Power Quest and Drive Image 2002

Any of you use this software?? I seem to recall Train posting about this software and Ghost. I was just reading something about Drive Image being able to copy drives. I was considering adding a second HDD to my machine but chickened out when I read about Ghost and discounted that but now that I have read about this Drive Image feature, I am interested again. If anyone can tell me about any experiences you have had using Drive Image to copy the contents of their present(old)Hard Drive, I would greatly appreciate reading your info. Using this software seems so much simpler than Ghost. Is it really as easy as what the read about it seems to lead me to believe??
I am going back to read some more!!

It's easy to use-- it helps if you are somewhat familiar with managing partitions on a drive. Then again I find ghost fairly easy, at least the 'usual' options and features.


For the record, you don't need ghost or anything in order to add a second hdd... I guess it depends what you want to do.

Hi Buf,

I'm not a Drive Image user, but I've used Ghost for years. Symantec's newest offering, Ghost 2003, sports a new Windows interface that makes it really easy to make your selections. Also, it is able to write an image to a local NTFS partition, which other versions of Ghost did not do. (Previously, Ghost required a FAT-based partition to store an image on.)

I did use an early version of Drive Image quite a while back. (Version 1, or maybe 2?) Both Ghost and Drive Image are able to image a single partition, or a drive consisting of multiple partitions. If what you have read about Drive Image seems to be what you've been looking for, then I'd encourage you to get it and to establish a regimen of backing up your data on a regular basis. It is indeed a wonderful feeling to be able to grab a recent image and pop it back on to your main drive if something happens that necessitates a restore. Conversely, having the proverbial wheels to come off, facing the prospect of losing valuable data and not having a current backup to rely on, is one of the most miserable feelings known to serious computer enthusiasts. :eek:

Limerick

This past week, due to a couple of bonehead mistakes by myself, I managed to wreck all three of my Windows partitions (XP, 2000, and Me). Luckily, I had saved backup images of all three on another partition, and I was able to restore them all to perfect working order. It was great! One thing that Drive Image might have an advantage over Ghost with is that it also has nondestructive partitioning abilities. For example, if you only have one large partition, it can create a new one without losing any of the existing data.
You might want to check the websites of whatever hard drive manufacturer you are interested in too. They usually include free software for transferring the data from an old drive to a new one. But it's the ability to backup and restore partitions that make Drive Image and Ghost such special and valuable programs.

I've been using Drive Image 2002 for several months now. It's VERY easy to use. I can restore an image of my C: drive in about 10 minutes.

If I install a new program and it messes up my system, no worries. Just restore everything to the way it was.

It also includes a very good user guide in PDF format.

Rapmaster--Limerick--Gerdog--mawil:
All good info and I thank each of you. I am pretty sure I can install the second hard drive(never had 2 of 'em before and only 1 partition--the whole drive) but I was afraid I might lose that data presently on my hdd. I have Adaptec backups of my data but I would not want to have to go through all of the steps to
re-install if I should do something wrong!! If I have an option to simply copy my data to a new hard drive, I would prefer to do that, IF that option is simple!! As already indicated, never had a partition other than the full hdd and don't have any such software for making a partition but guess I could use the FDisk--never used that before either. I don't do much experimenting with my computer and as a result, I don't know a lot about your terminologies and your "know how" knowledge.
I tried a free trial of NTI Backup Now Deluxe, burned a backup image of my HDD and am curious to know if that backup will restore to a NEW hard drive. As I understand it, I can't attempt to use the images on my present drive because it isn't partitioned. I may be way off base on what I have read about such things and I may stand to be corrected. Correct me and I won't mind--I will be always be in a learning mode in the computer field.

Drive Image 2002 has a "copy drives" feature. (Though I've never used it, the documentation seems very thorough and easy to follow.)

It says:

"You can use the Copy Drives feature when you want to copy your hard disk without making an image. Copying drives is useful when you are upgrading to a new hard disk. The Copy Drives feature makes an exact copy of a drive or an entire hard disk and makes use of any additional space available on the new hard disk."

It then gives VERY detailed instructions on installing the new drive, etc.

If you copy everything to a new drive, it's best if you then disconnect the old drive before trying to boot the first time, and connect the new drive as master. Then if everything works right and you're happy with it, you can reconnect the old drive as slave and use it for storage or whatever. If for some reason the new drive doesn't work right, everything on your old drive will still be there, and you can reconnect it as master and start over.

Gerdog:
I was just re-reading these threads and I became more interested in this part of your first post:

One thing that Drive Image might have an advantage over Ghost with is that it also has nondestructive partitioning abilities. For example, if you only have one large partition, it can create a new one without losing any of the existing data.

Because my present HDD has only one large partition, is what you have said means that I could ADD a partition to my existing HDD without disturbing my present data on the HDD?? Never read or heard of that before and it could just be the ticket that I am looking for :D Would I need partitioning software to do that? Would Fdisk do it? At present, I haven't any partitioning software.
If I can create a partition, ie. 5GIGS, then I could try the images I have saved on CD-R disks and try to put them on the new partition. I must be misinterpreting this cause it sounds too easy!!

I've been reading through the help files and getting confusing information. On the one hand, it states that the initial backup wizard can resize your C partition if that is all you have, and then create a new partition for storing backups.
In another help section, it states that you need unpartitioned space to create a new partition, or one of the existing partitions needs to be deleted in order to create new partitions of different sizes.
I haven't been able to find the answer at their website either. I used Partition Magic to set up my hard drives, so I never really got to check out that feature of Drive Image. Wish I could give you a better answer, but if I ever find out for sure, I'll post back.

Hi Friends,

I haven't seen the new version of Drive Image that is being discussed here, so I have no definitive answer to offer as to what it can or cannot do. However, I do have an observation.

Since the good folks at Powerquest make Drive Image, and also make Partition Magic, I would think it very plausible for them to put some of the partitioning power of Partition Magic into the Drive Image product. Given the huge popularity that Partition Magic has gained among hordes of computer enthusiasts for several years, I would be surprised to hear that Drive Image 2002 could not create a partition on-the-fly, and then write an image to it. :D

Limerick

Limerick:
You just might be right about your observations and good feelings about PQ. This is an area that I have been mulling over since last night when I first read it. A c/p is here for all to see:
(This comes from a part of some info about the software that someone sent to me.)

Setup Wizard
Drive Image images must be saved in a partition that is not included in the image. For
example, if you are saving everything from your C: drive in an image, you must save the
image to a partition other than the C: drive. If you only have a C: drive on your computer,
that means you only have one partition on the hard disk.
The setup wizard walks you through the process of creating or selecting a backup partition
to save your images. If you do not have a local drive where you can save images, Drive
Image will create one for you by creating a new partition on your hard disk.

This scenario pretty well describes my situation exactly. The 5th sentence leads me to believe that a partition would be created on my ONE hard drive by the software. Comments anyone??

What you could do is download their trial version and run through the Setup Wizard and see how it looks. PowerQuest's "demos" are a little unusual in that they let you see exactly how the program works, but it won't really perform the final operation.
http://www.powerquest.com/driveimage/direq.cfm

Gerdog:
Thanks for that link to PQ. Here is an excerpt from the "white papers" and Drive Image 2002. I have c/p one page of the write-up and then below it, I have re-copied the part about the software creating a backup location if I don't have one. I really think that my present HDD--though NOT partitioned--would be able to store the image of my HDD through Drive Image!! I am 'almost' persuaded to try it---almost!!

On a side note:
When you purchase a new hard drive they come with software that is made to copy one drive to the other at no additional cost.

Im like most people , I hate to lose data to a crash

Today I wanted to see what Drive Image would do for my XP Home System

Im using 10 gig of space ( "C") of an 80 gig HD/ Windows XP Home system ( NTFS)


I just did a Drive Image backup today on my single 80 gig HD

Drive Image , did everything it was supposed to and quick

It created a ( new) 20 gig partition , it then imaged my "C" drive Master over to the new partition

All this on the same HD ,

Now Im able to restore in minutes

Drive Image 2002 works great

John Piercy

buf
Must agree with you the first time is a nervous one. :D
I now use PQdrive image 2002. Love it and with my cdrw, I just for the heck of it used DI and made cdr backup of my c:\ drive. Nti until now was the champ, but no longer. That was the fastest and easiest I ever did that. All the capabilities that folks listed are there and seem easier to use than in the older version of Ghost I have. Heck, even now have a DI 2002 boot cd.
So, to put things back the way they should be, boot to the DI bootdisk, make sure the first cd is in the cdrom, browse and select that as the source and select C: [1st partition of the 1st hdd] as the restore to place. Let it overright everything and 6 cds later, 6.4GB compressed, I was up and running.
Worth it, you bet. Might look into the new version of Ghost, but I hate the idea of typing in the registration number everytime I want to use it though :(

OOPS: Solution: Drive Image 2002 Instructional Videos Just remembered that link. :rolleyes:

Report_2:
Thanks for your input also. I was aware of that feature but I am 'kinda' new at this kind of endeavor. You know, like the first time doing this!!

Well, I got Drive Image 2002 and I think I may have messed up already. Ain't really hard for me to do with a computer.
All of this appeared to have run in DOS. First, I was letting one of the wizards(the first one)burn a backup of my present hard drive. After about 11 minutes, I got an error
#1805 which definition told me "ran of out of space in the partition where my image was being written to". (Would that have involved the lack of spanning?) I am sitting watching the progress and I was not asked to put in another CDR--just the error. I then went to the next wizard--Setup Wizard--and I think this is where I may have erred. A lot of info is thrown at me on the screen about hard drive size and the creation of a partition. Sooo I started the wizard and noticed that it would take about 45 minutes so I went into the yard and when I came back my desktop was showing and I have to assume the PC re-booted.
I checked the property for the hard drive and see that I have about the same Used Space but the Free Space is about 7MBs less than what I previously had!!!! And the Capacity is about 3 MBs less than what I previously had.
The "PIE" shows the following(my HDD is only 13.2GBs):
Used Space 3.76GB
Free Space 3.37GB
Capacity 7.13GB(this is the total of the other 2 figures and is almost 6Gb LESS than my HD size.)
Not sure what all this means but I sure hope it has a good meaning to you--one that will enable you to help me. A reminder for you--I only have one HD and it is a 13.2GB. I hope that I have written this in a constructive manner and that you are able to follow it.

I thought about this today when I was out of town---my free space is NOW about half the size it WAS BEFORE I used Drive Image. Is this because I may truly have a backup of my hard drive that was performed by Drive Image on my ONE HDD? I can only see drive C and if Drive Image partitioned my HDD wouldn't I be able to see a drive D? Or maybe Drive C IS C and D and shown only as a drive C. (Am I lost in this description or just maybe this is making some sense to you!!) I have c/p a part of my last post for you to read again:

I checked the property for the hard drive and see that I have about the same Used Space but the Free Space is about 7MBs less than what I previously had!!!! And the Capacity is almost 3MBs less than what I previously had.
The "PIE"(in property) shows the following(my HDD is only 13.2GBs):
Used Space 3.75GB
Free Space 3.37GB
Capacity 7.14GB(this is the total of the other 2 figures and is almost 6Gb LESS than my HD size.)
Not sure what all this means but I sure hope it has a good meaning to you--one that will enable you to help me.

How can I "prove" what is on my HDD? I wonder what would happen IF I were to have Drive Image burn a backup of my HDD!? Would I get images ONLY of my phantom partition or ??
I really want to use Drive Image because it appears to be the SIMPLEST software available for the purposes we need.
Any and all, please wade in on this because I need an answer or your thoughts.
Train--I saw your post AFTER Report-2. I like your results and they are what I have thought DI would do all along. I don't know why I did not get email about your post--(I did on Report-2) or for johnpiercy. His results are what I want also.

Haven't seen any answer(s) yet. ^^

On what happened to you while trying to burn an image to cd-r... If your cdrw drive is set in bios for auto detection then drive image will interpret it (or use it) as a hard drive. And as a hard drive it thinks you just ran out of space, and since hard drives can't be expanded on the fly it doesn't ask for anything else, it just fails. You should have your bios setting such that where the cdrw is (primary/secondary, master/slave) is set to either CDROM or NONE. Then Drive image will ask for additional cd-rs when it fills one.

As for the space on your drive... The setup wizard does create an additional partition if you only have one (and one drive). It sounds like it may have gone ahead and done that. It also sounds like you took what ever defaults (size, etc) that it offered. One of the options was whether the partition created would be visible (ie. so a drive letter gets assigned) or not. By default it is not visible. I don't remember off hand if Drive Image has an option to back after the fact and make the partition it created visible (Train or someone may know). If not, you can use something like Partition Magic or such (if you have it) to make the partition visible.

If you start up Drive Image, and go to the main screen, you can click on "Disk Operations", and a screen will pop up showing all your existing partitions, even any that are hidden from Windows. It will also tell you how much used and empty space is on each partition. I sometimes use that screen just to check how much free space is on my Linux partition, because Windows can't see the Linux format.

DrMDJ
Is right on the Bios setting. Mine is set to cdrom and it burns like mad. 1GB to a cdr.
Keep at it and I suggest reading what each applette has to offer real close the first few times.
You will get the hang of it. ;)

DrMDJ/Gerdog/Train:
ALRIGHT!!!! What I have just read makes sense; sense that I did not have before or least I had not "put it together:" correctly. I will have to study the BIOS question in more depth. Under what "heading" will I find the cd-rw question. Do I have a choice of accepting NONE? I am assuming that NONE is NOT the chosen answer there because of what happened to me and what the good Dr. said also.

Gerdog: That disk operations window tells me exactly what I was trying to describe 2-3 posts back when I listed the GBs listed in each category. I see Disk 1 and 12.14 GB under it and then (C) with 7.16 GB. Fate 32 under it and then Backup (*.) with 4.98 GB. Hidden File 32 under it. Of course, above that was some other info listed and at the end of those items of info was the words:
Primary and then logical under it.

Train: I knew that you were a strong believer/user of Ghost and for you to say that you are sold on DI helps me to feel like I have not totally wasted $$. I also liked what I saw in NTI Backup Now Deluxe; especially when I was able to download it for only $37.50 and still had 30 days to try it and get a refund, if I chose to. I did ask for the refund within that 30 days period in favor of DI.

BTW, because I DID NOT get a backup of my HDD BEFORE I did what I did when I first ran DI, I think I had better burn one NOW!! Right. I realize that should something hose my HDD before I get a good backup--I loose everything because everything is on my HDD

Well, after trying DI, I switched after about 6 months. Ok they got my money. But it still is a good program. Just DI is much smoother in operation.

BIOS
Boot to Bios and you should have a Boot Menu tab [or words to that effect].
arrow down to AtAPI cd-rom In the [ ] should be the word none . or you can select the specific cdrom device.
But, I have my cdrw selected as my FIRST boot device. Do not know if that is required though, it is just the way I have my mobo setup as I do make boot cds and use them.

Well, I just checked and found that my IBM Aptiva PC has listed under the heading of "System Information" the IDE Secondary Channel Master---CD-RW. That is what it should be--right? If that is right then something else must have happened that my first attempt at burning an image of my HDD failed before creating a partition on my one HDD for the backup. I know the CD-RW is jumpered to the Primary pins on the burner!!

My floppy comes first, CD-RW second and HDD third.

That should do it.
Just take it slow and easy the next time. What I do. Good luck this time.

I just put that first CD in my cd-rom--the one that I tried to burn BEFORE letting DI create a partition on my ONLY HDD and I took a look at the properties of the CD and I saw that 2.90MBs were burned and this was represented by two oddly named files. One file is named Bootcat.bin and is 2KB and the other file is named Bootimg.bin and is 2,880KB. There is no free space left on the CD and it is a 680MB CD!!
Does this meaning anything??

Thanks for that "take it slow and easy" advice Train. If anything, I sometimes think that I am perhaps a bit too cautious and that can cause mistakes also :p

Another edit: I have the latest IBM update for my BIOS just in case you need to know that.

I used List-FC and this is what I get for the first cd:


---------- c:\windows\desktop\folder.txt

Folder Contents Listed at 10-25-2002 8:49:28.08p


Directory of T:\

=============================================================
MS-DOS Name File Modification Win9x LFN
File & Type Size Date and Time (Long Name)
=============================================================

BOOTCAT BIN 2,048 10-04-02 3:20p BOOTCAT.BIN
BOOTIMG BIN 2,949,120 10-04-02 3:20p BOOTIMG.BIN
IMAGES <DIR> 10-04-02 3:20p IMAGES

=============================================================
- End of List -
_____________________________________________________________

List-FC for Windows 95/98 - Freeware by rmbox


Are you using cdr's or cdrw disks? I gave up on the rw's because of all the bad disks I was getting. Besides you need to format the darn things first. :( :mad:

The when I got curious and checked the image folder:


---------- c:\windows\desktop\folder.txt

Folder Contents Listed at 10-25-2002 8:56:14.74p


Directory of T:\IMAGES

=============================================================
MS-DOS Name File Modification Win9x LFN
File & Type Size Date and Time (Long Name)
=============================================================

MYBACKUP PQI 668,860,416 10-04-02 3:20p MYBACKUP.PQI
. <DIR> 10-04-02 3:20p .
.. <DIR> 10-04-02 3:20p ..

=============================================================
- End of List -
_____________________________________________________________

List-FC for Windows 95/98 - Freeware by rmbox


It showed what was in it. Hope this helps. By the way I like that tool. R-click the folder, select List-FC and you get a txt file on the desktop with what is in the folder.

Simply thought most folks used CDRs now and gave up on the RWs. Hated to format also--took too long. I have a few of them, still unopened, but haven't used the RWs in a long long time.
Don't know beans about that List FC but that ain't no surprise-- to me. Understand you to say that this free download will OPEN those image files and show what is in them on the desktop??
That is very good, if I am interrupting this correctly.
As quick as we are responding, it would seem like we are using IM or IQ or ??

Nah, all it does is to give a list of what is in whatever you select. And notepad will open and when you close it it saves it to the desktop. Got it for reading boot floppies originally, but found it to useful since then. For me, it is a true KEEPER.

Seen faster days, but not often. ;)

Didn't see how I could have been right in my understanding of that. Thanks for further info but I had already downloaded it to my work folder to look at later. Sounds good and thanks for the link.
Getting late here so am gonna; G'Nite all.

Be back Sunday afternoon, my local. Have a good one.

:mad: Well, I just tried to burn a backup of my only drive(C) and 5 CDs and an hour and 20 minutes later--while in the verifying mode--CD # 4 turns up with an error #1802 which is invalid or corrupted :mad: I had only the choice of hitting OK and then the PC automatically rebooted--even before I could take the CD out of the drive sooo the PC locked up and I had to hit the power switch. What a waste of time and material. Don't know what I can do now. Don't even know what files CD #4 may have covered.
Guess I had better go back to the help files and see if I have overlooked something. Venting finished!!

Forgot to include in the above: My burner is a 24X10X40 and it only had to copy 3.6GB. To take an hour+, is that a long time?? Of course, verifying took a few minutes but I am glad I opted to verify.

I don't like that disk verifying tool. I got errors with it when backing up to another partition too. Seems to work fine by unchecking that verify option.

Are you meaning that I should ignore the error message with the burned CD? And does that mean that there isn't something wrong with the CD? That would be great but what if I had to use these 5 backup CDs to restore my hard drive and there truly was something wrong with the #4 CD and I couldn't use it in my restoring attempt then I would be up that old creek wouldn't I! This is not meant to be questioning you per se' cause I assume you have had this happen to you and the CD that you got a similar report about was good after all and you did use it.
I read something about using the Image Explorer to examine the "bad" CD but have not yet checked that possibility.
I am very much appreciative of your efforts, and all others, to help me to understand that new found DI software and I look forward to getting it to work for me.
Did the time taken to burn 3.6GBs seem too long to you??

Time for me to do a step by step and see where the mess up is.
Time seems about right with the verify it seems to me. But I am using a LiteOn 40X12X48X . Will post back a bit later. in the middle of a 644MB download of Mandrake 9.0 :D

I'll gladly wait!! Hope your time"away" was good and your weekend was even better.