Those who use two internal hard drives, one for back up are still faced with a dilemna. If the main drive takes a dump, you can't boot to the back up drive...so off to the repair shop.
True, the back up drives saves a loss of data, but there's no way to access it and clone it back to the primary drive. I stumbled into this easy to use software which allows you to select the boot up drive.Only inconvenience is one must select the boot up drive each time you turn on or reboot the pc. I find that a relatively small inconvenience compared to having a tech come in, not to mention the expense. Here's the link:
http://www.osloader.com/
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If you've been contemplating installing a back up drive, particularly an outboard one, you can save your money and not buy back up software. I wish I'd stumbled into this well kept Windows XP secret a long time ago.
Anyway, XP has a back up program built in. Dunno about the other MS systems.
Click START, PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS, FILES AND SETTINGS TRANSFER WIZARD,and follow the directions.
It's just what it says it is, a files and SETTINGS transfer wizard, so it will transfer your entire system from one hard drive to another. I haven't persued it far enough to find out how to restore, but is sure beats paying through the nose for Ghost, or Acronis if you don't have to, even if you do have to have a tech boot it up
Hope this helps someone,
George