HD/Disk imaging software?

(is that what you call it?)

I just finished setting up my computer (again) after it crashed (again) last night. I always find that i need to do a total system flush, format, and reinstall at least once a year. The benefits, even if i don't really need to reformat, are good. Having a fresh system on my HD gives me peace of mind.
I don't mind the process of reinstalling my system. I've got it down to a science. I know what i need in my computer, and how i want it. All my essential programs, drivers, and documents are saved on a few CDs. I can have a new system, tailored to my liking, up and running in just a few hours.
But, when the #### hits the fan, and my system crashes, it ALWAYS happens at the wrong time.

Now that i have everything the way i want it, is there a way to (in a sense) take an exact copy/image of my system and all its "stuff" and save it, or compress it, on a seperate partition? I'd like to just simply dump a new, complete, system all in one (or two) simple procedures.

I just recently bought a 120GB hardrive. I've devided it up into two partitions, one 10GB partition for strictly system use, and the rest is for documents, downloads, and what have you. So if my sytem crashes, it won't take my other files down with it when i have to reformat the system partition.

Right now the whole "C:\" drive is only 5-6Gb, with everything on it and setup just the way i like it. I'd like to take all that "stuff" and save it somewhere in the remaining 110GB of storage that i have.

I know that some of the computer labs at my college automatically "refreshes" itself by erasing everything and restoring all it's settings, programs, etc all in one night, or in a few hours before the labs open.

What do i have to do to do exactly that?

Ouch...

Try Norton Ghost, the latest being Ghost 2003, I think. Provided you're not running a NTFS partition, then restoring should be a breeze, esp if you're trying to restore to another new PC with different H/ware. I know that NTFS or Win 2k for that matter, has some issues if you do a backup and then restore to another different piece of h/ware.

With Ghost 2003, you should be able to write an 'image' file directly to a CDR/RW and you can even make it bootable to ease the restoration process. Else what I normally do is to create the image file of my C:\ onto a separate partition, and when I need to, just boot up into Ghost and restore the image to overwrite everything on my C partition...

Hope it helps... and have fun! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Thanks Stanley,

I really wanted to try Norton Ghost, but alas, i am running Win XP, and my system and HD is NTFS formated. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Are there any other softwares you can recommend? Will simply completely copying the system partition (C:\) and putting it somewhere else for safe keeping be eneogh? Or will there be problems with registering components and such?

I think that NERO can make an exact backup (or something close) of your drive onto CD's. It's not what you wanted, but it's an option I guess, if nothing else turns up.

Well, even if its NTFS, it shouldn't be a prob I think, so far with W2K systems I've only had a need to do backups, no restores yet (touchwood)!!

Having said that, provided that the H/ware you're using is still the same as when you last did the backup, you won't have any problems restoring ALL of the files as they last were.

If you feel that keeping the image file on a separate partition is not safe enough, just burn it onto a CD and keep that separately then. In fact you can even do an image copy of your whole h/disk onto another PC on the n/work with Ghost.

As for other software, unless you have a tape backup, then I'm out of ideas, cos Ghost is what I normally use... I'm sure someone else here will have some other suggestions too. Actually, I think Powerquest (the makers of Partition Magic) has an imaging software too, you might want to check it out as well.

Norton's Ghost is what you're looking for.

I've used Norton's ghost for my own machine and it works a dream. I just ghosted from one drive to another and comes back up fine.

We use ghost all the time for our machines here at work, our pc's can get reimaged in little as 30 mintues.

I haven't mastered getting ghost to wake up a lab, reimage it, change the names of the machines and then turn off those machines after its ghostcasted. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Geoff

Hmmm....I'd like to know more about ghost and the NTFS issues. I've used it extensively but I think thus far only on FAT32 systems. I know have XP set up at home. Typically what I do is install the OS and core apps and then use ghost to do an image file to the second hard drive and then back it up on cd rom. I have not tried to create an image and restore using NTFS.

Laurence, If you're going to the trouble and space to mirror the drive, do you really want to put it on the same drive as the original? I ask this only because with my luck it wouldn't be a software error or problem but a hardware failure that puts me out of business /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Drives are pretty inexpensive and you don't need as big a one to mirror onto. This would just ensure against the failure of the drive or boot partition. It's a pain to renew any way other than the redundant drive. plus you have two drives and more storage.
Good luck
Tom

Ghost works fine on all types of partitions. I've used it extensively in the office for Win2k/XP/98/Linux/Netware, etc. Drive Image also works fine for what you want to do. Both Drive Image and Ghost work fine with any partition type including NTFS. They are really only creating a bit-image copy of the partition and writing it to a file. They rely on the BIOS for the HDD physical configuration which is what makes the images restorable across different drive type and sizes.


You are going about it correctly. Build a system, configure it as you want it to be and save an image file to your data partition. From time to time, re-create the image as your system changes. Keep several image files from different saves so you can revert to a specific date if necessary.

Some other tricks of the trade:

1.
Either make a bootable, Floppy, or even another partition on your HD with DOS 7 from a Win98 system. You CAN make a bootable CD that will boot DOS, but it's not easy to do and beyond the scope of this discussion. Do Not attempt to run Ghost or Drive Image from the Recovery Console. Although you can force the system to do this, the image created will not be viable. This is because the Recovery Console logically mounts the volumes when it starts and uses the SAM file as well. An image created this way will not boot if restored.

2.
Be sure the config.sys contains the following entries and that HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE are on the A:\ floppy as well.

Files=60
Buffers=50
Device=a:\himem.sys
Device=a:\emm386.exe ram
shell=a:\command.com /p/e:256

The himem and emm386 device drivers are needed when your HDD is larger than about 40gb. Both Ghost and Drive Image will work without those statements but will blow up/fail on larger drives, the exact size where this occurs is memory/task dependent and somewhat unpredictable.

3. This is important!
If you have a Dell computer (and this may well be true for the other major manufacturers like IBM and Compaq as well, I haven't checked), with Win2k or XP factory installed, both Ghost and Drive Image will fail to create the image due to a small Non-Dos partition that Dell sets up for recovery, and if it does create it, restoring the image will not work (system won't boot). You will need to use FDISK to delete that and all other partitions from the HDD first, then you can create the primary partition, extended partition and logical drive(s) as you want them. After that imaging will work OK regardless of the drive size.

4.
For home machines and other systems where security isn't a problem, it's probably best to create the partitions as FAT32 rather than NTFS unless you must have the additional security provided by NTFS. By choosing FAT32 as the partition type you are able to boot from a floppy and access all files on the HDD volumes directly. This can be a substantial advantage if there is ever corruption of the SAM file preventing you from logging in. Just boot to DOS, jump to C:\WINNT\CONFIG and delete SAM, then restart the system. During restart the system will see that there is no SAM file and recreate it with the default (and only) login of ADMINISTRATOR with a blank password.

5.
If you choose to use NTFS then the only tool available to access your HDD is either from the Win2k recovery console or using a mount utility like NTFSDOS at a substantial cost. The recovery console can be installed from the Win2k or XP resource kit, BUT, if you've lost you password or your SAM is corrupt then you dead since there's no way to login and the recovery console requires it. Catch 22. Also, you cannot delete the SAM file if your using the Recovery Console.

With FAT32 you can just boot from a floppy, kill the SAM file and restart with no password for the administrator login.

Al

Al's post has all good advice in it. I use a FAT32 boot partition myself. But you can in fact set the recovery console to work without requiring a login/password. I don't recall how but it's in a Microsoft knowledge base article.

I have had great success with Ghost and a boot floppy.

With 2 partitions (my set-up), I boot the floppy then back up the partitions to image files on a second hard drive dedicated for backups and formatted with Fat32 (not NTFS). Restore with the boot floppy as well. I've had bad crashes requiring an entire new primary hard drive. Just install, partition, and then restore the backup images to the partitions. Up and running in no time.

Keep your backups up to date - my last crash I had a 2 month old backup - oops... At least it was better than starting from scratch.

DON'T create a duplicate image of your primary hard drive on a second hard drive in the same computer for backups - use image files unless you will be removing the backup drive from the PC once the image is done. Some OSes get confused when they see two identical copies and split functionality between the two drives - the second drive becomes part of the primary OS, not a backup. Then making a new backup hoses the machine.

[ QUOTE ]
Al_Havemann said:
3. This is important!
If you have a Dell computer (and this may well be true for the other major manufacturers like IBM and Compaq as well, I haven't checked), with Win2k or XP factory installed, both Ghost and Drive Image will fail to create the image due to a small Non-Dos partition that Dell sets up for recovery, and if it does create it, restoring the image will not work (system won't boot). You will need to use FDISK to delete that and all other partitions from the HDD first, then you can create the primary partition, extended partition and logical drive(s) as you want them. After that imaging will work OK regardless of the drive size.


[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmm...

I recently got a Dell computer and backed it up onto CDs with Norton Ghost. I did notice the extra partition on the hard drive. However, Ghost backed up both partitions, and I verified the backup set. Are you saying that this backup could be useless when I need to restore the system?

Re the Dell extra partition, I've had several occasions where Ghost would abort during imaging when there was the extra partition and twice when it did complete and I test restored both partitions, the system failed to boot afterwards. I haven't tried that configuration again, I just kill all partitions when I'm rebuilding the machine and do it clean.

RE recovery console and login; Recovery console requires a login or it won't mount an NTFS partition. highlandsun is correct though in one respect, Recovery Console doesn't require a password if the Administrator account doesn't require one OR the partition type is FAT32.

Al

That's right... Al's covered the basics and more... Good stuff Al, thanks for the details too, they'll come in really handy! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Basically, the issue with NTFS, (not sure about XP) W2K will not allow you to simply physically move a HD from 1 machine to another w/o some tweaking (bcos its non PnP), and thus, if you do do an image of your machine running W2k, and then try and restore the image to another different machine with the hope of transferring everything as it is, then it basically won't work. There might be some ways around this, but I'm not sure what they are. As for XP, I am not sure how true its Plug and Pray (err... Play) is as I've not had much experience with it, but its worth a try just to see. It may just work...

And Tom is right about storing it on a separate H/Disk too, esp since if a H/disk fails, most likely you won't be able to access the partitions as well. So why take the risk?

Oh, and yes, do create boot disks like Al mentioned, and make sure you keep them properly too!! That may be your only chance to recover your PC if anything happens!

Just a quick few bits of information. By default, Ghost generally doesn't do a bit-for-bit copy. It's essentially a compressed collection of files with extra partition information. There's an optional switch in ghost (-ia) to force it if that's desired. If you have a second hard drive or CD/DVD burner, you can image the entire drive. If you have a Dell or HP/CPQ machine with that stupid extra partition, you should image the entire drive and use the -ib switch to copy any goofy boot crap from the mfg.

Ghost 2003 will work (supposedly) directly with CD and DVD writers and USB2 hard drives (which seems like a safe and fast solution).

If you want a copy of it for cheap, get the Norton System Works Professional CD from a vendor that you're buying hardware from. I just recently acquired my copy for $23 from newegg.com where I also purchased a DVD burner. They actually point you to a drive power y-cable to "qualify" as a hardware purchase for the software. An excellent deal.

Allen

On my laptop I have a Linux ext2fs partition on my disk too, Ghost backs it all up. It's very very slow on ext2fs though.

WOW Outstanding info, everybody. I didn't know that about Dell. DUH and that's what I have.
Tom

I have a new tack to try. Buy a cheap HD. Install it in your computer. The new drives come with software that formats the drive and asks if you want to copy the existing drive onto it. Copy the existing drive onto it. Shut down the computer and remove the new drive.

You now have a copy of your drive that is immune to power surges and drive failures. If anything happens, you can remove your existing HD and plug in the one you took out.

I use this for backups too.

Just a couple of more things and I'll shut up.

1. Stanley is right about the iffy'ness of moving a HD image from one machine to another, but for the most part, you can do it. It works best if the machines are pretty close in hardware configuration but the further apart they are the more the system will have to go through to reconcile the differences. Sometimes it just won't work at all but unless the destination is really off-the-wall different (like multi-processor source > single processor destination), I can usually manage to futz the system up enough to get it's head straightened out.

If your going to move to a very different machine then be sure you have all of the necessary driver disks ready and prepare for the move by copying all of the drivers you'll need to the destination system before you restore the image (on a partition you won't overwrite with the restore!). You may have to create a small partition just for the drivers from the CDs on the destination system. You can always delete the partition and merge it into the main one later with Partition Magic if you want to get rid of it once the system is up.

The reason for doing that is that sometimes when you reboot after a restore to a very different machine, the CDROM drive isn't available until the PNP system reconciles all of the differences, and often it can't do that until it loads the necessary drivers - the very one's that are on the CDROMs you can't read because it needs the drivers first to access the CD drive. That usually happens when the PCI bridge hasn't yet been found and it needs the motherboard resource CD.

2. Another thing, if the systems are that far apart and the OS is XP, then your also going to have to re-activate the OS after everything come up. XP only allows 5 differences (in weighted order) before it forces a re-activation. You may have to do it by phone if the OS hasn't found the Internet connection yet and the license manager won't continue with discovery until you re-activate. If your using Windows 2000 this isn't a problem.

3. It's best not to select to compress the image. This is especially true with Drive Image. I've had both Ghost and Drive Image fail to restore an image file when it was compressed but it happened more often with Drive Image than Ghost. I've never had a failure with either to restore if the image isn't compressed.

4. It's way better to plan on using a second HD to store the image on than CDs. I've had mixed results using CDs. If the image is fairly large then it will take quite a few CDs to save on and it only takes one bad CD in the batch to blow the whole restore. HDs cost almost nothing these days, it's the way to go.

Al

Hi there everyone,

i'm just here to chime in for a quick moment to tell you my situation.

Ironically, a few hours after posting this question, and finally installing Norton Ghost....my new 120Gb hard-drive CRASHED! This was a bad crash.

Before doing any mass data moves, i wanted to defragment my drive, but halfway through the defrag process, the program hung, and i heard this strange, but all too familiar, clicking sound coming from the computer. I knew right away that the new drive had failed.

And to make things worse, i transfered ALL my files from my old (perfectly working) hard drive to the new one. So now, i lost everything that hasn't been backed up since April, including some of my personal pictures i have taken since then. I'm very frustrated at this.

I put too much faith in these hard-drives. I've owned my 20Gb Western Digital drive for more than 3 years without any problems, i guess i was just expecting the same kind of performance with this new drive.

Now i'll be starting from scratch, again. It really isn't all that much of a problem, but thought of losing all that data, so easily, is very frustrating. I should have known better and saved most of the stuff on CD.

Oh well....lesson learned. I'll be back and posting here within the next day or so, or as soon as i can get everything running smoothly again.


BTW, all the info has been very valuable! I'll be filing this away in a safe place for reference.