I have a HP Compaq 6820s laptop and it crapped out on me badly recently taking out the MBR on me unfortunately, it seems.
I've managed to receive help from somebody on a PC forum in the UK who's sent me a copy of WinPE as well as the WAIK ISO on discs to try and repair the damaged MBR but it turns out that the MBR is beyond repair even though my main data is safe. [I've checked using the DIR command in the relevant directory concerned and the backup partition for Windows is safe as well]
In any case, I've been advised by the guy helping me to do a reinstall of Windows Vista Business which is the OS that I got with the laptop to back it up to a USB external hard drive which I'll be buying next week as soon as I get paid but what I need to know is: What's the best backup software to use; free or otherwise to backup the various partitions from my hard drive to the external hard drive and then reinstall Windows Vista Business using a boot disc and then copy the data from the external hard drive to the main hard drive? [I have the activation code printed on the label on the bottom of the laptop]
I admit I've learnt my lesson from this especially as I didn't expect my laptop to crap out on me so soon and I didn't want to send it back to where I got it from without having a backup of my data.
I've managed to receive help from somebody on a PC forum in the UK who's sent me a copy of WinPE as well as the WAIK ISO on discs to try and repair the damaged MBR but it turns out that the MBR is beyond repair even though my main data is safe. [I've checked using the DIR command in the relevant directory concerned and the backup partition for Windows is safe as well]
In any case, I've been advised by the guy helping me to do a reinstall of Windows Vista Business which is the OS that I got with the laptop to back it up to a USB external hard drive which I'll be buying next week as soon as I get paid but what I need to know is: What's the best backup software to use; free or otherwise to backup the various partitions from my hard drive to the external hard drive and then reinstall Windows Vista Business using a boot disc and then copy the data from the external hard drive to the main hard drive? [I have the activation code printed on the label on the bottom of the laptop]
I admit I've learnt my lesson from this especially as I didn't expect my laptop to crap out on me so soon and I didn't want to send it back to where I got it from without having a backup of my data.
