The program I have found that meets my syncing requirements is called Create Synchronicity. It’s a simple and light weight, open source and backup and sync utility. The key features I found were.

Scheduling your backups and file syncs
Mirror sync
One-way incremental sync
Two-ways incremental sync

The transfer speed was quite fast compared to most programs and after backing up 100GB it didn’t encounter any errors. I used a file comparing program called compare advance to verify it’s accuracy and Create Synchronicity didn’t miss a single file. You might ask how this program compares to Microsoft’s Sync toy. With sync toy, during a sync you couldn’t close the program window, and sync toy was extremely slow compared to Create Synchronicity.

CD’s and DVD’s can get lost, scratched, or damaged so it’s best to backup copies of them in case you need them in the future. An even better Idea is to create a digital copy on your hard drive so you can burn a copy whenever you need it. Image backups are stored as ISO files.

Download and install IMG Burn (Freeware)
Insert the CD/DVD you wish to copy
Launch IMG Burn
Choose the option create image file from disc

Then choose the location to save the backup copy
If you want to burn a physical copy insert a blank CD/DVD
Then Choose the option write Image file to disc and select the image file/ISO from your computer.

There is many reasons why you may want to move your computer, server or laptop to different hardware. Maybe your motherboard or video card died, or maybe you want to upgrade your computer, laptop or server to better hardware.

In most cases if you try to just move your hard drive to another computer you will experience a blue screen and your new computer will not boot. This guide will show you how to do a Bare metal restore using previously mentioned Macrium Reflect with redeploy.

In my case I used a Rescue CD I had created using Macrium Reflect Server 64 bit, Made the backup using Macrium Reflect Free, and the operating system being restored was Vista Business 32 bit. If you are just moving the hard drive, then you might not even need to do the backup with Macrium, just use the Macrium Reflect Redeploy CD, to inject drivers or do hardware abstraction.

1. Make an image backup of your old computer using Macrium the free version will work.
2. Even if you hadn’t made a backup of your computer using Macrium you should still be able to use the Macrium Reflect Redeploy CD to migrate your old hard drive to a new computer.
3. You’ll need to a Macrium Reflect Redeploy CD, doesn’t matter what computer you create it on.
4. To create the rescue CD you’ll need to purchase a copy of either Reflect Professional or Reflect Server.
5. After installation launch Macrium and Choose Other Tasks, Then Create Rescue Media.
6. Choose the option that says Standard Windows PE Rescue Media. This version has Redeploy if you’ve purchased either Macrium Professional or Macrium Server.
7. Make sure there is a tick in the checkbox against ‘Check for unsupported devices each time the rescue media loads’ before you burn the Windows PE rescue CD, this will enable you to add additional drivers when you boot on new hardware.
8. Once the ISO image is created you can burn it to a CD/DVD using IMG Burn.
9. If you have drivers for your new computer, put them on an external hard drive so macrium can access them.
10.Boot up the computer with the reflect rescue CD.
11. If you haven’t already restore the backup image to your new hard drive.
12. If you’re using your old harddrive you can skip the above step.
13. Choose the ReDeploy Restored Image to new hardware option.

14. Optionally choose the location where macrium can find drivers for your new computer. This is not nessesary but it helps.
15. You can leave the additional options as default, macrium usually chooses the best options.
16. Click finish and reboot
17. Your computer should boot up normally
18. You may need to download additional drivers for your new computer for everything to work properly.
19. After moving to new hardware, windows and MS office will require reactivation. Chances are you might need to purchase new licenses for these two pieces of software, everything else should work properly.

For more information you can visit the knowledge base article for using Macrium Reflect Redeploy V5.