• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Need to make hard drive image

Nvidiaguy07

Nvidiaguy07

Platinum Member
So for the third time ill be formatting my friends hard drive, reinstalling windows, updating everything, loading apps, etc. This time after i do it i want to make a rescue image that if this ever happens again (im sure it will) we can just load the dvd's in and it would restore it back to how it was right after it was fixed.

Ive heard or acronious or something like that. Is that my best option? I know it costs something like 50 bucks so if there was a free program out there id prefer that.

When i run the program how does it work? Im guessing it just takes an image of the entire disk but does that include boot sectors? (if i put more than one OS on the hard drive)

After it makes the image do i just burn it to a bunch of dvds? And are those DVD's bootable or do i need to boot with something else and then put the cds in.

Im just a little confused about how it works so i wanna make sure if i do decide to buy acronious it will do what i need.
 
Search forum for "Macrium" Free version is good http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp though I have not tried to burn DVDs. Can make a linux based CD for restoring. Check if it works/will boot. They have a guide on how to put it on a usb. Dont remember all details but they have nice forum/knowledge base. Does not recognize RAID and I dont think AHCI either. Setting hd controller to legacy/IDE while restoring is solution - remember to put it back again!

Has a scheduler so make a set of dvds after all Windows updates and hw-drivers are installed. They should be more or less fixed in time. Then let it do backup on secondary hd or partition once a week or so. Wont take more than few minutes, he will never know. Will have to delete backup files since they will just accumulate over time or can you force overwriting? Think I saw one who had made a clever batch file removeing older than x days images. Minor problem.

Search should give you a few other free optons. Like limited versions of payware http://www.paragon-software.co...-express/features.html which cant write to dvds. Some linux live-cds can do this as well I think.

How can he mess up so much you or system restore cant fix it? Seems like waste of money jumping on Acronis updating train for this. If he want to pay up then may be better to get external backup-hd.
 
If it's WinXP Pro or MCE, one free option is Automated System Recovery (a feature of XP Pro/MCE). But it isn't very fast. It works by starting WinXP Setup and hitting F2 to indicate you're doing an ASR recovery, then following along with Setup until it asks for the ASR backup file.
 
Originally posted by: nordloewelabs
i've been using SystemRescueCD for the last 2 years. works great.
as a matter of fact, i have just made a backup of my Win2K system today.
SRCD is Linux based and free. it boots from a LiveCD.

How to Backup Windows with SystemRescueCD
Click to expand...

Does this just restore Windows, or Windows, data & apps?

My friend has a laptop with all kinds of software/data on it for his business, and he's got zero backups.
 
Originally posted by: Mojoed
Originally posted by: nordloewelabs
i've been using SystemRescueCD for the last 2 years. works great.
as a matter of fact, i have just made a backup of my Win2K system today.
SRCD is Linux based and free. it boots from a LiveCD.

How to Backup Windows with SystemRescueCD
Click to expand...

Does this just restore Windows, or Windows, data & apps?

My friend has a laptop with all kinds of software/data on it for his business, and he's got zero backups.
Click to expand...

SystemRescueCD will let you make an "image" of the whole partition. so for example, if you image the C: partition, everey single file in it, be it system or personal, will be part of the backup. if he doesnt want the contents of "My Documents" to be imaged, he has to move his personal files to a different partition. a lot of geeks like to install Windows in drive C: but use drive D: as My Documents.

if you're not familiar with the concept of disk image, read a little about it before you star backing up your friend's computer. if you have burnt or created ISO CD images in the past, you already know what a hard drive image should look like. the difference is that an image created by SystemRescueCD will have the extension GZ instead of ISO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_image

take a look at the guide to which i linked in my previous post. if you find it too complicated (it isnt once you try it once), get Acronis True Image, instead. sometimes it sells for free or very cheap after rebate.
 
I would get a duplicate HDD, maybe even an external. I would clone his drive to it when all was well, Then I would tgake that with me. Next time - I would just clone back to his internal. Much easier and faster than diddling with disks and stuff and image restorations.
 
I use Acronis at home (guessing that's what you meant). It costs money, but unlike most software it's actually affordable. It's a fairly industry standard too which is nice.

To make a boot rescue image what I do is take the acronis ISO, then just put my image right in that ISO and burn it to DVD that way it's bootable.

Keep a copy of the image file on their PC and on your PC as well. I have a folder on my server with images of everyone's drives that I've formatted. I always do an image before formatting just in case. Acronis allows you to mount an image so you can browse the file system.
 
is Acronis a LiveCD ? I mean, can i both *backup* and *restore* a drive without ever installing Acronis into Windows? i've been using SystemRescueCD for a long time but maybe I should learn New to use Acronis since it's such a popular program.
 
Purchase Acronis. It will let you create a bootable CD from where you can restore images. Load Acronis, take an image to an external hard drive. Then you load the bootable CD and it will recognize the external hard drive and restore the image. It works great....a free alternative however would be DriveImage XML
 
If you're running XP, you can use an older version of Norton Ghost to clone the whole drive to another drive. In its simplest form, you can run it by booting to DOS from a floppy disk or, if your motherboard supports it, from a USB flash drive formatted to boot from DOS.

If your drive dies, the cloned drive plugs in and keeps running. If the main drive gets screwed up by a bad installation or becomes infected, you can clone back from the backup drive, and you're good to go. It takes maybe 20 minutes on ATA drives and it's faster than that on SATA drives.

The above is for drives plugged directly into the motherboard. You can do it with external, too, but it takes much longer using a USB drive, such as when backing up a laptop.

I haven't tried Acronis True Image, but it's supposed to work, including full cloning, with Vista. Seagate/Maxtor includes a free copy in their disk tools. The only requirement is that at least one of the drives must be a Seagate or Maxtor drive.
 
Originally posted by: nordloewelabs
is Acronis a LiveCD ? I mean, can i both *backup* and *restore* a drive without ever installing Acronis into Windows? i've been using SystemRescueCD for a long time but maybe I should learn New to use Acronis since it's such a popular program.
Click to expand...

Yes you can create a live CD. You install it on one PC first then create the live CD. The beauty with the installed app though is you can mount an image as a hard drive. When people bring me "slow" computers I just image their drive to a backup, then reformat right off the bat. Then I just mount the image on my pc and copy their documents and stuff. Works great. The live CD also supports networking so I usually store the images on my server. External hard drive works nice too as well
 
Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
Yes you can create a live CD. You install it on one PC first then create the live CD.
Click to expand...

so the CD onto which Acronis comes burnt is not a LiveCD?

back in the days i used to use PowerQuest's DriveImage. it was great. very reliable. too bad Symantec bought the company just to kill their great apps.

i have also used DriveImageXML, but it needs a BartPE disc. right now, imaging with SystemRescueCD is my favourite method.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top