Software for backing up

[DubbDesigns 10+ year member]

My boss has a compute with 2 250gb sata hdd's

He wants to use one and the other for a backup in case the primary fails.

Whats the easiest to use software to accomplish this. He is not a very computer literate person so simplicity is crucial.

Also the second hdd has not been formatted, doesn't show up as a drive in My Computer. What should I use to format it

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[loopkiller 10+ year member]

Sounds like you want a RAID 1 setup. You will need a SATA RAID controller if the PC does not already have one built in. You will need a third 250GB (or larger) to complete the install. First thing you need to do is to install the new RAID controller and install the necessary drivers for it. Next you will need to copy (ghost) the entire contents of the current data drive to a third (temp) drive. Now you can connect the 2 drives to the RAID system and create the array (wipes both drives in the process). Now you can copy (ghost) the contents back to the new array. You can now remove the temp drive and boot to the RAID array. He now has an online spare drive in case of drive failure.

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

raid would be a great option, to mirror the primary for backup, but i wouldnt suggest a raid setup for someone not computer literate, especially if the drives are already setup as primary and storage

something like paragon hard disk manager suite would be a good option

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

oops didnt read all the way through

go to my computer->right click-> manage-> disk management

find the drive, partition and format it

 

[qtipextra 5,000+ posts]

Norton Ghost. Google it.