can I suggest you take a look at acronis true image 11 for your back up needs.

ya try Acronis ;)

 

Acronis True Image Home Page here 

 

Download the Trial version of Acronis True Image

 

 

best way to use is to clone the whole drive so you will have a complete backup of your current drive ;)  

Acronis, along with the already purchased external drive, is the way to go.

 

I use an older version of Acronis with an external drive, and the peace of mind is well worth it. 

I posted the trial version for you, download and install it and see how you like it for free first ;)

  I wan to thank all who replied to my ?   I have been recomended this app B/4 yet becasue its not a freewae app I did not look into it closer .  I now realize that Iam better off paying a fee then leaving myself open to a repat of whjat I went thru when my O/S was infected and destroyed by a nasty !  Since almost everyone recomended the smae application Acronis ,that is the one I will look into ,Thanks Again to all !

                                                                                                               Take Care Nick

 

 

 

XPS400 2.8Gig 820 D Dual Core -VIIV
O/S WinXP Media Center Edition 2005
3 G.B. DDR2 RAM PC5300 - 2-1G.B. 2-512M.B.
Samsung Hard Drive 250G.B. 7200RPM SATA
Seagate externial 320G.B. H.D.7200RPM USB
ATI 128M.B.HYPER Mem PCI-E X16 X300SE.DIM
ATI TV Wonder Elite PCI
19" FP
Sigma-Tel Intergrated Audio 7.1 channel
Logitech G15 Keyboard
DVD-/+RW & DVD-ROM
Pertelian X2040 ForeSight Systems LCD information Display
Dell 944 AIO Printer
Sytem Blower Slot Fan
EASYWATCH LCD System Monitor /Fan Controller       

You can also find a totally free (non trial) version here:

 

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=other_sp&message.id=5775#M5775

 

It links to a Maxtor (same company as Seagate) branded version of Acronis. It would work on your machine as long as the Seagate is plugged in to your machine when you run it.

 

Hope this helps. (actually, I am a bit surprised that it was not prepackaged with your drive....)

but thats only for seagate HDD-s

It is for Seagate or Maxtor, and since the OP has a Seagate (as per his post), it will work fine.

lol ya I got that, my post was for the new people that don't know any better ;) good link btw ;)

I want to thank all that replied to my topic and a special tanks to hrova !   I have followed the link and saved it in my favorites to read up on and most likley take advantage of the Max-Blaster freeware backup application !  My Dell restore partition is not a option for me, to use for rstoreing my WinXP install becasue when I first setup my PC ,I entered a adminisrator password ,wrote it down and hid it on a old box in our storage bin .Well would'nt you know it my wife thru away the box and I could not recall the password !  WindowsXP SP2 MCE is Windows Pro with the MCE2005 intergrated into it !  Anyway the partition D is still on my drive and a friend of mine said just delete it ,that would give me back 5.88 G.B.'s on my Drive C ,however when I tried deleteing it some of my apps would not work ?  I have no idea whats going on with that whenever I want to do a hard drive search ,by default it will list C,D and the drive to search ,I always change it to drive C !  I have watched drive D (partition on internial H.D.a Saumsung 250G.B.) to see if its gaining in size and it is not its staying the same size ! I would really like to get this uselkess partition off my internial H.D. ,however Iam at a loss as to why some apps reply on it for their files ?   I guess that should have been another post ?   On my originial post about a backup app for the Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 320G.B. ,Iam going to give Max Blaster a try .I started  backing up everything off my internial drive to the FreeAgent with the WinXP built in app. and it gave me a estimated time of aprx 2 hours to back up the entire contents of my H.D.-C ? It seemed to be working well ,however Iam not sure why no-one except Seagate support recomends I use this app ??  I cancelled out the back up after about 10 minutes  becasue I had to go somewhere and I wanted to be able to see the download complete !!   Well thanks again to all :-)

                                                                                                          Take Care Nick aka Gumba