New
#1
Need a good backup/migration software
I work as a computer technician for a retail company. I occasionally do side jobs (and I'm considering starting a business) where I am sometimes required to re-install or upgrade an OS, be it XP, Vista, or Win7. I currently use a standard backup software much like what you would find on an external drive that searches a customer's drive for common files then backs them up to a single folder while preserving the original structure. This leaves a lot of junk to sift through when copying back to the customer machine. I would like to find a good utility for actual migration that will allow me to hook up the customer drive before OS install and backup the common files, but then MIGRATE them to the new user profile on the refreshed or upgraded OS (which means the migration must be capable of migrating between windows OS's) so that the files are back in the usual locations for easy access by the customer. I've looked into PCMover which would be great accept for two issues: 1 license is for installing on one source and one destination (ie too expensive), software must be installed on both machines (or OS's if same machine). Many times when having to re-install an OS, installing a software on the customer machine before re-installing the OS is not feasible (however it's perfectly feasible to do on the re-installed or upgraded OS).
If anybody knows of a good solution for this type of data backup and migration, please let me know. Thanks.