Hey there, I'm just wondering how would I go about backing up everything on my Netbook's Hard Drive including Windows XP. Since I want to switch to Linux but have the option to switch back to my backed up XP installation. How would I go about doing this?
An easier way to mess around with linux is to get a large flash drive and and create a bootable image on that. If you need space and don't want to use the internal drive then get an extrenal USB drive. To back up you will need the following An external hard drive that is bigger then the internal hard drive. Copy of PING (http://ping.windowsdream.com/ping.html) it's pretty good as you can create a bootable flash drive from the iso and restore from the external drive. Doesn't use windows either so it's less hassle, used it once to restore my drive and worked well Flash drive (to boot from) or a external CD/DVD drive.
Somewhat of a similar option would be since most netbooks have sd card slots, and I'm assuming yours does you could put linux on it and dual boot. Also depending if your netbook supports it you could get a sdhc card, I know they make them up to 32 gb, standard sd cards i think max out at 2gb
Not all netbooks will boot from the SD / Memory card slots as some are connected to the PCIe interface and not as a USB device. The Aspire One and the Dell 9 don't, but the Asus EEE 901 and MSi Wind support booting from the SD reader. You can try by going to the BIOS and selecting the system to boot from removable devices / usb devices / flash drives first and then making a bootable SD / memory card and seeing what happens. A flash drive should work on *EVERY* computer built in the last few years...
Funny enough my computer was custom built last November, but I only think it can boot from the Hard Drive, CD Drive or from Floppy disks. :shrug:
It should boot from USB drives, as you have a netbook then the CD and Floppy will be USB devices, the BIOS will have an option for it somewhere in the booting order.
