or so at Newegg.com. Quality varies between brands, so it's best to do a Google search on the brand & model followed by "reviews". Unbiased reviews are best, those on OEM sites tends to weed out the bad ones, or at least minimize them.

Cat

I have several WD drives laying around here, that I use only for Scratch Disks.
They all came out of WD Passports that shot craps. The failure rate on those WD external drives is way above industry averages.

Originally Posted by TechnoMage

I have several WD drives laying around here, that I use only for Scratch Disks.
They all came out of WD Passports that shot craps. The failure rate on those WD external drives is way above industry averages.

Oftentimes, it's the board within the enclosure, especially if it's plastic. These components are often the cheapest available. Aluminum makes the best enclosures, for the metal to metal contact to induce cooling. Don't assume that a retail backup HDD is shot because Windows no longer sees it. If out of warranty, carefully crack the case open & try it out in an enclosure or HDD docking station.

These drives are usually ran very little, compared to the main HDD's in a computer. Therefore, the HDD should be healthy, unless it was subjected to severe heat for long periods of time.

That's how I got one of my backup drives, the dude was going to trash it (a WD Caviar Blue was inside). Once the HDD inside was removed, I placed it into my Vantec enclosure, sure enough, it was good. I still have that HDD & it runs perfectly fine.

At one time, I was running Linux OS's on it, to try them out. I also look for these type of items at yard sales, when I can get out.

Cat