OT: HD image backup
 

Hi, all

I was wondering if any of you know a good program to make an image backup of my "C:" drive. My C: drive has 1.65gig of used space, and I'd like to make a copy on one of my other drives as a backup that I can use for a quick install in case anyting goes wrong. I only have a CD-RW so it won't fit on a 700mb CD.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

I use Norton Ghost. But it's very old, there are better ones. The main problem is, that you have to boot to make your image or play it back. If that's not a problem for you, use Norton Ghost. Other ones are able to work without booting I heard.

Don't know. But Norton Ghost works pretty well for me.

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

A drive image requires a huge amount of space, doesn't it? As in another (larger) drive or a tape? Can you break an image into chunks?

A backup is simpler to make than than an image. You can break it up into chunks and put it on CDs or DVDs. Try Nero CD utilities, which includes a backup utility.

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

Thanks, BM. Didn't know Nero had that. I'll check the cd that came with the burner.

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

The latest Power Quest Drive Image and Norton Ghost have the ability to span the image in 700Meg chunks so that you can burn them to CD. If you make a bootable diskette for either of these programs, you can boot to it and restore your spanned image from the CD's you burned.

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

I used Ghost a long time ago before Norton took it over. Haven't used it since, the price went wayyyyy up! I now use Power Quest's Drive Image as the other one Gandalf mentioned and am very happy with it. I've owned it for at least 2 years now and that same Version is still working fine with my XP Pro SP2 images. It works with all Versions of FAT, FAT32, and NTFS drives that I've come across so far. I've probably used it on at least 5 different OS's (95, 98, ME, 2K, and XP) and at leat 10 different hardware configs/platforms. Have reproduced drive images at least 200 times with it. Has compression features as well which are handy.

One suggestion tho, make sure the drive you put your backup partition image on is formatted FAT. That makes it simple to boot from a floppy and restore your orig image. Not a requirement but a whole lot simpler to do.

It was probably the best $50 I ever spent (besides SEIV of course... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

Ghost is the way to go. You can span the image across as many CD's as needed, or even push it across almost any kind of wire to another system that has spare drive space.

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

Thanks for the info people.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

What kind of people are 'info people'?

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

I'd suggest Drive Image.

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

Is there any advantage of a HD image compared to a "normal" backup?
Until now I use only the latter with the standard microsoft backup program to create backups onto a external HD. Am I missing something??

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

A HD image captures every single bit of information on the drive. It is like with making a backup copy of a CD. If you just copy the files manually, you lose any boot sector information. An image copy is an exact, bit for bit, duplication.

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

With a "backup" you are just backing up critical information and, at bare minimum, will have to reinstall the OS to do a "restore". If some of the data you are backing up is application specific, you may also have to reinstall the program to be able to use the data "restored".
As Fyron said, an image is an exact duplicate of your HD and can be restored from a floppy boot to write the image back onto your HD. When you then reboot, your system is in the exact condition it was in at the time of the image.

Re: OT: HD image backup
 

FYI: the main reason that I was looking for a HD image copy solution is because I find it very annoying that it takes a good 45min to an hour to reinstall windows and all the various dirver and updates. it just seems to me that if I had a copy on say Drive E: I could copy it over faster than the install process. Copying 1.6gig should only take about 10-15mins. that would be a great savings in time lost, not to mention reinstalling all the different apps, just to update the registry.

If I had an 'image' of C: then I wouldn't have to worry about loss of installed data. and making a 'snapshot' backup would be quicker than doing the copy thing.

FYI:2.0 many of the system files will not let you copy over them while windows is running, you just get the 'file allready in use' or some such error. It needs to be an image copy to preserve the boot info. boot from floppy, copy image from E: to C: the reboot,.. voila a full install of windows.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif