Best way to image active system partitions

  • Thread starter Thread starter _R
  • Start date Start date
R

_R

To my knowldege, there are still 3 major players in drive imaging:
Drive Image, Ghost and Acronis. Since the first two seem to be
in a state of flux, I thought Acronis would be the best bet.
Their simple, directl layouts general present things in a
way that can be understood in the context of the operation.

As a software engineer, you'd think I'd be able to understand
the logic and choices in all three of the programs but that is
not correct.

Sometimes confusion arises in clonig a smaller partition to a larger
one. (Decisions: Fill out the partitiion w 0's? Shorten the
partititon?).

My problem is the often the less practical path is taken, probably
by one of the engineers who knows his own program to well.

What's the general difference between Acronis' Imager,
Drive Image, and Ghost these days?

-------

I'm particularly interested in how you clone the C drive to
another drive letter (calll it J). Then remove the C drive
make J the new C so it can be booted. This sounds
easy but it's not.
 
_R wrote:

....
I'm particularly interested in how you clone the C drive to
another drive letter (calll it J). Then remove the C drive
make J the new C so it can be booted. This sounds
easy but it's not.
Click to expand...

While I can't answer the questions that you asked, I'll observe that
everything you described is a snap if you use, say, Partition Magic.

- bill
 
_R wrote:

...


While I can't answer the questions that you asked, I'll observe that
everything you described is a snap if you use, say, Partition Magic.

- bill
Click to expand...


Many tools can make an image of your running system. I use Acronis
TrueImage.

ntbackup.exe (which is part of XP) can do a complete valid backup but
it's not an image and is a bit of a PITA if you need to do a full
system recovery.

If you are running an application that's updating files while you are
backup up you have a problem. Outlook/OE is a common example. You
should exit your mail application during th ebackup.
 
To my knowldege, there are still 3 major players in drive imaging:
Drive Image, Ghost and Acronis. Since the first two seem to be
in a state of flux, I thought Acronis would be the best bet.
Click to expand...

No more PowerQuest. PowerQuest was acquired by Symantec, and now PQ's v2i
Protector is rebranded as Norton Ghost 9.

Look at their driver filenames and version info stamps on them.
 
To my knowldege, there are still 3 major players
in drive imaging: Drive Image, Ghost and Acronis.
Click to expand...

Nope, DI has been renamed as the latest Ghost 9.
Since the first two seem to be in a state of
flux, I thought Acronis would be the best bet.
Click to expand...

They do have some advantages, but they arent perfect,
largely because its a linux based system for the rescue CD
and that has some real downsides with bleeding edge hardware.
Their simple, directl layouts general present things in a
way that can be understood in the context of the operation.
Click to expand...

Yeah, tho like with lots of things, they still have some way to go.

One example with TI 8 is the 2 choices you get with a new hard drive
being added to an existing system. The difference between adding
a new hard drive and cloning a hard drive is obvious once you know
what they mean, but the text isnt good enough if you dont IMO.

And it doesnt make it clear enough that its not desirable
to clone the system drive at the XP level and that that
should be done from the booted CD either.
As a software engineer, you'd think I'd be able to understand the
logic and choices in all three of the programs but that is not correct.
Click to expand...

True. Still got some way to go even with TI which
in my opinion is currently the best in that regard.
Sometimes confusion arises in clonig a smaller partition to a larger
one. (Decisions: Fill out the partitiion w 0's? Shorten the partititon?).
Click to expand...

That is reasonably well covered in the
manual, and not too bad on the screen either.
My problem is the often the less practical path is taken, probably
by one of the engineers who knows his own program to well.
Click to expand...

Yeah, not enough effort put into watching users use the software
and see what causes confusion for them in my opinion.
What's the general difference between Acronis'
Imager, Drive Image, and Ghost these days?
Click to expand...

DI is gone now except that its still buyable.

Ghost 9 has some real problems, particularly for cloning system
drives. You cant do that from the booted CD and thats the only
really viable way to do that particular task. You cant even image
a system from the booted CD, you have to install Ghost before
you can image anything. That stinks if you want to make a
safety image of a system before doing any work on it.

TI isnt perfect, Acronis has a hell of a capacity for fixing
a problem that a user reports and then breaking that again
in the next release. Thats evidence that they havent got their
act into gear on the software side with that sort of thing.

And there is a worrying level of flakeyness with TI too.

Not that Ghost is much better there, it failed to
clone my system drive properly and TI did that fine.
 
To my knowldege, there are still 3 major players
Nope, DI has been renamed as the latest Ghost 9.
Click to expand...

But currently there is also Ghost 8.2.
They do have some advantages, but they arent perfect,
largely because its a linux based system for the rescue CD
and that has some real downsides with bleeding edge hardware.


Yeah, tho like with lots of things, they still have some way to go.

One example with TI 8 is the 2 choices you get with a new hard drive
being added to an existing system. The difference between adding
a new hard drive and cloning a hard drive is obvious once you know
what they mean, but the text isnt good enough if you dont IMO.

And it doesnt make it clear enough that its not desirable
to clone the system drive at the XP level and that that
should be done from the booted CD either.


True. Still got some way to go even with TI which
in my opinion is currently the best in that regard.
partititon?).

That is reasonably well covered in the
manual, and not too bad on the screen either.


Yeah, not enough effort put into watching users use the software
and see what causes confusion for them in my opinion.


DI is gone now except that its still buyable.

Ghost 9 has some real problems, particularly for cloning system
drives. You cant do that from the booted CD and thats the only
really viable way to do that particular task. You cant even image
a system from the booted CD, you have to install Ghost before
you can image anything. That stinks if you want to make a
safety image of a system before doing any work on it.
Click to expand...

It works fine with Ghost 8.2.
 
What's the general difference between Acronis' Imager,
Drive Image, and Ghost these days?

I'm particularly interested in how you clone the C drive to
another drive letter (calll it J). Then remove the C drive
make J the new C so it can be booted. This sounds
easy but it's not.
Click to expand...

I have tried all of them and I tried Acronis last. Of all three of them Ghost
was the most convoluted to install and to configure. I am sure there are a lot
of people who love Ghost but as I was doing my research, I liked it the least.
What really turned me off where the confusing options for creating a boot cd. I
still scratch my head as I think of it.

Vi Protector and Acronis were about the same in my humble opinion as far
functionality and ease of use. One negative I found between the two which
caused me to pick Acronis was that Vi Protector needed .NET installed on my
server or it wouldn't install. That really torked me plus the security guys
were asking me.......... "What!!.. you wanna install .NET on all our 500
production servers!!" As you can imagine, that went over like a lead balloon.

I love Acronis. I have recovered multiple servers and laptops. One particular
thing to note is that our note book HDs at work are encrypted with PointSec.
One of the guys laptop HDs was going bad and I was able to do an image of it
before we replaced the drive. When I did the image, I used the bit-by-bit image
of the HD due to the encryption. We were very surprise that the image restore
worked prefectly. I mean everything. All the word docs, registery settings,
the works, even the screen saver!

Anyway, that's my story and experience and I'm stickin to it!!
 
Maxim said:
No more PowerQuest. PowerQuest was acquired by Symantec, and now PQ's v2i
Protector is rebranded as Norton Ghost 9.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's Drive Image 7. v2i Protector is now "Livestate Recovery.
 
Many tools can make an image of your running system. I use Acronis
TrueImage.
Click to expand...

hi al
are u acronis literate? cause i sure need help. see my post above
pleading for help so that i can patch an acronis burp. and now it
can't even see the drive !!!
no - not the dreaded "start from scratch" when i was trying to prevent
an outage!
as the poster says - not easy
 
Al said:
Many tools can make an image of your running system. I use Acronis
TrueImage.

ntbackup.exe (which is part of XP) can do a complete valid backup but
it's not an image and is a bit of a PITA if you need to do a full
system recovery.
Click to expand...

BartPE is a big help here. Boot up the CD, start Windows backup
If you are running an application that's updating files while you are
backup up you have a problem. Outlook/OE is a common example. You
should exit your mail application during th ebackup.
Click to expand...

While I agree that it's a good idea to close applications that keep files
open, with 2K3 and I believe XP as well Microsoft has recognized this and
included a shadow-copy feature in the OS which with a backup application
that supports the capability allows even open files to be backed
up--Windows backup supports this, so do DriveImage 7, Ghost 9, v2i, and
LiveState Recovery. Acronis does _not_ seem to support it--the feature in
Windows is called "Shadow copy" and a search of the Acronis site on keyword
"shadow" does not get any hits--if they supported this capability I would
expect them to at least mention it.
 
hi al
are u acronis literate? cause i sure need help. see my post above
pleading for help so that i can patch an acronis burp. and now it
can't even see the drive !!!
no - not the dreaded "start from scratch" when i was trying to prevent
an outage!
as the poster says - not easy
Click to expand...


I don't do cloning.

I've never done what you are trying.

If you've got the use of a PC with lots of disk space and an ethernet
connection running windows and NTFS file system you can use it
as backup device with TI.

You need to get your machine and the backup machine working on you LAN.

Then boot the TI CD, image the C drive to the server, swap
disks and image back. That's how I'd do it.

You need to describe your hookup. Are you cloning
disks on IDE channels in the box?
 
BartPE is a big help here. Boot up the CD, start Windows backup


While I agree that it's a good idea to close applications that keep files
open, with 2K3 and I believe XP as well Microsoft has recognized this and
included a shadow-copy feature in the OS which with a backup application
that supports the capability allows even open files to be backed
up--
Click to expand...

Does shadow copy work for outlook.pst files ?
 
Al said:
Does shadow copy work for outlook.pst files ?
Click to expand...

It turns out that it's in 2K3 only, not XP. First you have to turn it on on
the volume. Then in addition to making snapshots when requested by a
backup application, it can make timed snapshots that allow recovery of
previous versions of files. Works with any type of file. There are of
course details of configuration to deal with, the most important being to
allow enough space for all files that will be open during the backup.
 
Does shadow copy work for outlook.pst files ?

Yes, it does.
When "shadow copy" compliant backup starts,
two MS XP services start also:
- MS Software Shadow Copy Provider
- Volume Shadow Copy
They stop automatically after backup is done.

If you disable shadow copy option, backup will skip open pst file.
 
Does shadow copy work for outlook.pst files ?
It turns out that it's in 2K3 only, not XP. First you have to turn it on on
the volume. Then in addition to making snapshots when requested by a
backup application, it can make timed snapshots that allow recovery of
previous versions of files. Works with any type of file. There are of
course details of configuration to deal with, the most important being to
allow enough space for all files that will be open during the backup.
Click to expand...

No, while some more sophisticated settings can be enabled on Win2K3
(as compare to WinXP), shadow copy still works on WinXP.

Yes, you can backup an open outlook pst file on Windows XP.
 
Using older Outlook 2K. This has an update for autosaving the pst to your
location choice upon exiting from Outlook. Imagine the new versions do
also.
 
Are you referring to a "Personal Folder Backup"?
Not a reliable product.

Lil' Dave said:
Using older Outlook 2K. This has an update for autosaving the pst to your
location choice upon exiting from Outlook. Imagine the new versions do
also.
Click to expand...
 
Lo m8,
See now one seems to have helped u yet .
Not sure that i can , but , try this.
Get a copy of laplink 3. If u cant email me and ill send u a copy.
Its an old dos version . And to do wat u want t do its the only way.
You then have to start ur comp in Dos. WITHOUT WINDOWS RUNNING.
Then usin ll3 tag all files on system drive and copy all onto ur
other.E,J, watever.
I cant promise it will work If ur runnin XP as iv not tried it YET.
Wish u luck.
Rgrds Steve ( turk2045 )

(e-mail address removed)
 
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