Which is the best software to backup my HDD to a CD-R or/and CD-RW media?

[TechMaster]

Thanks

 

[Oreo]

Norton Ghost.

 

[Wulf]

nm

 

[TechMaster]

I need smth that will make a booteble CD's and restore the HDD "on-the-fly"

Can Norton Ghost do that?

 

[AMB]

I know that if you have a Plextor Drive, they sell software sepcifially for doing this

 

[Ausm]

Seagate Backup Exec with backup the whole system...doubt if it will make it bootable tho...


Ausm

 

[subman]

I use Norton Ghost 6.5 and backup my drive by making split 650mb files which I burn on CDRW's with either Nero or Adaptec's ECDC (both these programs make bootable CDRW's) You can make batch files on the first CDRW which will do an automatic restore - but this will wipe out all Data already on the HDD. Or you can from within Windows start Ghost Explorer and restore partial files or directories from the same CDRW's. To run Ghost you must have 2 HDD drives or have a HDD with a minimum of 2 partitions.

 

[Ausm]

That is an interesting approach subman...

Ausm

 

[OJ]

The new Norton Ghost 2001 PE will allow backup to several major cdrw drives, this is just released so I don't have any first hand experance. although norton makes the Plextor software mentioned above. check it out.

 

[Modus]

None.

It may be time efficient to make a catch-all image of your HD, but it's not particularly clean. You never no what little glitches you will be bringing to the freshly formatted HD when you need to restore. It is also counterproductive to make a drive image of a relatively bare Windows installation with only the appropriate hardware drivers and desktop settings -- this cripples you because new drivers come out all the time and you are stuck updating old legacy software.

The best way to make backups and have complete control over the new virgin HD is still to go through your drive, find out which data files are necessary to you (ie. personal records, financial accounts, word processing documents, digital music, etc) and copy them to a temporary folder before burning them with whatever CDR software you prefer. If you were well organized to begin with, these files would all have been stored under a common folder such as "My Documents", and given descriptive names and subfolders. Do not even attempt to backup programs, simply reinstall them from their original CD's to ensure a clean setup. Then copy your data files back in.

This might be a little more work than a mindless Ghost image, but it is so satisfying to have a fresh Windows installation with only your desired applications and data, free from legacy registry settings, INI tweaks and the like that always stick in the back of your head when diagnosing a software issue.

Modus

 

[TechMaster]

Modus - you are 100$ right.

I don't need the program for myself but for my "work" as a junior network admin (I know... I sounds lame... but that part time job/hobby isn't all bad and VERY usefull for me!)
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PersonallyI back up in the following way:

1. Afther I install windows, the First thing I do is backing up my Root, Windows and Program Files folders to a RAR archive and put it on a booteble CDRW.
   
2. The next thng I do is to install all the Drivers and Apps
   
3. Then I do the RAR-Back up again

That way if I need to do an emergency restore I use batch file and RAR32 for DOS (not SFX) do delete my root, windows and program files folders and extract the "full" windows and when I want to upgrade my drivers/apps - I extract the "clean-freshly installed" wersion, install on it whatever I need and backup it again as the "full" install.

This methode allowed me to recover from critical failures in minutes, testing new software at ease and saved me from re-installing windows at least 12 times (haven't actually installed windows in 1.5 YEARS )