Hello,

1) I am not certain of the correct terminology, but I am wondering if I can 
completely backup (clone or mirror??) my current hard drive to another one 
of similar (but not identical) size? I'm looking for a one-time solution, 
not necessarily a real-time extemporaneous backing up of every write action.

I have noticed over the years that Windows has always needed tinkering... 
and after about a year, it needs to be completely reinstalled. (I'm not the 
only one who believes this!!) However, let's leave politics aside for now...

I just handled a complete reinstall... it has taken me about a month to get 
things absolutely tweaked to exactly where I want them. Ideally, I want to 
sort-of "X-Copy" everything over to another disk that I will keep in 
hibernation until I need to do yet another re-install down the road... only 
this time, I will have a months worth of work already done.

So... to shorten things up here... I want to see if I can do a "complete 
backup" of this C:/ disk, bit-for-bit and byte-for-byte with a very 
similar-in-size D:/ disk. NOT just the data files, but everything exactly, 
exactly, exactly the way it is on the current C:/ drive.

To complicate things, I am running a dual boot Linux and Windows 98 system 
with a LILO boot. (I'd prefer a W98 backup solution, but will entertain 
Linux software.)


2) As a follow up to the above, I have found the following URL that deals 
with copies and piracy:

        http://www.zdnet.com/sp/stories/column/0,4712,381689,00.html

Seems a little unfair and Draconian to the honest end-user who has to go 
through such pain and time loss to reinstall Bill's "OS" so frequently!! Am 
I wrong here??



3) I have been told that I cannot do such backups for another reason:  some 
software will not work because the disk name or *serial number* (etc.?) is 
not the same anymore. What's the story on that??? Can I force an new disk 
ID name on the next disk?

I promise that I am not wanting to pirate or steal anything except maybe 
some of my future time back.

Thank you all in advance!!

Garrett
Austin, Texas

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