Disk Imaging Software

[WayneMan]

I have a dual boot system with 2K on C partition and XP Pro on F partition. I want to purchase software for making an image of the C and F partitions so when things get going badly wrong, I can simply format and restore an image.

I read a write up in a computer magazine on PowerQuest's Disk Image, and it said that Disk Image did not work properly in a dual boot enviroment. Anyone have any information relative to this and I cannot find anything on their web page or by doing searches. Any recomendations of image software that works properly on a dual boot system?

 

[BOURBAKI]

Try Norton's Ghost

http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/features.html

 

[bcastner]

Let me ask you if these partitions are on the same physical hard disk drive?

If so, it is clear you need to use a CD Burner or other storage media to store the backups.

Norton Ghost, and Acronis True Image (this is what I use) would both work fine.

 

[WayneMan]

Both partitions are on the same physical Hard Drive. I have an external USB hard drive I was planning on using for storing the image files.

 

[WayneMan]

I left out that in this PC magazine article, that Acronis was the top rated software for making images, however it did not specifically say that it had no problem with dual boot systems as it did when describing Disk Image which is now owned by Norton and not PowerQuest.

Ghost was not discussed, but I see from reading that it is very popular.

 

[bcastner]

My understanding of disk imaging is that the underlying OS does not really matter.

(It will matter if you have to restore the software that did the imaging, but both Symantec/Norton and Acronis (and likedly Drive Image) support the creation of a boot floppy to allow a restore).

Drive partitions are drive partitions. You image the disk, independent of the OS.

I have used all three products you have mentioned. I moved earlier this year to Acronis because of its support of the XP/Win2003 service feature to allow active and incremental backups of a working system.

As a vote for the user interface, I like the Acronis interface quite a lot. I still find the Norton interface confusing for Ghost, and there have been many complaints here and elsewhere on the internet where someone overwrote the very drive they intended to protect.

(You make this mistake, hopefully once, in Ghost).

All are excellent products. My own nod of the head goes to Acronis at the moment. And I own all three of the products you mentioned. But for unattended scheduled incremental images being recorded on a second hard disk drive or to CDs, it works great. Only Drive Image and the Acronis product at the moment can do a scheduled reimage on an incremental basis for a live system.

For rollouts of new machines, or to regulary reimage an existing machine, Ghost is the best utility.

 

[WayneMan]

Thanks bcastner for all the information.

When you say that you image the disk, are you referring to the hard drive? Only partitions C and F on my machine are in any way connected to an OS. Partition D and E, I can simply use the copy command to store it's data. As you know, I want to image a partition that has an OS on it so when I get in trouble, I am not faced with formating and a clean install from scratch and then add in all the different applications and so forth which can take days depending on how much energy you have and how much you had to begin with.

I just purchased Acronis online for 39.95.

Thanks again everyone for your help