I recently bought an external hard drive (1 Tet) and would like to backup my FS9 installation.I was thinking of copying the whole FS9 directory to my new drive.In case I have a catastrophic hard disk failure, and I replaced my hard drive,would I then be able to re-install FS9 from my original disks and replace the FS9 directory with my saved copy?Is there anything else I need to save?Thanks for any advice.

It depends on the add-ons you have. You can easily copy over folders of files where you simply replaced existing files with ones you downloaded. Yet most major payware add-ons (ie, UT, GE, FE) would have to be reinstalled if you wanted to access the programs again

John,what I would do is purchase a software that you can use to make a backup of the whole partition where FS9 resides. The result will be single (huge) file that you can put on another harddrive and if you want to re-install the computer in the shape it was when you made the backup, you run the program again and let it recreate the partition from that file. Or if your main disk gets totally corrupted, you can put another one in - as long as it is big enough to keep the content of the backup - and recreate the partition on that disk with the file you had backed up.There are several programs of this kind around - the most famous I suppose being Symantec Ghost while I use Acronis True Image.

That's right. But remember, many of the FS9 programs install software in other locations besides the Flight Simulator 9 folder. So if you've installed it to the default location which is your bootable Windows partion, then the ghosting will work OK. If you installed FS9 to a separate drive like me, then you'd need to make 2 backups. One for the Flight Simulator drive and one for the bootable partition. (You would need the C drive files and the registy entries for your addons).Mark

Don't forget to back up your FS9.cfg file which is not in your Flight Simulator directory structure. There are other FS files with it too, although I doubt any of these would significantly affect a restoration from backup if missing.You will find it somewhere like:C:\Documents and Settings\[yourname]\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9\John

Thank you all for your very useful suggestions.As a long-standing simmer (yes I started back in the early 80s), I have tried various ways of backing up the program, but, to be honest, I have always ended up re-installing whenever I had a serious problem.Ghosting the FS partition is probably the way to go and I will be looking at the various options available.Thanks again,

it's not as simple as copying the FS folder to the harddrive. If you do this, FS9 will CTD when you copy it to a new PC. I wrote a tutorial on how to perfectly backup FS9 here:http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=16466i've now transferred by FS9 to three different PCs w/out any problems...and didn't even need to original CDs...-feng

Thank you feng. Just what I needed.I am a bit wary when it comes to regedit.Could you expand a little on these two lines please. I'm not a big regedit user.7. Open regedit, and export out the entire string from:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/MICROSOFT GAMES/*.* save this file as fs9_register.regAre the *.* necessary? Does the exporting change anything in the current register, or is it just a copy?2. double click the fs9_register.reg and say yes (this will write the info to your virgin registry)Do I have to tell it where to write the registry entry?Many thanks,

Thank you feng. Just what I needed.I am a bit wary when it comes to regedit.Could you expand a little on these two lines please. I'm not a big regedit user.7. Open regedit, and export out the entire string from:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/MICROSOFT GAMES/*.* save this file as fs9_register.regAre the *.* necessary? Does the exporting change anything in the current register, or is it just a copy?2. double click the fs9_register.reg and say yes (this will write the info to your virgin registry)Do I have to tell it where to write the registry entry?Many thanks,

1. what it means is:- open regedit- navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/MICROSOFT GAMES/ - highlight "Microsoft Games"- right click and select "export"- and save it somewhere calling it fs9_register.reg2. nope, just double click it. It will automatically do the registry patch for you. It basically copy/pastes the above into the right location...so windows know where FS9 is now located (a MUST if you want to install new addons).I'm pretty sure the Flight1 registry fix tool does exactly #2 for you...however, i do the manual registry thing just in case....-feng

Thanks again. All clear now.