Regarding backing up software

[wheels]

Hello all I have a number of products and want to know if they can be backed up as my computer needs a new hard drive. Or do I just have to download them again? I have all the product codes and the computer will be taken away Tuesday morning so trying to get everything done before that which is a bit difficult at times because I'm a quadriplegic and I can only use the keyboard on the back certain time of the day.

I send a message to the tech support but God knows how long that will take, if anybody can help I would appreciate it regards Mark

[Albacore]

When you do System Image Backup before you fit you new HHD all of your info is taken across to your new drive. I have used Acronis True Image and they used to have a 30 day trial which is certainly time for you to do the transfer and get your new disc in and you can see if they still do the trial here: http://www.acronis.com/en-gb/personal/pc-mac-backup/
The other good one that I have use is Clonezilla but I haven't used that in about 6 years bar that it was free. The other thing is why not take your computer to your local computer shop they will do the same thing for you and it gets you out of any discomfort of changing your drive.

[pauland]

Albacore, Mark is getting the swap done by a third party, and is unable to swap disks himself.

generally I worry less about software backups if I can just download again. It's everything else I worry about - emails, pictures, files , documents etc. I tend to keep the old drive for a while - just in case!

hope it goes smoothly, Mark.

[wizard509]

I have an external hard drive with every thing on that. Of course if that goes bad I'm SOL. Now that I think about it I think I'll put it back on my main drive as well, that was a nusance but better safe than sorry.
Hope all goes well Mark. Keep in touch.

[pauland]

To have any peace of mind, important things need to be kept in at least two separate places.

Hard drives fail. I usually try and replace my drives regularly.

I would buy space on a cloud provider, but it would be a little expensive for the amount of stuff I have.

These days my computer is backed up in increments wirelessly to a 2TB drive. My computer has a 512GB drive, but I have more stuff than will fit so I have another 1TB drive attached wirelessly plus some standalone drives.

If only I could organise things better. I'd rather have things duplicated than lost.

I could still lose a lot if the house was burgled.