Pheee-yew!Well, Doug, thanks again for taking the time and effort to explain what you did. This is quite an education for me after all, yeow!I greatly appreciate your consideration. The sales type on a lot of this stuff makes one think that all you do is press a button and presto! everything is backed up and can be re-installed in moments, but as you've explained, it's rather more than that.Thanks to others for posts too.JS

Both Ghost and True Image will back up open and locked files. I finally went to a package called AceBACKUP to solve my problem with a daily cookie backup (it copies the index.dat files). The "dump-it-all-in-one-folder" is, indeed, a quick way of getting everything in one pass. But it's important to note that it's not possible to restore an active partition (usually the C drive) that way. Thanks for the answer on SecondCopy. Doug

Don't read too much into the comments JS. With True Image the learning curve is about 10 minutes. There is a Wizard feature that guides you through the necessary steps. Easy for me to say I know, but I really do think it's about as simple as it will ever get. Good luck whichever way you decide to go.Doug

Doug:Thanks again, mate. I shall do as you suggested and explained starting today!JS

Well, I bought and installed Acronis 9.0 and so far so good. The thing now is: what exactly do I backup? Do I backup the C: drive in its entirety since that is where FS9 resides with myriad other related FS9 files/folders? The Acronis wizard highlights NTFS (C:) drive by default but there are two other things called FAT 16 and FAT 32 below that--what are those FATs for and should I copy those as well?Thanks for any further guidance before I hit the NEXT button !JS

Hi JS - Backup the entire C drive. That way you can either restore the entire drive or any combination of individual files and folders. I don't know what the story is with the FAT32 and FAT16 "thingies". Do you have any other formated partitions on that physical drive? What, exactly, does it say? After you have created the image file on the backup drive be sure to check the image. That will insure that you don't have a corrupt backup. Also, you may want to explore the image. Clicking on that option causes True Image to create a virtual drive and mount the image to it. You can then access/read/copy any of the data on the virtual drive just like any other HDD. Neat process and it'll give you a warm feeling that you can, indeed, get to any of the backup data you may need later.Doug

Doug,OK, if I open up Acronis and activate the BACKUP Wizard it says...Select what you want to backup -- Entire disk or partition contentsClick NEXTDISK 1 - Listed are(a) NTFS C: drive (ticked for backup by default, it seems)(:( FAT 16 Partition, EISA configuration (not ticked)© FAT 32 Partition, Concurrent DOS, CTC (not ticked)The usage of space is 28GB on C drive (out of 145 GB) and the usage of (:P and © are 7.4MB (yes, MB), and 3.144 GB. I have no idea what this means or why it's there. I do everything on the C drive and as far as I was aware, I thought that was the sole partition. If I click NEXT, it takes me to the backup archive location selection window where it already has marked for backup the C drive as C: mybackup.tib. The NEXT button is blacked-in as a result and is ready for activation.What do you think? Click NEXT....?JS

Yep. Click NEXT. No problem as that's what you want to backup. I really can't comment on the FAT16/32 issue except to note that EISA (Extended ISA) was long ago superceeded by PCI and I haven't heard of Concurrent DOS in almost 20 years. Who made the machine you're using? Maybe someone else can tell us why this stuff should be on an XP box. DougEdited 'cause I can't spel

Thanks, Doug. Will do.It's a DELL XPS Gen 4 with a 3.80Ghz processor. Bought it last Feb in a sale at Dell Outlet and got it for 50% off. It's a super machine for FS.JS

OK. Those FAT16/32 partitions must be something Dell uses in their proprietary recovery process. I suppose to image the entire physical drive those would have to be done also. I know that Dell puts hidden partitions on all their machines. But I really have no idea how any of that Dell stuff works. Anyway, imaging the C partition will get you the backup data you need to be sure all the MSFS "stuff" is OK. Let us know how the backup went.Doug I found a couple of links that talk about those partitions. These may help explain whats going on. At least I learned something.http://radified.com/blog/archives/000141.htmlhttp://www.goodells.net/dellutility/

Doug:Thanks for those links. Unfortunately, I am so burned out with "Pc management" these days (after years of being OK with tweaking and doing stuff to my various DELLs) that I sorta glazed over in reading the stuff. I am not sure if I am more clear or less clear now about whether to include the FAT16 and FAT 32 !I haven't yet clicked NEXT as a consequence of this.My sole partition is C:. Whaddya think?JS

Image just the C partition and don't worry about the Dell stuff as it's only their proprietary recovery programs can deal with those partitions anyway. Doug