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Home > Archive > Backup Software > September 2004 > Hard drive backup
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| George W 2004-09-23, 5:46 pm |
| Newbie question here ... :o)
I'd like to make a complete bootable image of my main hard drive on a second
internal hard drive. The purpose is to recover the O/S, programs, data and
all personal stuff in the event of an unrecoverable virus or hardware
failure of the main drive.
Some posts in this ng refer to Acronis True Image. Is that what I should
use or is there something else better for my need? Have a single home PC
here, no network.
Thanx in advance.
George
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| You might want to check out Symantecs V2i Protector Desktop Edition
(previously it was PowerQuest). One of the main features I like about it,
is that if you want to do a clean metal install or an install to a non
bootable windows HD, the V2i CD is used as a boot disk and a specific
program on the CD used to accomplish the restore, is all graphical, no DOS
command requirements. I have a neighbor who is the average computer owner
and he was amazed at how easy the V2i graphical restore program was to use.
Previously I had used PQ Drive Image programs, but changed since at the
time, I wanted to have the feature of incremental backups. I have found
this backup program to be very intuitive and easy to use. Suggest you find
someone with the V2i on their computer so as to see how it works and then
you can make a decision about the program.Sam.
"George W" <look@signature-to-reply.com> wrote in message
news:bhE4d.1249$zG1.454@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Newbie question here ... :o)
>
> I'd like to make a complete bootable image of my main hard drive on a
> second
> internal hard drive. The purpose is to recover the O/S, programs, data
> and
> all personal stuff in the event of an unrecoverable virus or hardware
> failure of the main drive.
>
> Some posts in this ng refer to Acronis True Image. Is that what I should
> use or is there something else better for my need? Have a single home PC
> here, no network.
>
> Thanx in advance.
>
> George
>
>
>
| |
| Martin Jay 2004-09-23, 5:46 pm |
| In message <bhE4d.1249$zG1.454@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>, George
W <look@signature-to-reply.com> writes
>I'd like to make a complete bootable image of my main hard drive on a second
>internal hard drive. The purpose is to recover the O/S, programs, data and
>all personal stuff in the event of an unrecoverable virus or hardware
>failure of the main drive.
>Some posts in this ng refer to Acronis True Image. Is that what I should
>use or is there something else better for my need? Have a single home PC
>here, no network.
You could use True Image to create an image of your main drive onto your
backup drive.
You wouldn't be able to boot straight into it, however you could install
the image from the backup drive back onto your main one if you needed
to. You could create a True Image recover disk to boot from.
I wonder how secure such a backup would be, though. If your backup
drive is permanently connected to your computer it would probably also
be at risk from viruses and some hardware failure, such as those due to
lightening damage.
--
Martin Jay
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|
| On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 18:07:03 GMT, "George W"
<look@signature-to-reply.com> wrote:
>Newbie question here ... :o)
>
>I'd like to make a complete bootable image of my main hard drive on a second
>internal hard drive. The purpose is to recover the O/S, programs, data and
>all personal stuff in the event of an unrecoverable virus or hardware
>failure of the main drive.
>
>Some posts in this ng refer to Acronis True Image. Is that what I should
>use or is there something else better for my need? Have a single home PC
>here, no network.
>
>Thanx in advance.
>
>George
>
>
At least you are aware of the importance of having a backup of your
computer in case of a crash. My son uses Acronis True Image and I use
Ghost 2003. Neither of us make incremental backups, in fact you can't
on Ghost 2003. Both my son and I had our computers crash and each of
us were able to restore are enrire hard drive without any problems. So
probably either would meet your needs.
I might question the wisdom of backing up to an internal hard drive. A
lightning strike or other disaster could take out both your hard
drives. You might want to consider using a USB external hardrive so
your backup can be stored away from your computer.
You never hear mentioned anything about "tracks" or "rails" that can
be installed in your computer. They are cheap and I installed them on
my computer so I can slide in my backup hard drive into my computer
when I back up and remove it when the backup is finished. The data
transfer is very fast,hence cutting dow on the time it takes to
backup.
I am sure there are other backup problems that are suitable as well. I
just know Ghost 2003 has "saved my bacon" But make sure you backup
your computer. Many years ago, I suffered a computer crash that wiped
out data, documents and pictures that I was never able to replace as
well as the laborious process of starting from scratch. So if you
backup, backup and backup, you will be rewarded. It isn't if you are
going to have a computer crash, it is just a question of when.
Hope this helps and I am sure you will get other opinions. I just know
what worked for me so I can speak only from that perspective.
| |
| James Silverton 2004-09-23, 5:46 pm |
|
"Martin Jay" <martin@spam-free.org.uk> wrote in message
news:hmYwKhCd1xUBFwoZ@aio.spam-free.org.uk...
> In message <bhE4d.1249$zG1.454@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
George
> W <look@signature-to-reply.com> writes
>
a second[vbcol=seagreen]
data and[vbcol=seagreen]
hardware[vbcol=seagreen]
>
should[vbcol=seagreen]
home PC[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> You could use True Image to create an image of your main drive onto
your
> backup drive.
>
> You wouldn't be able to boot straight into it, however you could
install
> the image from the backup drive back onto your main one if you
needed
> to. You could create a True Image recover disk to boot from.
>
> I wonder how secure such a backup would be, though. If your backup
> drive is permanently connected to your computer it would probably
also
> be at risk from viruses and some hardware failure, such as those due
to
> lightening damage.
> --
That's a point. Even relatively "harmless" things like Microsoft
updates do weird things. I have generally had to demount my USB backup
disc when updating because Microsoft writes stuff on it, gets totally
confused and hangs up!
--
James V. Silverton
Potomac, Maryland, USA
| |
| George W 2004-09-23, 5:46 pm |
|
"Martin Jay" <martin@spam-free.org.uk> wrote in message
news:hmYwKhCd1xUBFwoZ@aio.spam-free.org.uk...
> In message <bhE4d.1249$zG1.454@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>, George
> W <look@signature-to-reply.com> writes
> You could use True Image to create an image of your main drive onto your
> backup drive.
>
> You wouldn't be able to boot straight into it, however you could install
> the image from the backup drive back onto your main one if you needed
> to. You could create a True Image recover disk to boot from.
I understand installing the backup CD image on the main drive, which I would
do if I had to reformat or replace the original main drive. But why is it
that the backup drive wouldn't be bootable if it's a complete image of the
original and if I move it over to the position previously occupied by the
main drive?
Regarding virus, lightning or some other failure, I would as a minimum
disconnect the backup CD from the internal wiring of the PC and maybe remove
it altogether. Its main purpose would be to restore the O/S and
applications. In addition I would make frequent data backups on rewritable
CDs.
Thanks
George
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"George W" <look@signature-to-reply.com> wrote in message
news:VJI4d.8103$gG4.2944@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
> "Martin Jay" <martin@spam-free.org.uk> wrote in message
> news:hmYwKhCd1xUBFwoZ@aio.spam-free.org.uk...
>
>
> I understand installing the backup CD image on the main drive, which I
would
> do if I had to reformat or replace the original main drive. But why is it
> that the backup drive wouldn't be bootable if it's a complete image of the
> original and if I move it over to the position previously occupied by the
> main drive?
>
It saves a compressed,used disk blocks only file copy of the drive. If your
source drive was a 40GB drive and had 5 GB used, the image file would be at
most 5GB. It does not do the backup as a block by block copy.
> Regarding virus, lightning or some other failure, I would as a minimum
> disconnect the backup CD from the internal wiring of the PC and maybe
remove
> it altogether. Its main purpose would be to restore the O/S and
> applications. In addition I would make frequent data backups on
rewritable
> CDs.
>
> Thanks
> George
>
>
>
>
| |
| Martin Jay 2004-09-24, 7:45 am |
| In message <VJI4d.8103$gG4.2944@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
George W <look@signature-to-reply.com> writes
>"Martin Jay" <martin@spam-free.org.uk> wrote in message
>news:hmYwKhCd1xUBFwoZ@aio.spam-free.org.uk...
[vbcol=seagreen]
[vbcol=seagreen]
[vbcol=seagreen]
>I understand installing the backup CD image on the main drive, which I would
>do if I had to reformat or replace the original main drive. But why is it
>that the backup drive wouldn't be bootable if it's a complete image of the
>original and if I move it over to the position previously occupied by the
>main drive?
Because True Image, and similar products, compress an image of the drive
into one (or more) large file(s).
Think of it like this: you zip up the contents of your My Documents
folder into a .zip file. All the files are stored safely within the one
..zip file, however you need a third-party application to access and
restore them.
Also, I forgot that, True Image *does* have a Drive Clone option, which
I believe does what want. It's a feature that I've not used. 
--
Martin Jay
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