Looking for drive imaging solutions

[TechnoPro]

I'm looking for an disc imaging solution that meets several criteria and can handle a variety of imaging and restoration scenarios.

Of utmost importance is that the imaging software cannot be installed on the PC in question. Instead, I need to use a bootable CD or DVD (or a bootable USB thumb drive when the technology supports it) to create and/or restore the image. This is a must.

Here are the scenarios I need to cover:

[1] Boot from CD, create image of drive and have it saved to a network share. Also, be able to restore image from network share.

[1a] In a perfect world, I'd also like the ability to have an end-user pop in a self-booting CD that would display a CLI menu giving them options of restoring an image from a network share.

[2] Boot from CD, create image of drive and save it external USB HDD. Restore from external HDD as well.

[3] Create disc image and save to CD or DVD media. This can either be done while booted from imaging CD or within Windows on a different PC at a later time. Discs should be self booting if possible. If not, I'd like a self-booting disc that would prompt the user to "insert image disc 1 and press enter" (or similar).

[4] Create image and save to network share or external drive. Once successfully imaged, repartition the HDD to include a "recovery partition" containing a clean image. Then, create a bootable CD that would give the end-user the option to restore from recovery partition.

Let me make this clear: I am not looking for a 1 size fits all product or method. If I need to buy several software tools, as in 1 or more for each scenario, so be it.

Please share what you have personally used to accomplish any/all of the above. Thanks.

 

[TheLonelyPhoenix]

I believe Norton Ghost can do everything you listed above to some degree, though you might have to play around with it to figure out an idiot-proof system. You definitely can do network saves/restores, direct an image to be saved to a series of CDs or a physical HD partition, etc... I'm not sure if the discs it creates are bootable though; its been awhile since I've used it. It would be worth your time to look into it as a possible one-application solution, I think.

 

[phatrabt]

Originally posted by: TechnoPro
I'm looking for an disc imaging solution that meets several criteria and can handle a variety of imaging and restoration scenarios.

Of utmost importance is that the imaging software cannot be installed on the PC in question. Instead, I need to use a bootable CD or DVD (or a bootable USB thumb drive when the technology supports it) to create and/or restore the image. This is a must.

Here are the scenarios I need to cover:

[1] Boot from CD, create image of drive and have it saved to a network share. Also, be able to restore image from network share.

[1a] In a perfect world, I'd also like the ability to have an end-user pop in a self-booting CD that would display a CLI menu giving them options of restoring an image from a network share.

[2] Boot from CD, create image of drive and save it external USB HDD. Restore from external HDD as well.

[3] Create disc image and save to CD or DVD media. This can either be done while booted from imaging CD or within Windows on a different PC at a later time. Discs should be self booting if possible. If not, I'd like a self-booting disc that would prompt the user to "insert image disc 1 and press enter" (or similar).

[4] Create image and save to network share or external drive. Once successfully imaged, repartition the HDD to include a "recovery partition" containing a clean image. Then, create a bootable CD that would give the end-user the option to restore from recovery partition.

Let me make this clear: I am not looking for a 1 size fits all product or method. If I need to buy several software tools, as in 1 or more for each scenario, so be it.

Please share what you have personally used to accomplish any/all of the above. Thanks.

I've accomplised 1-3 with Ghost 2003. It DOES take some tweaking (I did it using batch files) but it's do-able. As for #4? I don't know about that one. When I work on friends\family computers I create a "dummy disk" that if anything goes wrong they pop in and boot. It then prompts them to restore the image that I made after I installed everything and it's running good (you don't HAVE to prompt them, but I do). I know Ghost v9 has the ability to do network image management and backups while still in Windows, but I haven't really used it. If you have any questions please feel free to post here and\or PM me. HTH

 

[corkyg]

You can't beat Acronis' TrueImage 8 (latest build) for all of those tasks. Ghost is clumsy by comparison - besides - it comes from the software cannibals known as Symantec.

 

[dunkster]

The only program that appears to satisfy all four of your criteria would seem to be BootItNG.

Check it out here: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

Hope this helps!

 

[TechnoPro]

Originally posted by: TheLonelyPhoenix
I believe Norton Ghost can do everything you listed above to some degree, though you might have to play around with it to figure out an idiot-proof system. You definitely can do network saves/restores, direct an image to be saved to a series of CDs or a physical HD partition, etc... I'm not sure if the discs it creates are bootable though; its been awhile since I've used it. It would be worth your time to look into it as a possible one-application solution, I think.

Ghost is in the mail and should be here soon, thanks.

 

[TechnoPro]

Originally posted by: phatrabt

Originally posted by: TechnoPro
I'm looking for an disc imaging solution that meets several criteria and can handle a variety of imaging and restoration scenarios.

Of utmost importance is that the imaging software cannot be installed on the PC in question. Instead, I need to use a bootable CD or DVD (or a bootable USB thumb drive when the technology supports it) to create and/or restore the image. This is a must.

Here are the scenarios I need to cover:

[1] Boot from CD, create image of drive and have it saved to a network share. Also, be able to restore image from network share.

[1a] In a perfect world, I'd also like the ability to have an end-user pop in a self-booting CD that would display a CLI menu giving them options of restoring an image from a network share.

[2] Boot from CD, create image of drive and save it external USB HDD. Restore from external HDD as well.

[3] Create disc image and save to CD or DVD media. This can either be done while booted from imaging CD or within Windows on a different PC at a later time. Discs should be self booting if possible. If not, I'd like a self-booting disc that would prompt the user to "insert image disc 1 and press enter" (or similar).

[4] Create image and save to network share or external drive. Once successfully imaged, repartition the HDD to include a "recovery partition" containing a clean image. Then, create a bootable CD that would give the end-user the option to restore from recovery partition.

Let me make this clear: I am not looking for a 1 size fits all product or method. If I need to buy several software tools, as in 1 or more for each scenario, so be it.

Please share what you have personally used to accomplish any/all of the above. Thanks.

I've accomplised 1-3 with Ghost 2003. It DOES take some tweaking (I did it using batch files) but it's do-able. As for #4? I don't know about that one. When I work on friends\family computers I create a "dummy disk" that if anything goes wrong they pop in and boot. It then prompts them to restore the image that I made after I installed everything and it's running good (you don't HAVE to prompt them, but I do). I know Ghost v9 has the ability to do network image management and backups while still in Windows, but I haven't really used it. If you have any questions please feel free to post here and\or PM me. HTH

Batch files are a speciality of mine. But what environment are you running these batchf files in? I am thinking of using BartPE as a "staging area" of sorts for Ghost. If it can do what I want, I will write a batch file that will cover all the bases I need.

 

[TechnoPro]

Originally posted by: corkyg
You can't beat Acronis' TrueImage 8 (latest build) for all of those tasks. Ghost is clumsy by comparison - besides - it comes from the software cannibals known as Symantec.

Ding ding, we have a winner!

Acronis is taking top honors right now. And their support forums are very useful. It's not perfect, but it comes pretty close.

 

[randomlinh]

here's a question, I want to accomplish the same.. mainly item 3. But I want to do it using freeware tools (as I am the tech guy for a few friends.. it's easy to just make an image if any of them break something) AND floppyless. Is it possible? Haven't found any real solution.. and I would guess I'm unlikely to find anything that would fully work w/ NTFS w/o a problem as well.

TrueImage does item 3 on the list? I might give it a look, as I'm not fond of norton.