blew out my os.

[rasczak]

I have a copy of symantec ghost 10.0 and acronis true image from maxtor.

how many images do you all make for a given installation?

i imagine you make a copy of the os just after installation on cd/dvd? but does anyone have any other methods they are willing to share?

i was also thinking about saving an image on my server but i'm not sure how to go about doing a a netinstall. has anyone had success withthis method?

 

[NoelS]

jp,

You're right. A new installation image is great to have - almost like a clean install.

I do all my images on a separate internal HDD and also on an external HDD. May be overkill, but I have lost my HDDs before...

I have a partition for each music and photos. Since they are both large, I image them once and keep those images on an external HDD and DVDs. I also have my OS and programs on separate partitions, so I can replace the OS without having to replace the programs. I make images of the programs partition when I put a new, major program on. I image the OS and programs partitions weekly.

I retain several images of each partition until I feel comfortable with a new configuration (except for music and photos, which I only update monthly or more and only keep one image because of size).

Be sure to title images so you know one from the other.

I used Ghost for a while, but it failed me in a recovery, so dropped it and picked up Acronis. Try both concurrently, see which one you like better, then go with onne or the other. Don't forget to try recoveries from a boot

Noel

 

[boomerang]

I image my entire C: drive daily using the task scheduler in Acronis TI. Images are saved to a second internal HD. I image from within Windows on the fly and continue doing whatever I'm doing as they are created.

I have three folders.

Images1 - Contains images made on Monday and Thursday
Images2 - Contains images made on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday
Images3 - Contains images made on Wednesday and Saturday

When an image is created, it overwrites the file that's there. I have three images to fall back on at any given time.

I should say that I do not have a lot of files. I can easily devote the HD space to support this setup.

 

[rasczak]

Originally posted by: NoelS
jp,

You're right. A new installation image is great to have - almost like a clean install.

I do all my images on a separate internal HDD and also on an external HDD. May be overkill, but I have lost my HDDs before...

I have a partition for each music and photos. Since they are both large, I image them once and keep those images on an external HDD and DVDs. I also have my OS and programs on separate partitions, so I can replace the OS without having to replace the programs. I make images of the programs partition when I put a new, major program on. I image the OS and programs partitions weekly.

I retain several images of each partition until I feel comfortable with a new configuration (except for music and photos, which I only update monthly or more and only keep one image because of size).

Be sure to title images so you know one from the other.

I used Ghost for a while, but it failed me in a recovery, so dropped it and picked up Acronis. Try both concurrently, see which one you like better, then go with onne or the other. Don't forget to try recoveries from a boot

Noel

now considering that you have all of your data spread throughout, i.e apps for instance, when you reload, does office automatically start working for you again? or do you have to reinstall that?

Originally posted by: boomerang
I image my entire C: drive daily using the task scheduler in Acronis TI. Images are saved to a second internal HD. I image from within Windows on the fly and continue doing whatever I'm doing as they are created.

I have three folders.

Images1 - Contains images made on Monday,Thursday and Sunday
Images2 - Contains images made on Tuesday and Friday
Images3 - Contains images made on Wednesday and Saturday

When an image is created, it overwrites the file that's there. I have three images to fall back on at any given time.

I should say that I do not have a lot of files. I can easily devote the HD space to support this setup.

that's a nice setup. i do however have a lot of data. my raptor itself was nearly full capacity (lots of *ahem* "movies") hehe. I've since moved that and all of my music to two seperate drives for redundancy. and havea 320gb drive i can swap in and out for offline/offsite file storage.

i'm not sure the version of acronis i have supports your setup though, i'll have to look into it a bit more. (got my *free* version from maxtor's website)

 

[boomerang]

No, I don't think the free version will allow you to do it, but my understanding is that you can upgrade that version at a reduced cost.

 

[NoelS]

jp,

When I re-load my OS, all of the apps continue to work because my OS re-load is with the same OS I had previously with those apps installed. I do an OS re-load when I'm concerned I've picked up a virus, etc, and the basic OS doesn't change... If you should need do a clean install of the OS, you'd have to re-install some programs, but there are many that aren't tied to the registry and they'll continue to work with being re-installed.

If you keep the OS and the apps on the same partition, a clean OS re-install would wipe out everything on that partition, requiring re-installing all the apps.

Does that answer your question?

Noel

 

[RebateMonger]

Keep in mind that Windows Home Server can do this for you automatically, as long as you have XP or Vista clients. It'll make daily backups of up to ten PCs and allow restoration to multiple backup points (sorta' like the System Restore function), without any real effort by you. Single Instance Storage of files is done on a very low level, so files that are duplicated on multiple systems are only backed up once.

A complete system re-install is done across the network by just inserting a single recovery CD into the ailing PC.