I came back home from work flooded with advices and discussions about Ghost and DriveMagic.
Thank you all.
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I came back home from work flooded with advices and discussions about Ghost and DriveMagic.
Thank you all.
Thank you, Qhash, for suggesting Acronis True Image. I will give it a thought.Quote:
Originally posted by qhash
I suggest to use Acronis True Image. It can hadle with drive covered by bad sectors , while others ,like Norton Ghost ,can't.
Hi! DVOM. Sorry to get back to you that late. I had to leave for work.Quote:
Originally posted by DVOM
What sizes are your partitions and what kind of files are on each?
If D is just data, I wouldn't ghost it. I'd burn all of it directly to CD's.
Then I'd also store a ghost image of C on D. I'd also burn a ghost image of C to CD.
I have a Sony Vaio. The HHD has two partitions C:\ 16.0GB (it only has 6.24GB left), the D:\ 95.7GB (it has 93.0GB left). I did not do anything to my HHD. This was the manufacturer partitions
The C:\ drive has all the manufacturer stuffs, including WinXP.
The D:\drive had practically nothing in it. I did put in mainly MS office and programs and files.
LotusAstra got me wondering about Ghost's capabilities, so I put it to the test. I booted with the Ghost floppy, and the program saw all my partitions, FAT and NTFS. I had Ghost create a backup image of one NTFS partition and save it to another NTFS partition with no problem at all. My USB mouse even worked, which is very nice. It's very comforting to know that the whole Ghost operation can be run from a floppy if necessary.
That's great news Gerdog, thx for trying it, just what i wanted to here... so Ghost 2003 does fully support NTFS from the boot floppy after all... :) i'm sure nganvu and others will find this info useful too. Thx again :)
Regards :)
Yes, in fact tha GUI bit of Ghost 2003 is merely the wizard where you choose whaere you want to save the image, level of compression and all the other (many) options. As soon as the Wizard is completed the PC is booted into DOS and uses exactly the same app as is on the floppy.
Before anyone buys Drive Image 7, they should have a look at this article, Mr Langa was not impressed:
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-07-03.htm
I have used both Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image and to me both are excellent. Aside from the bootable Ghost floppy disk I would also recommend making a Ghost bootable CD, which is faster anyway. I don't trust floppys, period!
Also, I am a firm believer in two hard drives, instead of one. Better to have two 80GB drives than one 160GB drive. Save your Ghost images to the second drive, and also your swap file. I have created a 2GB partition solely for the swap file and it works like a charm.
I have also found that having a C partition for the OS only and a D partition for apps only works really well. A 6GB C partition should be sufficient and the same for the D partition. When you save a Ghost image of the C partition do the same for the D partition so they will always be matched.
I know it's probably easier to have a C partition big enough for both the OS and the apps, that's personal preference. Then you could just image the C drive and be done, whatever works for you. I'm sure you will find that booting from a Ghost bootable CD is much better than a floppy.
True Image is nice because you can make your image from within Windows. I was skeptical at first about this but I have tried to restore from that image and it really works. You will find yourself having more peace of mind knowing that you have a reliable Ghost or True Image image available to bail you out. Good luck!
http://www.electriceyes.us
I use both Ghost 2003 & Acronis TrueImage 6.0 (most recent version). Both are great programs but with different attributes.
GHOST
Ghost is much faster and can clone a drive in one step. Typically I can make a drive image of 5GB in about 5 minutes. Highest compression doesn't take much longer and doesn't compress much further.
What I use Ghost for: When I back up any CLIENT computer, I usually use Ghost. I can get the program inexpensively and so it goes onto every computer I sell. It enables quick, easy backups and restores.
:-)PROS: Works fast. Can make a clone in one step.
:-(CONS: Doesn't compress image files very well. Must take computer to DOS to operate. Uses difficult, arcane DOS networking command and naming conventions. Doesn't work in NT Server. Image file checks must also be done offline. Breaks image files up into 2GB sections and uses the first five characters of the original file name to build the extra section file names, which can cause deletion of prior image sections.
TRUEIMAGE
TrueImage is a very useful backup program for a server since it operates totally within Windows, even when backing up the System drive. TrueImage can make considerably smaller image files and does NOT require that you leave Windows to use it. I can make a 10GB backup image in a little more than an hour at maximum compression.
What I use TrueImage for: I use TrueImage on my server computers since it can work within Windows without requiring any shutdown to DOS. TrueImage is considerably slower than Ghost but runs from within Windows, including NT Server (which Ghost won't do). Also can save files across a LAN using standard Windows networked drive connections.
:-)PROS: Makes smaller image files. Don't need to take a computer offline to do a backup (Great for servers!). Makes the file as one large file unless told to do otherwise, so each image is ony one file, not several as in Ghost. The CD Boot Disk is easy to make and will work with any computer from NT thru XP and from FAT16 thru NTFS. Can easily put the image file onto another computer's hard drive across a LAN.
:-(CONS: Much slower than Ghost (about 20% of the speed). Can't do a clone in one step so it can take over ten times as long to do a clone action. Requires a lot of manipulation to clone a single partition drive onto another single partition drive.
I have no experience with PowerQuest's Drive Image. If someone wants to extoll the attributes of it, I'd like to read that.:)
I agree with AutumnLord.
I also use two drives on most client comptuers and more than two on the server to enable easy manipulation of the backup image files.
When a client insists on economy, I use a single disk on the client computers partitioned into two drives. All system and data goes onto either the first partition or a network drive. The second partition is where the backups go, to be later transferred to the server. This makes for an easy backup system.
DI 2002
I use it to make what I call restore cds. I use the rescue floppies, boot to them and then select Image and made my cds.
It does it directly to the burner in DOS. And the 1st disk is bootable. Takes about 30 minutes to restore 3 Gb , but that sure beats 7 days to get things right again.
Cloning, I use Ghost.
So you folks cans see them, PowerQuest Instructional Videos , just select your product.
I have used Drive Image for years and I recommend it;
Here is a link for backing up methodology.
http://www.ugr.com/organize_files/frame.htm
PowerQuest has a new product called V2i Protector, Desktop Edition, Version 2. V2i has all the features of DI plus it will do a series of incremental backups, so that you can restore to the latest incremental backup or go back 4 backups.
Not only does this take up less space but it comes in handy when you suddenly start gettomg BSODs.
Backups are simplified when the C partitiom only has the OS and there is a separate partition for data and a third partition for programs.
For more information on V2i, check out this link.
http://www.powerquest.com/v2i/protector/desktop/
Cheers,
Linda
:D :D