Vista - Hardrive about to fail!!

i think my hard drive is about to fail, what sort of back up sould i make.
i know i will have to reinstall XP and then my vista upgrade if i have to
get a new hard drive but can i get all of my setting and regisration back off
my backup disk, i may change the hard drive for a faster one soon anyway
along with a new mother board and tp alow for further expansion does this
count as a new computer or not.

i was thinking about getting my new hard drive and then just coping the
enitre contents of c but i will have to reinstall of the other software, i
dunno if this wil work, maybe i will jsut have to do it the long way unless
anyof you guys know any shortcuts
--
grapes

There are programs to make an image/clone of the drive so that you can
restore it to another hard disk and continue as if nothing happened (except
you have a new drive).
PowerQuest publishes this type of software; there's also Norton Ghost. I'm
sure a quick 'net search will come up with good software (probably even free).

If you have an external drive, the backup software that comes with it can
also likely make a recovery type of back up. How easy it is to implement the
restore varies; some will require a basic OS installation and then the
restore will complete the restoration of all your software, windows
preferences, favorites, settings, etc. Some will recover you from a total
crash. Make sure you get the disk image made before this happens! (limit
your use of the pc)

"Craig008" wrote:

On 30-Oct-2007, =?Utf-8?B?SWtpZFVub3Q=?=
<IkidUnot@xxxxxx> wrote:
Norton Ghost has saved the day many times for me.
Like setting up a dual o/s boot going pear shaped or
H/D failure.
Now I use a system C:\ drive, a D:\ data drive, and
a USB external backup.
First I image C:\ to D:\ then the USB backs up
the lot incrementally, since C:\ changes very
little this works fine.