Backing up XP OS partition

[Warpspasm]

I need a program that will make a complete back up of my C: partition, including the OS. I want to be able to back it up to a DVD so that in the event of a major OS crash I can just boot from the backup DVD and have it reinstall everything back to the way it was. I own Nero 6 Ultra which has a backup program, but I don't think it can back up the OS because Nero works in a Window environment. I guess I need a program that runs from a floppy and makes a disk image, but I'm not sure. Any suggestions out there on what works and what to avoid?

Thanks.

 

[ColKurtz]

Do you have a blank hard disk or a partition on a 2nd har disk that is at least as big as the partition you want to back up? If so, use Ghost. You can either:

1) Completely clone the hard drive - so that you can put the backup drive in storage and have it in case of a crash.
2) Leave the backed up image on the 2nd hard drive.
3) Split the backup image into multiple 700MB/4.5GB files, so that you can back them up to CD/DVD.

There are other programs like Ghost (powerquest, etc), but Ghost is probably the most popular.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Acronis True Image is my personal favorite to use for cloning/imaging partitions. I'm an old Ghost user as well.

 

[nweaver]

Ghost works well for this. Not sure if it has DVD support in it (I use an older version) but I know it has CDR support.

And for those with the money to burn and the extra hardware, Altiris is a decent lan blasting program.

 

[dunkster]

Check out 'Image for Windows' and 'Image for Dos' at: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

Reliable non-bloatware software for $27. I use this combo to image my OS partition to DVD media weekly.

'Image for Windows' will image any partition, but you'll need the free PHYLOCK program to lock your OS partition. IFW is fast. I can image my 4GB OS partition to DVD in 15 minutes, including byte-for-byte image verification. IFD is much slower, 38 minutes to image and byte-for-byte verify the same partition.

You'll need 'Image for DOS' to restore your OS partition (not needed to restore non-active partitions). You'll also need IFD to restore to another HD, if your current HD fails.

If you want only one program, 'Image for DOS' will do it all, bootable from either floppy or CD.

I've used IFW and IFD to successfully image/restore my OS partion 4 or 5 times.

Hope this helps!

 

[bocamojo]

I use Norton Ghost 2003, and it works fine with XP. I used to make an image to a seperate HD, which I have recovered from successfully several times. Now that I have a DVD burner, I use Ghost to burn the image to DVD (done within Ghost). Works very well.

 

[doan]

I've done this with GHOST and it works. But if your boot partion is NTFS, you have to image the entire drive in order to make it bootable when restoring.

Anyone know a way around this?