Anyone with drvimagerXP restore function?

[juliuslr]

I posted my question earlier, and have seen any responses on restoring
after your PC/laptop crashed. Care to share your experience when
restoring from drvimagerXP file? Thanks

 

[K3]

I posted my question earlier, and have seen any responses on restoring
after your PC/laptop crashed. Care to share your experience when
restoring from drvimagerXP file? Thanks

I'm running Win98se, so I can't tell you much about WinXP and DrvImagerXP,
but... have you read the following article? -->
http://www.osnn.net/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=90 -- Seems stupid
to have to have WinXP running to restore an image file of your system.

I use Norton Ghost 2003 (the DOS version --> not the GUI version). Like
you, I use an external USB drive for backups. I boot from a floppy with
the USB drivers (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10215) which detects
the Seagate 120gb USB 2.0 drive, then run GHOST.EXE and either backup or
restore. Works great!

Have you considered using the *FREE* Partition Saving v2.91
(http://www.partition-saving.com/) which supports NTFS?

Hope this Helps!

Feel free to email me if 'ya need help.

--
Kendall F. Stratton III
Fort Fairfield, Maine USA
k3@(86_THE_SPAM)maine.rr.com
http://home.maine.rr.com/k3

"Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!"

 

[dg1261]

I posted my question earlier, and have seen any responses on
restoring after your PC/laptop crashed. Care to share your
experience when restoring from drvimagerXP file? Thanks

I saw your earlier post, but didn't answer because I generally avoid getting
involved in discussions of how to backup Windows from within Windows. It
just seems so intuitively obvious to me that to reliably backup and restore
your operating system partition, you don't want to be booted into it. It's
kind of like replacing your doormat--it's much easier if you're not standing
on it.

K3 said he uses the DOS version of Ghost, while I use either BootIt-NG or
the DOS version of DriveImage. All three are very reliable, with a long and
proven track record. For a freeware choice, I second K3's recommendation of
Partition Saving v2.91. It also works from DOS, so note that means if you
intend to use a USB storage device, you'll need to make sure a DOS USB
driver is available for that device.

 

[rich]

I posted my question earlier, and have seen any responses on restoring
after your PC/laptop crashed. Care to share your experience when
restoring from drvimagerXP file? Thanks

I have drvimagerXP running on a 'live' CD I made as part of a toolkit for a
small self-help computor group. These people can not / will not use DOS so a
GUI is essential. They also refuse to spend money on software if at all
possible.
The best thing I can say about drvimagerXP is that it works - very slowly.
Fortunatley, I have not had to use it except as a trial. Restoring a 8 Gb
partition took 20+ minutes (1800 athlon). The backup files were compressed
and on a DVD ( don't have a USB big enough). You still need a second
partition because the zipped files are copied and uncompressed to disk
before writing. Apart from being free, I could not really recommend it,
which is a shame, because with some more development it could be more
useful.
I agree with the other postings - go get something else such as Terabytes
'Image for Windows' or Norton 'Ghost'. It always amazes me that people will
spend a fortune on buying a computer from a store and then struggle along
with the lame microsoft stuff or software from a magazine cover disk.

 

[Roger Johansson]

I have drvimagerXP running on a 'live' CD I made as part of a toolkit
for a small self-help computor group. These people can not / will not
use DOS so a GUI is essential.

There seems to be some misunderstanding here.
It doesn't matter what operating system such a program uses as long as
you get a GUI to work in, and all the partition image programs I have
ever tried have had a GUI. (Partsave, ghost, drive image, etc..)

You can create a DOS floppy which automatically starts the GUI for the
user. Put the partition saving program last in the autoexec.bat. The user
of this floppy, or CD, will see a GUI show up on screen and can use the
mouse to navigate in it.

Or use one of the readymade linux-based rescue CD's where you have a menu
to choose the image saving program.

 

[juliuslr]

Thanks for all the responder. I guess I want to stick to the topic
based on the scenario I listed below. I think that most system users
here (XP, NT, Linux or other OS) probably tweak their system regularly
after the OS initial install, and also add/rmove their favorite
programs and key/licenses. So, if your system HD CRASHED, think how
many hours it will take you to restore that to the way it was, say on
to a new HD.


1. Do PERIODIC imaging on a working system ( my laptop or desktop) to a
back up USB drive (I have a 160 GB drive, NTFS)
2. Install drvimagerXP on that USB drive
3. Have "bootable" floppy or CD that can read USB drive (if CD then I
could
also install drvimagerXP there too).
4. In the event that my working system crashed, then i would install a
replacement HD of the same size or larger ( no need to format since
the "image" restore a partition, sector by sector, not file-based).
5. Connect my USB drive, boot from floppy or CD
6. Launch drvimagerXP and do a restore from the last image for that
system
7. My system is now restore to the last backed up image.

The BIG question is: can drvimagerXP run without any registry stuff,
e.g., is it a standalone executable? Kudos to the drvimagerXP maker
for
makling this tool free. I think it is a cool tool.

 

[rich]

There seems to be some misunderstanding here.
It doesn't matter what operating system such a program uses as long as
you get a GUI to work in, and all the partition image programs I have
ever tried have had a GUI. (Partsave, ghost, drive image, etc..)

----<snip>----
No misunderstanding - ealier part mentioned the magic words "paying for".
Certainly Ghost and Drive Image have GUI but they are not free.

 

[Roger Johansson]

Certainly Ghost and Drive Image have GUI but they are not free.

Partition Saving is freeware.

http://partition-saving.com/

It has a very good and helpful GUI.

If you start it from a DOS floppy or DOS CD, and put it in autoexec.bat
the user will never get to a DOS command prompt.

He will just see the GUI interface of Partition Saving.

 

[REM]

Thanks for all the responder. I guess I want to stick to the topic
based on the scenario I listed below. I think that most system users
here (XP, NT, Linux or other OS) probably tweak their system regularly
after the OS initial install, and also add/rmove their favorite
programs and key/licenses. So, if your system HD CRASHED, think how
many hours it will take you to restore that to the way it was, say on
to a new HD.

1. Do PERIODIC imaging on a working system ( my laptop or desktop) to a
back up USB drive (I have a 160 GB drive, NTFS)

2. Install drvimagerXP on that USB drive

3. Have "bootable" floppy or CD that can read USB drive (if CD then I
could also install drvimagerXP there too).

4. In the event that my working system crashed, then i would install a
replacement HD of the same size or larger ( no need to format since
the "image" restore a partition, sector by sector, not file-based).

5. Connect my USB drive, boot from floppy or CD

6. Launch drvimagerXP and do a restore from the last image for that
system

7. My system is now restore to the last backed up image.

The BIG question is: can drvimagerXP run without any registry stuff,
e.g., is it a standalone executable? Kudos to the drvimagerXP maker
for makling this tool free. I think it is a cool tool.

The easy way to do this is to create an Ultimate Boot CD for Windows.
The registry entries are contained on the CD itself.

I have two backup image sets on my second hard drive. I've yet to
install one though. I'll whip out the UBCD when the time does come and
hopefully it will work like a charm.

Start with Bart's PE Builder:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Then follow the directions on this page to create the CD with
DrvImagerXP on it:

http://www.ubcd4win.com/