essential software for a drive image?

[somethingwitty]

edit: looks like I've been moved out of "highly technical"-guess the disclaimer isnt needed anymore. advice would be greatly appreciated...

I'm just about ready to go for the annual (approximately) clean re-install of my system. I'd like to setup the important programs and create an image of that configuration before I start trashing it again. So far, here's my list of programs I intend to include in the image. any additions you would make, comments on my choices, etc, would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

-Win98se
-win98se cabs
-IE bookmarks
-zonealarm
-MS office
-norton antivirus w/updated signatures
-winzip
-all devices and drivers installed
-my apc back-UPS software
-have DUN configured
-netscape and secureCRT (perhaps debatable, but those come on a cd my school distributes, and i'll need them often)
-AIM (maybe-i use it often, but it IS pretty easy to setup later-plus new betas are frequent...)
-drive imaging software (I'm thinking norton ghost)

what pluggins should I grab b/4 creating the image? anything else im missing?

thanks again for any help

 

[Doctorweir]

Do you only want to backup certain programmes or the whole partition?

For whole partitions use Norton Ghost or Powerquest Drive Image Pro.

I use the latter. With the enclosed tools you also can extract single files from the image.

Tip: Create an image of a new, clean install and the quarterly clean-up is only 5 minutes...
except for upgrading drivers etc...

 

[somethingwitty]

I'd want to backup the entire partition-I assume (and hope) that norton ghost, when creating an image, will work around the free space, since I have a 30gig drive and will only have about 2gig filled up?





<< Tip: Create an image of a new, clean install and the quarterly clean-up is only 5 minutes... >>



yup, that's why I'm doing this. I've done the clean re-install a couple of times now, and for some reason I never get around to imaging before trashing it all over again. I figured this time I'll be smart about it

Any comments on my list of programs I intend to install and configure before imaging?

thanks

 

[huanaku]

You're software list looks good. If there is anything that *might* cause a problem, don't install it until after you do the image. EX: for me, win2k sp2 causes problems. So I don't install the service pack before I do the image. I do it afterwards, and then if I do have a problem, it's easy to re-ghost. There is a program called xteq that you can use to tweak everything. When I ghost, I install all my programs very carefully (rebooting each time it asks to reboot). I'll get the latest drivers, antivirus defs. I then go through x-teq and set my folders and start-up options. I set-up my DSN/ODBC components (I run a personal web server). Then I image. My total partition size is about 2400 megs, and my image size (using fast compression) is about 1300 megs. My total time down when I re-image is about 15 minutes.

 

[somethingwitty]

since I'll probably be trying this tonight, here's a quick bump to see if I can get any last minute info.

thanks for the help so far.

 

[de8212]

Just curious if you are trying to burn the image to a cd or to a seperate partition on your hd? I was wondering how big the image is of everything you listed. I'd like to do essentially the same except I just want Win2K w/sp2 and Office2K. Anyone think that would fit on one cd?

de

 

[somethingwitty]

<< Just curious if you are trying to burn the image to a cd or to a seperate partition on your hd? I was wondering how big the image is of everything you listed. I'd like to do essentially the same except I just want Win2K w/sp2 and Office2K. Anyone think that would fit on one cd? >>



honestly, I havent gotten that far yet. However, if I recall correctly, ghost lets you limit the file sizes of the image pieces so they can each fit on a cd. Also, I may store on a second partition too...