Clone vs. image (I promise not the same ol ground)

[tcarp]

I updating my whole strategy for backing up my home computers. I've read
(and re-read) the threads and DO NOT want to go back over cloning and imaging
or, for that matter file/folder backups.

I'm also NOT interested in comparing software (I can do that). The only
questions I have relate to 1) whether to have all the capabilities (clone,
image, and file/folder) and 2) given the objective to keep the cost down
some, how to limit the software selection.

Casper, TI and Ghost seem to be the biggies for cloning and/or imaging.
There seem to be a lot of file/folder software options. I downloaded a trial
copy of TI just to see what it does and look at the interface. I didn't try
cloning (not sure if it has that capability (yet)) but I did do an image
"backup" (full and then an incremental).

Seems pretty straight forward and it appears I can either restore the whole
image or individual files/folders. This implies that I don't need (or don't
get too much incremental value from) having a separate file/folder tool. I
guess one could argue that a file/folder utility for My Documents might be a
"nice to have" but is there a good argument why one would want a separate
utility in the context of a backup strategy.

I haven't looked at Casper 5 yet but, if they also have a trail version,
I'll do the same test (same with Ghost). As a novice it appears that having
one utility to do both cloning and imaging makes sense. I'd expect the
market (for small home networks) would drive the utilities to do both. Is it?

As I've read the threads (and posted to a couple) my thinking has been drawn
to the recovery side of the discussion not the backup side. I mean, there's
no reason to do backups without thinking about the recovery scenarios.

If I have it right, cloning is done to be able to simply boot off an exact
copy of the HD (or one of it's partitions). And I can see that taking a
clone just before doing something (like upgrading the OS or major apps) would
make sense. But as time goes by documents get changed so copying a full
clone back to the original HD seems like something that becomes less and less
attractive as time goes on.

I what circumstances would having the clone be most useful?

Again, I've read the "over and over" discussions and don't want to start the
techie debate. Just some understanding that will help me make the decisions
on what capabilities to buy for my home use.

Thanks

Tom

 

[R. McCarty]

One key point to imaging, is data partitioning. If you make use of a
dedicated volume for data then recovering the OS partition doesn't
affect your personal data. On my machine I have a Data partition,
and separate drives for Multimedia, Virtual PC Machines....Cloning
has it's place but I consider imaging a better overall solution. If I
ever need to restore XP, I can do that in less than 4 minutes. Also
having separate volumes/partitions allows me to perform backups
on different data using various schedules. Certain things like email
and documents need more frequent backup than other types of
data. Using multiple physical drives also helps with performance of
the PC since disk operations are spread out on different drives.

 

[Big_Al]

I updating my whole strategy for backing up my home computers. I've read
(and re-read) the threads and DO NOT want to go back over cloning and imaging
or, for that matter file/folder backups.

I'm also NOT interested in comparing software (I can do that). The only
questions I have relate to 1) whether to have all the capabilities (clone,
image, and file/folder) and 2) given the objective to keep the cost down
some, how to limit the software selection.

Casper, TI and Ghost seem to be the biggies for cloning and/or imaging.
There seem to be a lot of file/folder software options. I downloaded a trial
copy of TI just to see what it does and look at the interface. I didn't try
cloning (not sure if it has that capability (yet)) but I did do an image
"backup" (full and then an incremental).

Seems pretty straight forward and it appears I can either restore the whole
image or individual files/folders. This implies that I don't need (or don't
get too much incremental value from) having a separate file/folder tool. I
guess one could argue that a file/folder utility for My Documents might be a
"nice to have" but is there a good argument why one would want a separate
utility in the context of a backup strategy.

I haven't looked at Casper 5 yet but, if they also have a trail version,
I'll do the same test (same with Ghost). As a novice it appears that having
one utility to do both cloning and imaging makes sense. I'd expect the
market (for small home networks) would drive the utilities to do both. Is it?

As I've read the threads (and posted to a couple) my thinking has been drawn
to the recovery side of the discussion not the backup side. I mean, there's
no reason to do backups without thinking about the recovery scenarios.

If I have it right, cloning is done to be able to simply boot off an exact
copy of the HD (or one of it's partitions). And I can see that taking a
clone just before doing something (like upgrading the OS or major apps) would
make sense. But as time goes by documents get changed so copying a full
clone back to the original HD seems like something that becomes less and less
attractive as time goes on.

I what circumstances would having the clone be most useful?

Again, I've read the "over and over" discussions and don't want to start the
techie debate. Just some understanding that will help me make the decisions
on what capabilities to buy for my home use.

Thanks

Tom

A clone is not the only way for making an exact image to boot. An
Image will make an exact copy. And you can use that image to rebuild a
HD and boot. So they are basically the same. Its just the steps they
go through to get from point A to B, and the usage of the destination.
Images are just files and you can put several of them on one external
HD, where a clone consumes the drive or at least the partition.
Both will allow you to resize a drive at restore. I've done both while
flipping my laptop drives around, and they seem to be identical in
function to me. I cloned once and imaged a second time. No wonder
you are confused.

IMHO, A clone is good for a new drive install. End of conversation.
Image all the other times works for files and or complete restore.

And with this logic you don't need a file backup utility.
You could also just xcopy your mydocs folder if you wanted to or a batch
file with several xcopy commands. It could be that simple.

 

[tcarp]

One key point to imaging, is data partitioning. If you make use of a
dedicated volume for data then recovering the OS partition doesn't
affect your personal data. On my machine I have a Data partition,
and separate drives for Multimedia, Virtual PC Machines....Cloning
has it's place but I consider imaging a better overall solution. If I
ever need to restore XP, I can do that in less than 4 minutes. Also
having separate volumes/partitions allows me to perform backups
on different data using various schedules. Certain things like email
and documents need more frequent backup than other types of
data. Using multiple physical drives also helps with performance of
the PC since disk operations are spread out on different drives.

Perfect! Thanks.

 

[tcarp]

A clone is not the only way for making an exact image to boot. An
Image will make an exact copy. And you can use that image to rebuild a
HD and boot. So they are basically the same. Its just the steps they
go through to get from point A to B, and the usage of the destination.
Images are just files and you can put several of them on one external
HD, where a clone consumes the drive or at least the partition.
Both will allow you to resize a drive at restore. I've done both while
flipping my laptop drives around, and they seem to be identical in
function to me. I cloned once and imaged a second time. No wonder
you are confused.

IMHO, A clone is good for a new drive install. End of conversation.
Image all the other times works for files and or complete restore.

And with this logic you don't need a file backup utility.
You could also just xcopy your mydocs folder if you wanted to or a batch
file with several xcopy commands. It could be that simple.

Thanks so very much. You confirmed my novice thinking.

I can understand the value of cloning if you're maintaining quite a few
machines and doing regular installs. But for home use, it may be a luxury
that I could save a few $ bu using imaging (possible augmented by a simple
file/folder utility for stuff that changes all the time (documents).

Tom

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"tcarp" asked:

I what circumstances would having the clone be most useful?

Did you ever forget to backup a particular folder while
backing up all the rest? Can you spare 20 minutes to
backup an entire partition instead of picking and choosing
and wondering if you got everything? If your hard drive
fails or if your OS got a virus, would you like to boot up a
copy of that OS without having to get out the CDs/DVDs
and spending half an hour restoring the OS? With a clone
on a 2nd internal HD or on a HD in a removable tray or
on an external eSATA hard drive, you can just restart,
switch the identity of the boot drive in the BIOS, and off
you go. The advantage of a clone, then, is speed of
getting back in the action - important for stock day-trading,
for example.

The usual advantage of image files are the speed of
incremental backup after the first copy ia made and the
smaller archiving capacity needed to store just the files
you've selected to cheap media (CDs, DVDs, USB thumb
drives). But hard drives have gotten cheap, too, and utilities
such as Casper can do incremental updates to clones as well
as to image files, so the maintenance of an up-to-date clone
takes only as much time as making image file updates.

I do both - to cheap archiving media AND to a bootable
hard drive. And doing both is not as time-consuming as you'd
imagine.

*TimDaniels*

 

[PA20Pilot]

Hi,

........But as time goes by documents get changed so copying a full clone
back to the original HD seems like something that becomes less and less
attractive as time goes on.

I clone my hard drive every weekend, Friday night usually. The only time
you would need to "copy a full clone back to the hard drive" would be
when you've really had a catastrophy. Normally a clone is just an exact
copy of your drive, if you just need a few files off it, just take them
as you would from any other storage location. There's nothing magical
here, just double copies of everything you've cloned.


---==X={}=X==---

Jim Self

AVIATION ANIMATION, the internet's largest depository.
http://avanimation.avsupport.com

Your only internet source for spiral staircase plans.
http://jself.com/stair/Stair.htm

Experimental Aircraft Association #140897
EAA Technical Counselor #4562

 

[Timothy Daniels]

.......But as time goes by documents get changed so copying a full clone back
to the original HD seems like something that becomes less and less attractive
as time goes on.

Yes, copying a clone "back to the original hard drive" makes no sense
at all since a clone's value is in its immediate bootability and its lack of
need for a schedual of files to backup. If you want to archive your tax
records or the wedding photos, put them on CD or DVD. If you want to
get back on the air quickly in case of a hard drive crash or data corruption,
have a clone on another hard drive handy.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Lil' Dave]

I updating my whole strategy for backing up my home computers. I've read
(and re-read) the threads and DO NOT want to go back over cloning and
imaging
or, for that matter file/folder backups.

I'm also NOT interested in comparing software (I can do that). The only
questions I have relate to 1) whether to have all the capabilities (clone,
image, and file/folder) and 2) given the objective to keep the cost down
some, how to limit the software selection.

Casper, TI and Ghost seem to be the biggies for cloning and/or imaging.
There seem to be a lot of file/folder software options. I downloaded a
trial
copy of TI just to see what it does and look at the interface. I didn't
try
cloning (not sure if it has that capability (yet)) but I did do an image
"backup" (full and then an incremental).

Seems pretty straight forward and it appears I can either restore the
whole
image or individual files/folders. This implies that I don't need (or
don't
get too much incremental value from) having a separate file/folder tool.
I
guess one could argue that a file/folder utility for My Documents might be
a
"nice to have" but is there a good argument why one would want a separate
utility in the context of a backup strategy.

I haven't looked at Casper 5 yet but, if they also have a trail version,
I'll do the same test (same with Ghost). As a novice it appears that
having
one utility to do both cloning and imaging makes sense. I'd expect the
market (for small home networks) would drive the utilities to do both. Is
it?

As I've read the threads (and posted to a couple) my thinking has been
drawn
to the recovery side of the discussion not the backup side. I mean,
there's
no reason to do backups without thinking about the recovery scenarios.

Totally inaccurate. Any cloning or imaging software implementation should
assure the clone or restoration of image is successful from the git-go as
part of the test of that software.

If I have it right, cloning is done to be able to simply boot off an exact
copy of the HD (or one of it's partitions). And I can see that taking a
clone just before doing something (like upgrading the OS or major apps)
would
make sense. But as time goes by documents get changed so copying a full
clone back to the original HD seems like something that becomes less and
less
attractive as time goes on.

I what circumstances would having the clone be most useful?

Cloning and imaging should be both be done if the software is capable.
Different hard drive targets, of course. If so, a clone shoud be done much
less often for many reasons. The clone is for quick recovery, the imaging
is for strategic timely/multiple backups. As you can see, I'm not a fan of
this vs that stuff. Both are useful. So, I won't go down the road you're
paving.

 

[Lil' Dave]

"tcarp" asked:

Did you ever forget to backup a particular folder while
backing up all the rest? Can you spare 20 minutes to
backup an entire partition instead of picking and choosing
and wondering if you got everything? If your hard drive
fails or if your OS got a virus, would you like to boot up a
copy of that OS without having to get out the CDs/DVDs
and spending half an hour restoring the OS? With a clone
on a 2nd internal HD or on a HD in a removable tray or
on an external eSATA hard drive, you can just restart,
switch the identity of the boot drive in the BIOS, and off
you go. The advantage of a clone, then, is speed of
getting back in the action - important for stock day-trading,
for example.

The usual advantage of image files are the speed of
incremental backup after the first copy ia made and the
smaller archiving capacity needed to store just the files
you've selected to cheap media (CDs, DVDs, USB thumb
drives). But hard drives have gotten cheap, too, and utilities
such as Casper can do incremental updates to clones as well
as to image files, so the maintenance of an up-to-date clone
takes only as much time as making image file updates.

I do both - to cheap archiving media AND to a bootable
hard drive. And doing both is not as time-consuming as you'd
imagine.

*TimDaniels*

All well and good. Except, there's only one copy, the clone. Imaging
allows many copies of different instances of different times of the same
windows partition or whatever partition to a sizable hard drive.
Restoration of the proper image may allow usage without something unwanted
where other images may not, depending on what you're trying to revert to.
Both cloning and imaging serve purposes.

Some typical imaging restoration options include the option of or not:
restore the mbr, restore the original disk signature, allow the primary
partition to be bootable, restore the primary partition to a logical
partition, hiding the restored partition. All at the time of restoration
when needed, not before the fact like cloning.

 

[tcarp]

So, I won't go down the road you're

paving.
--

A little unfair given the opening comments on the original tread post. Even
to Subject was intended to avoid the debate that seems to happen when this
topic has come up on other threads.

The intent is to understand the use of the two techniques and that,
unfortunately, has to be done by comparison.

It's not a question of better or worse, it's understanding the use of each
since I designing/updating my backup methods. Ultimately it's going to boil
down to 1) how much risk am I willing to take, 2) how time critical is my
use, and 2) how much I'm willing to spend on backup sw and hw.

To make those decision (for me) requires understanding the tools and
techniques. That's been my objective.

Ultimately, when I get a little more understanding (remember, I'm not an
expert), I will be looking for guidance regarding my specific home network
configuration.

 

[tcarp]

Yes, copying a clone "back to the original hard drive" makes no sense
at all since a clone's value is in its immediate bootability and its lack of
need for a schedual of files to backup. If you want to archive your tax
records or the wedding photos, put them on CD or DVD. If you want to
get back on the air quickly in case of a hard drive crash or data corruption,
have a clone on another hard drive handy.

Tim

I think I finally "got it" with this post because its viewing things from
the recovery side not the backup side of the methods and tools.

Deciding on whether to get cloning capabilities (in the tools I ultimately
select) is probably going to boil down to the convenience of having a clone
and the software cost (if it's separate from imaging capabilities).

Let me ask a question about what to clone. I assume it's obvious that for
computers with relatively small internal HDs (the machine I'm using right now
is 30G) a full clone of the entire HD is both impractical and (in my case)
physically impossible.

I have other computers on my home net (a Mac Mini, and a couple other PCs)
but all have internal HDs <40G or so.

I do have a couple externals (160G each).

So, if I have cloning as part of my backup strategy can/should I put it on
an external? If yes, it can be a little bit of an issue with my laptops (we
tend to go places together without the external HDs).

Keep in mind I'm not trying to trigger the "which is better" discussion that
occurs frequently on the threads when discussion cloning, imaging, etc. I
want a thorough understand of the practical use (in this case of cloning) so
I can make an informed decision about whether and how to fit it in my backup
strategy.

Thanks

Tom

 

[tcarp]

Normally a clone is just an exact
copy of your drive, if you just need a few files off it, just take them
as you would from any other storage location. There's nothing magical
here, just double copies of everything you've cloned.

Jim

Thanks. I posted elsewhere that my interest when starting this thread was
to understand cloning and imaging, etc. enough to make some decisions about
using the techniques as I review my backup methods. So let me ask some
questions about your backup methods.

You posted that you take a clone every week. Assuming the only issue (if we
can even call it an "issue") with cloning is the amount of HD space needed,
Since the internal HDs on all my computers (a couple Macs and a couple PC
laptops) are 40G or less, I tend to think they will not be a good place to
partition and target cloning. That means the external HDs I have would be
the place.

Even there, though, at 40G or so a clone, these 160G externals will fill
quickly also which means only a few clones (using your cycle, perhaps a
month). Not suggesting that any more than that is needed to be able to get
right back on the air, but for documents, I'd think backups that go a bit
further back would be a good idea.

So, do you also image (or file/folder )backups (independent of the cloning)
you your system? I'm thinking that doing both would be best.

Although I haven't opened up the topic of creating bootable CDs, I'm
suspecting they would also be part of a comprehensive backup strategy for
home networks.

 

[tcarp]

Tim

I do have one additional question I thought of after my first reply.

I'm seeing that some cloning tools now allow for incrementals. Nice feature
to deal with the HD space needs but seems like "not cloning". Do you
understand their approach? If the biggest value for cloning is the ability
to just boot up right away it would seem that somehow the cloning application
would need to be involved in the boot to determine which version to use.

Tom

 

[Timothy Daniels]

[.....]
I do both - to cheap archiving media AND to a bootable
hard drive. And doing both is not as time-consuming as you'd
imagine.

*TimDaniels*

All well and good. Except, there's only one copy, the clone....

Read above. I do both, and others can do the same since
the two forms of backup are not mutually exclusive.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Tim

I do have one additional question I thought of after my first reply.

I'm seeing that some cloning tools now allow for incrementals.
Nice feature to deal with the HD space needs but seems like
"not cloning". Do you understand their approach? If the
biggest value for cloning is the ability to just boot up right away
it would seem that somehow the cloning application would need
to be involved in the boot to determine which version to use.

Tom

Some cloning utilities have incremental cloning as an option.
Casper does, and I think some of the others. According to
their literature, the first clone takes the usual amount of time
(or perhaps a little longer), but the subsequent incremental
updates to the clone take *much* less time. The way they do
this is proprietary, of course, but either way, what is generated
is a bootable exact copy of the original partition or partitions -
without any need for participation by other software during bootup.
I've never used the feature since as far as I'm concerned, it's just
another thing to go wrong, and it only takes me about 20 minutes
to clone a 40GB partition, anyway, so I always do the basic cloning.
If my OS's partition were 160GB, though, I'd give serious consider-
ation to incremental cloning.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

[......]
Deciding on whether to get cloning capabilities (in the tools
I ultimately select) is probably going to boil down to the
convenience of having a clone and the software cost (if it's
separate from imaging capabilities).

Let me ask a question about what to clone. I assume it's
obvious that for computers with relatively small internal HDs
(the machine I'm using right now is 30G) a full clone of the
entire HD is both impractical and (in my case) physically
impossible.

I have other computers on my home net (a Mac Mini, and
a couple other PCs) but all have internal HDs <40G or so.

I do have a couple externals (160G each).

So, if I have cloning as part of my backup strategy can/should
I put it on an external? If yes, it can be a little bit of an issue
with my laptops (we tend to go places together without the
external HDs).

Laptops present a problem for cloning because the average
laptop doesn't have a 2nd hard drive, and unless the laptop's
motherboard IO controller has an eSATA port like some desktop
PCs do, booting the clone from storage media is almost impossible.
I've tried using an eSATA ExpressCard adapter, but the external
hard drive isn't seen by the system until the OS is loaded - making
it impossible to use for booting the OS. My Dell laptop claims to
be bootable from "USB devices", and Dell Tech Support steadfastly
adhers to that claim, but they haven't told me how to boot a USB
hard drive, yet. The only "USB device" that I've been able to boot
from is a USB "thumb drive". So for a laptop, a failed hard drive
means physically replacing the internal hard drive with another
internal hard drive that contains the clone. If the failure is file
corruption due to a failing write head, it's likely to corrupt all the
partitions on the internal hard drive as well, so keeping a clone on
another partition doesn't make much sense. Even keeping a clone
on another internal hard drive doesn't make sense if virus recovery
is the purpose, as viruses can migrate to all partitions that the OS
can "see". One way around this is to disable the backup hard drive
during normal operation via the BIOS. Another way, that I use, is
to switch off the power connection to the backup hard drive with a
small toggle switch that is mounted in a chassis vent hole just under
the plastic fascia. As long as the backup hard drive is unpowered,
the BIOS and the OS can't "see" it. There are also 3rd-party software
utilities which can render a partition "hidden" - BootItNG being one
of them. But for laptops, unless you have a 2nd internal hard drive,
you're pretty much out of luck for a quick backup. In such a case,
the quickest recovery (assuming the internal hard drive hasn't failed)
is to have a clone or an image file on an external hard drive (eSATA,
USB or Firewire - eSATA being fastest), and copy it back to the
internal hard drive.

Up until Casper 4.0 came out, there was another problem with
putting a clone on the same hard drive as the original OS. That had
to do with the initial startup OF THE CLONE after it had been made.
Although the parent OS could view the clone without a problem,
the clone had to be kept from seeing its parent OS when the clone
started up for the first time. Otherwise, the clone got its own files
confused with those of its parent, and sometimes the confusion was
so subtle as not to be noticed until much later when the parent OS
was removed. Now, with Casper 4.0, the utility is smart enough to
prepare the clone for the First Startup situation, and putting the clone
on the same hard drive *may* not present a problem. Otherwise,
you'd have to "hide" the parent OS's partition before starting up the
clone for its first run.

All these problems make cloning less suitable for laptops. The
only advantage is that copying a clone back to an internal hard drive
may use slightly less time because no expansion is needed in copying
a compressed image file.

*TimDaniels*

 

[AJR]

tcarp (Originator I take it) - Regarding clone vs image is similar to car vs
automobile. Will use term "Backup" to mean either.

Full Backup refers to entire HD or select partitions -
Differential/Incremental backups refer to changes since the since the last
full backup made to keep the"Full Backup current.

You also have the choice of only backing up specfic file/folders - again
with add-ons (incremental) to keep up-to-date.

Full backup programs (such as Acronis, Ghost, etc.) do not "backup" free
(unused) space - With a 320 gig HD and 32 gig used - only the 32 gig will be
backed up - also you can indicate the compression level.

[......]
Deciding on whether to get cloning capabilities (in the tools
I ultimately select) is probably going to boil down to the
convenience of having a clone and the software cost (if it's
separate from imaging capabilities).

Let me ask a question about what to clone. I assume it's
obvious that for computers with relatively small internal HDs
(the machine I'm using right now is 30G) a full clone of the
entire HD is both impractical and (in my case) physically
impossible.

I have other computers on my home net (a Mac Mini, and
a couple other PCs) but all have internal HDs <40G or so.

I do have a couple externals (160G each).

So, if I have cloning as part of my backup strategy can/should
I put it on an external? If yes, it can be a little bit of an issue
with my laptops (we tend to go places together without the
external HDs).

Laptops present a problem for cloning because the average
laptop doesn't have a 2nd hard drive, and unless the laptop's
motherboard IO controller has an eSATA port like some desktop
PCs do, booting the clone from storage media is almost impossible.
I've tried using an eSATA ExpressCard adapter, but the external
hard drive isn't seen by the system until the OS is loaded - making
it impossible to use for booting the OS. My Dell laptop claims to
be bootable from "USB devices", and Dell Tech Support steadfastly
adhers to that claim, but they haven't told me how to boot a USB
hard drive, yet. The only "USB device" that I've been able to boot
from is a USB "thumb drive". So for a laptop, a failed hard drive
means physically replacing the internal hard drive with another
internal hard drive that contains the clone. If the failure is file
corruption due to a failing write head, it's likely to corrupt all the
partitions on the internal hard drive as well, so keeping a clone on
another partition doesn't make much sense. Even keeping a clone
on another internal hard drive doesn't make sense if virus recovery
is the purpose, as viruses can migrate to all partitions that the OS
can "see". One way around this is to disable the backup hard drive
during normal operation via the BIOS. Another way, that I use, is
to switch off the power connection to the backup hard drive with a
small toggle switch that is mounted in a chassis vent hole just under
the plastic fascia. As long as the backup hard drive is unpowered,
the BIOS and the OS can't "see" it. There are also 3rd-party software
utilities which can render a partition "hidden" - BootItNG being one
of them. But for laptops, unless you have a 2nd internal hard drive,
you're pretty much out of luck for a quick backup. In such a case,
the quickest recovery (assuming the internal hard drive hasn't failed)
is to have a clone or an image file on an external hard drive (eSATA,
USB or Firewire - eSATA being fastest), and copy it back to the
internal hard drive.

Up until Casper 4.0 came out, there was another problem with
putting a clone on the same hard drive as the original OS. That had
to do with the initial startup OF THE CLONE after it had been made.
Although the parent OS could view the clone without a problem,
the clone had to be kept from seeing its parent OS when the clone
started up for the first time. Otherwise, the clone got its own files
confused with those of its parent, and sometimes the confusion was
so subtle as not to be noticed until much later when the parent OS
was removed. Now, with Casper 4.0, the utility is smart enough to
prepare the clone for the First Startup situation, and putting the clone
on the same hard drive *may* not present a problem. Otherwise,
you'd have to "hide" the parent OS's partition before starting up the
clone for its first run.

All these problems make cloning less suitable for laptops. The
only advantage is that copying a clone back to an internal hard drive
may use slightly less time because no expansion is needed in copying
a compressed image file.

*TimDaniels*

 

[PA20Pilot]

Hi again,

.......So, do you also image (or file/folder )backups (independent of the
cloning) your system? I'm thinking that doing both would be best.

You're right about doing both would be best, if your situation required
redundancy. I overwrite the previous weeks clone when I do my Friday
night routine. If something is valuable enough to warrant long time
backup I'd slap it on a CD as I don't have a DVD writer, then store if
off site. I've never fooled around with incremental saves, so I might be
missing out on something good, but I'm happy, and that's all that I
really care about anyway.

I have three partitions on my drive, C,D and E. When I turn on my second
disk just prior to cloning, it shows three partitions also, labeled as
G, H, and I. My program makes the letters choice, not me. But when I
replace the main hard drive with the clone copy as a test to see if
things are really as good as I think they are, Windoze changes G,H, and
I into C, D and E during the boot. It's like I didn't even switch
drives, everything is just normal.

Keep in mind though, that things can, and for some people often, go
wrong. Windoze clones, for me, has always booted, but I have had to go
into My Computer and manually change two of the cloned partitions into
what they were on the original instead of H and I as they were
temporarily named during the clone phase.

Don't let anyone tell you you can't have a clone copy and the original
disk installed at the same boot time because Windows will get confused
with two operating systems installed. The BIOS or whatever will know
where to boot from, and won't be confused by another disk with the same
info on it.

Since the clone has everything on it the original drive does, I don't
see a reason, for me, to copy very many other files separately.

My strategy certainly has flaws, like a house fire, but what I do do has
saved me a lot of grief after an install gone wrong, or another M$
update gone to hell, or just a system file gone into corruption.

My clone is actually on an internal drive that's installed in a sliding
case with a key that turns off it's power, so....., there's no chance of
its being written to without my approval.


---==X={}=X==---

Jim Self

AVIATION ANIMATION, the internet's largest depository.
http://avanimation.avsupport.com

Your only internet source for spiral staircase plans.
http://jself.com/stair/Stair.htm

Experimental Aircraft Association #140897
EAA Technical Counselor #4562

 

[Lil' Dave]

Dave

[.....]
I do both - to cheap archiving media AND to a bootable
hard drive. And doing both is not as time-consuming as you'd
imagine.

*TimDaniels*

All well and good. Except, there's only one copy, the clone....

Read above. I do both, and others can do the same since
the two forms of backup are not mutually exclusive.

*TimDaniels*

Evidently the conversation is off as you snipped just about everything. I'm
out of here.