Can i make a cd image of my freshly installed OS?

[Nvidiaguy07]

ok let me make this a little clearer.

I regularly have to fix my little cousins computer for him. He always gets his computer all spyware/virused/unnecessary programs installed up.(i dont know how else to describe it)

What i usually do is just format his HD, then load windows back on, then install all his drivers, all his programs that he normallys runs, service packs etc.

Is there a way that i can just make a recovery CD that will save the image of his HD so i dont have to install all this crap everytime and can just pop it in and that'll be it?

I think you can do this and it seems like something that almost everyone knows ive just never learned it.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Acronis software works wonders, just feed it discs and it makes the restore cds.

http://www.acronis.com/homecom...ng/products/trueimage/

Symantec ghost works as well, but it has went in a downward spiral as of late

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

this might be a dumb question but when i use Acronis will it be exactly what it was when i created the image? im guessing yes but i had no luck using the windows restore point, it basically did nothing.

 

[Dream Operator]

yes. that's the whole point.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

alright lol sorry i was just making sure.

How long does it typically take to restore xp with just a few programs and the service packs installed?

And for my own purposes, i have a dual boot with vista and ubuntu set up. how would i go about making an image of that because they are across 2 different HD's. Plus i dont want to lose my partition that i keep all my documents and music and crap on.

Sorry for so many questions

 

[Dream Operator]

Originally posted by: Nvidiaguy07
alright lol sorry i was just making sure.

no bother, i'm just direct. i'm not qualified to answer your other questions.

 

[DrPizza]

No experience with Acronis, but I've used Ghost in the past for the exact same reason you're looking for a solution. It was relatively quick and painless. Given how cheap blank CD's are, I've even backed up an image of the computer in its current state - just in case! It's saved the day when I realized I was missing an important driver that I couldn't find online. (Although the reason for the extra back-up was because the relative had several years worth of research on the computer that had never been backed up. Before attempting to repair 1000's of spyware and virus laden files, I wanted a place I could go back to)

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: Nvidiaguy07
this might be a dumb question but when i use Acronis will it be exactly what it was when i created the image? im guessing yes but i had no luck using the windows restore point, it basically did nothing.

Yes, bit for bit will be copied to a cd with a bootable app that lets you restore it back, bit for bit.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: Nvidiaguy07
alright lol sorry i was just making sure.

How long does it typically take to restore xp with just a few programs and the service packs installed?

And for my own purposes, i have a dual boot with vista and ubuntu set up. how would i go about making an image of that because they are across 2 different HD's. Plus i dont want to lose my partition that i keep all my documents and music and crap on.

Sorry for so many questions

4GB or so restore from a dvd takes around 15-20 minutes on a decently powered machine

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: Nvidiaguy07
alright lol sorry i was just making sure.

How long does it typically take to restore xp with just a few programs and the service packs installed?

And for my own purposes, i have a dual boot with vista and ubuntu set up. how would i go about making an image of that because they are across 2 different HD's. Plus i dont want to lose my partition that i keep all my documents and music and crap on.

Sorry for so many questions

You just make an image of both hard drives, when you restore, boot loader and all will be set like it was the day you made the image. Sounds complicated I know, but just think of it this way, bit for bit everything on the disk is restored boot loaders and all, just make sure you dont clone the wrong image to the wrong drive

I've made mistakes like that in the past, doing things like imaging a blank drive to an in use drive oops!

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
No experience with Acronis, but I've used Ghost in the past for the exact same reason you're looking for a solution. It was relatively quick and painless. Given how cheap blank CD's are, I've even backed up an image of the computer in its current state - just in case! It's saved the day when I realized I was missing an important driver that I couldn't find online. (Although the reason for the extra back-up was because the relative had several years worth of research on the computer that had never been backed up. Before attempting to repair 1000's of spyware and virus laden files, I wanted a place I could go back to)

Acronis today is what ghost was in its prime and a little more. Ghost has been bastardized so bad at this point I cant in good faith recommend it to anyone

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Nvidiaguy07
ok let me make this a little clearer.

I regularly have to fix my little cousins computer for him. He always gets his computer all spyware/virused/unnecessary programs installed up.(i dont know how else to describe it)

What i usually do is just format his HD, then load windows back on, then install all his drivers, all his programs that he normallys runs, service packs etc.

Is there a way that i can just make a recovery CD that will save the image of his HD so i dont have to install all this crap everytime and can just pop it in and that'll be it?

I think you can do this and it seems like something that almost everyone knows ive just never learned it.

As others say, use Acronis or Ghost. I wouldn't bother with CDs - I would keep an old hard drive in the computer, and backup images onto that.

Even better is buying Windows Home Server and sticking it in a closet so it backs up every PC in the house every night, but that's $500....

 

[bruceb]

In his case, a hard drive in the same unit would not be a good idea,
as that kid will likely find a way to mess that up as well. So either back
up to an external drive or to DVD if possible. As to Ghost, Ghost 2003 is
still in good shape compared to what I have heard about the present
versions.

 

[Dizzymon]

I'd skip shost, and go with Acronis. Ghost isn't as great as it use to be with the new hardware that is out there these days.

 

[DrPizza]

One other tip that I use - I make two copies of the back-up CD's. One I leave in the computer case (if possible) so that there's no searching or planning necessary to go back to a clean install. (The other copy, I lose at home)

 

[razor2025]

Acronis has been bad experience for me. I'm trying to deploy 20 workstations with a single image, but I've not been able to make the bootable CD to recognize the SATA HDD at all. I've already tried setting the SATA drive to IDE mode, with no luck.

 

[dclive]

BartPE + Ghost (or + Acronis) + a few minutes installing the IDE/SATA driver into BartPE's clean and easy driver architecture will fix that.