it is divided into c and d. D has important files in it. How do I back it up when the laptop even boot w/o boot disk?
How do you replace it?

1/11/2006 12:28:26 AM

Easiest (if it boots) is to use an external harddrive to backup all of your files.

If it doesn't boot, you're going to need another computer to pull the data off the drive.

1/11/2006 11:42:19 AM

you may be able to install an operating system without formatting and hopefully still keep the files

1/11/2006 11:45:05 AM

you don't give enough info about what you're trying to accomplish for us to really be able to give you an answer

if you're trying to reinstall windows you won't have to format the whole drive--just the "C" partition at most (that's not even required usually) but backing up to a USB harddrive is a good idea if you can get into windows at all

if you're just wanting to upgrade then use an external USB harddrive as suggested already

hmm, there are more reasons...so yea, tell us

1/11/2006 12:02:58 PM

Ugh, "even boot without boot disk". Make it clear to us so we can make it clear to you.

Quote :

"you don't give enough info about what you're trying to accomplish for us to really be able to give you an answer"

I haven't tried this yet, but you might be able to boot to an NTFS USB hard drive and use robocopy to do what you need to. I'm not sure if you'll be able to use robocopy in Windows to get EVERYTHING needed...

[Edited on January 11, 2006 at 7:05 PM. Reason : .]

1/11/2006 6:57:32 PM

what does robocopy do?

1/11/2006 6:58:44 PM