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How do you guys backup your OS?

A

Arkitech

Diamond Member
I had to reinstall my system from scratch today, which makes it about the 4th time in the last 6 or 7 months I've had to rebuild one of my 4 PCs. So basically I'm getting a little tired of the process and I want to make a backup image of my OS on DVD in the event I experience another crash. So far I've reinstalled XP, loaded up my drivers and antivirus software and a few basic apps. So now I want to take the OS in the state that it's in now and make an image of it. What's the best tools for that job?
 
First figure out why you are reinstalling so often.

Then look into things like Ghost, Acronis and ImageX.
 
I use dump and restore on UNIX-like systems. In your case, i'd probably buy another hard drive and use g4u to copy everything.
 
Originally posted by: Arkitech
I had to reinstall my system from scratch today, which makes it about the 4th time in the last 6 or 7 months I've had to rebuild one of my 4 PCs. So basically I'm getting a little tired of the process and I want to make a backup image of my OS on DVD in the event I experience another crash. So far I've reinstalled XP, loaded up my drivers and antivirus software and a few basic apps. So now I want to take the OS in the state that it's in now and make an image of it. What's the best tools for that job?
Click to expand...


The best way to back up is to use an imaging software like Acronis True Image. Make a complete image of your bootable drive every time, not an incremental image. Image to a second hard drive, not a partition on your bootable drive, and not to removable media like DVD. Even better is to copy the image from your second hard drive to an external hard drive, or image directly to an external hard drive.

If you do this you can disable system restore, because it no longer has any useful purpose.

The key thing is to get into the habit of doing daily images, and doing images before downloading and installing any unfamiliar software. Once you understand the process of using imaging software, it only takes a couple minutes to create an image. Restoring the image takes just a couple more minutes.

Imaging software is by far the best solution.

-Bob
 
Originally posted by: Bob Anderson
Originally posted by: Arkitech
I had to reinstall my system from scratch today, which makes it about the 4th time in the last 6 or 7 months I've had to rebuild one of my 4 PCs. So basically I'm getting a little tired of the process and I want to make a backup image of my OS on DVD in the event I experience another crash. So far I've reinstalled XP, loaded up my drivers and antivirus software and a few basic apps. So now I want to take the OS in the state that it's in now and make an image of it. What's the best tools for that job?
Click to expand...


The best way to back up is to use an imaging software like Acronis True Image. Make a complete image of your bootable drive every time, not an incremental image. Image to a second hard drive, not a partition on your bootable drive, and not to removable media like DVD. Even better is to copy the image from your second hard drive to an external hard drive, or image directly to an external hard drive.

If you do this you can disable system restore, because it no longer has any useful purpose.

The key thing is to get into the habit of doing daily images, and doing images before downloading and installing any unfamiliar software. Once you understand the process of using imaging software, it only takes a couple minutes to create an image. Restoring the image takes just a couple more minutes.

Imaging software is by far the best solution.

-Bob
Click to expand...

I don't consider "cloning" to be an effective backup, because you end up wasting tons of space because there is no way to Diff images (well, there is, but it's not consumer level s/w). Imaging a fresh OS to save time (no need to reinstall from scratch, install drivers, set preferences, install apps, etc) is fine, but to image every day?


to the OP, I just copy /home off to another box on my network, and spool stuff to tape about once a week (yes, I'm a geek, I have a tape drive at home).
 
I do a 'just built' image then periodic ones (about once a month). I then do daily data backups to an external drive and weekly's to another box on the network. I also have the important things (pics of my kid, financials etc.) to DVD periodically.

I adopted this after 'the great crash of 2001' where a very slightly corrupted ghost image cost me *everything*


Even with an easy and reliable (and tested!) restore I would seriously investigate root cause if I was having to rebuild frequently. Other than test restores I've never had to rebuild like you describe.
 
Excuse my ignorance to this matter, and I do not mean to hijack the thread, but I hav ea few questions about imaging a drive or OS. Lets say I was to make an image of a drive/OS, at what state does the computer have to be for me to be able to restore the image? I'm guessing I would still need a bootable OS for me to restore the PC to the image stored on disk or another drive, correct? So if I was to have a total system crash and I'm not able to boot to OS, an image backup will not do me any good?

Also, lets say I image a drive or OS with multiple apps installed. If I isntall that image, I no longer need to to install those applications correct, they will be installed off of the image? What about Windows Authentications and Product keys, how does that work with an image copy?

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.
 
I normal just create a Ghost partition using Norton Ghost on to a spare harddisk...usually just after Windows has been updated and activated and with most basic utilities installed (nero, winzip, winrar etc), but before I install anything else, like Antivirus software that might be subscription based.

that usually saves a few hours worth of mucking around...unless it's a new motherboard that I'm setting up...then I usually start from scratch.
 
About ever week or two, I clone my main drive to a duplicate drive - not a backup image, but a bit-by-bit clone job using Acronis TrueImage bootable CD.

The result is a perfect duplicate drive ready to go - no restoration needed. Just change connectors and reboot.

I do this on three systems - one of which is a laptop.
 
nweaver, you said:

"I don't consider "cloning" to be an effective backup, because you end up wasting tons of space because there is no way to Diff images (well, there is, but it's not consumer level s/w). Imaging a fresh OS to save time (no need to reinstall from scratch, install drivers, set preferences, install apps, etc) is fine, but to image every day?"

I am not cloning the drive, I am imaging it. There is a difference. True Image compresses the data and it does not include the page file (to my knowledge).

Today my bootable partition is 4.46 MB; the image of it is 2.24 MB. Once I've opened TI, it takes 80 seconds to create an image to drive D. Restoring the image takes about 2 minutes 30 seconds.

As I said, I only create full images, not differential, but that is just my habit. Many do an original complete image, then keep it up to date by creating differential images.

-Bob
 
With WinXP (both 32 and 64 bit) and older, I use GHOST2003. I don't think it works properly under Windows Vista though (haven't tried yet).
 
Originally posted by: nippyjun
Would raid mirroring be an easier way then using cloning software?
Click to expand...

Not really. Mirroring gives you redundancy of the drives on a constant basis - but any corruption such malware or virus would be mirrored on both drives and you are still up the creek without a paddle.

I keep my data on a RAID 1 array, but then I back that up weekly on an external drive.

The original quesiton was re the OS. Imaging the OS gets you a recovery channel - but it is not immediately available. It has to be restored, and that can be a problem if you have a failure of the OS drive.

With a duplicate drive, you simply connect it and go. For backing up the OS, cloning is far superior to imaging. You can't boot an image. So, I guess I disagree with NWeaver on this. 🙂 With the OS and programs, there is no issue of "wasted space."

 
Originally posted by: nippyjun
Would raid mirroring be an easier way then using cloning software?
Click to expand...

Raid is to protect your uptime, not your data. It's designed to let you throw a drive and keep running until a convenient maintenance window. If you use raid as a means to backup you WILL eventually lose your data.
 
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