Is This Possible?

[ayabrea38]

Myself,Hubby and the two brats all have at least one laptop each that runs Windows 7 HP OEM.Having had to put my beloved Viv (Viv the Sony Vaio for those who don't know her)into a shop and have her hard drive replaced.Recovery disks would not work.So this meant she came back a different person,AVG,Gimp and some i-tune player added to her.She was never quite the same...Now I am just wondering,IF I had had a shadow copy made,right away,just W7 ready to go,no other stuff,to a new hard drive,and if it where to all go wrong again,can I use that copy as her 'new' hard drive and repeat the copy process,ending up with another hard drive ready and waiting?Or am I over complicating things?I wonder also, if we had a clean copy of windows 7,could we each use this process to have a stand by hard drive each?I know it might mean a few hard drives hanging around,but as I no longer trust the fact we relied on recovery disks and fat lot of good that did Viv when she had to have a new hard drive AND a new copy of Windows all put on her( in a shop!!!!),I would like an alternative,and so would the rest of the family.BTW we all have 4 different brands of laptops between us if that changes anything.
Thanks for reading and I hope it made sense!
Look forward to any answers,thanks.

[Old_Geezer]

That's what backups are for. One can choose to back up data only, but also a snapshot of the whole system if desired. It's not necessary to have a drive already set and waiting to go in standby.

[ayabrea38]

I agree,but when nothing can mend a wrecked hard drive and you need another and as in my case,and not having a copy of windows to put on a hard drive,I had to either buy a windows 7 disk or go to someone who could fit another OEM.I used back ups to put onto the hard drive AFTER I had a working one all set up.All the back ups in the world wouldnt help if I had no OS to put them on!

[whiskeryron]

If you buy something like this. Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation you can backup everything on your computer & save it externally, then you don't have to go to the trouble or expense of having hard drives connected internally.

[ayabrea38]

But like I said,there are probably things I don't know of that can be done,and I think what you say by a back up,is what I want,I just don't know how to go about a back up of the whole lot without shadow copying.Thanks for replying though!

[ayabrea38]

By saving externally,do you mean disk/USB?
This could be the answer!!! Thanks,I'm going to look into this NOW!

[hc4361]

That external hard drive is brilliant for saving your documents, music, photos, videos etc but it won't copy the Operating System.
You will need clone software to do that.

[ayabrea38]

(Aya comes back after looking at amazon)
Oh...Is this just somewhere to keep the shadow copy though?Wouldnt we have to shadow copy the OS onto this,and still buy a hard disk if needed?

[hc4361]

Yes you would have to install it on a new hard drive, but you can use the same clone copy multiple times provided you use the correct licence for each laptop.

If and when a hard drive gives up the ghost you can then buy a new hard drive to replace it. Pointless buying loads of hard drives now just in case - they get cheaper month by month.

If you do need to replace the hard drive I would strongly recommend a SSD drive or a hybrid drive as second best.

[ayabrea38]

So by the correct license,do you mean more than the license number,because I am just hoping I don't do something daft like put a Vaio Gate on my sons Acer.As I would be starting with an OEM version is this a problem?Thanks for answering,I'll be sorted soon hopefully

[hc4361]

It doesn't really matter which machine the licence is used for as long as they all use a different licence number. Easier to stick to the original licence for the machine, though, don't you think? It will be on the underneath of the laptop.

I'm afraid I am stumped with the OEM query but theoretically it shouldn't be a problem if you use the correct licence for the machine.

[hc4361]

For my suggestion you would need to be sure that every laptop has the same version of Windows 7 - 64 bit or 32 bit.

I've had a quick squint on eBay and you can buy a Windows 7 disk very cheaply. If you want to do that get a full install. Remember to use each machine's product key only once though.

[Old_Geezer]

If and when the hard disk gets wrecked, that's when you get a new one to get the computer running again.

Aye a "clone" of your drive, that is the description of a full snapshot of your system.

Or, if you have the original install disks then you can use them without the need to clone anything, it is the same system regardless of the licence used: but then you'd have to restore your data backup. You will presumably have the licence number saved somewhere and simply enter it in during the install when requested.