Drive image software

  • Thread starter Thread starter Grytpype-Thynne
  • Start date Start date
G

Grytpype-Thynne

Hi,

Can anyone recommend a good freeware drive iimaging program?

Thanks
Gerald
 
Hi,
Can anyone recommend a good freeware drive iimaging program?

Thanks
Gerald
Click to expand...

I don't think there is any. Unless something new has come out that
I haven't heard about. Basically, you've got two choices, Ghost
and Drive Image. Both work well, both cost money. The free stuff
is buggy and doesn't work well. That's the way it is.
 
Grytpype-Thynne ([email protected]) schrieb/wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good freeware drive iimaging program?
Click to expand...

http://www.partition-saving.com/
"Partition Saving is a DOS program that is used to save, restore
and copy hard-drive, partitions, floppy disk and DOS devices.

With this program you could save all data on a partition to a file
(such as you could save this file on a CD for example). Then if
something goes wrong, you can completely restore the partition from
the backup file. You no longer have to reinstall every piece of
software from scratch. All you have to do is restore the partition
from the backup file and then update any software that was modified
since the backup was created."

=======================================

Diskman: http://diskman.dyndns.org/about.aspx
 
Andreas Kaestner said:
http://www.partition-saving.com/
"Partition Saving is a DOS program that is used to save, restore
and copy hard-drive, partitions, floppy disk and DOS devices.

With this program you could save all data on a partition to a file
(such as you could save this file on a CD for example). Then if
something goes wrong, you can completely restore the partition from
Click to expand...

I asked the author a few things in an email, and here are a few lines from
his reply:

"For the speed of Partition Saving, I know it is slow. But it comes from
the way disk is accessed: it only uses BIOS call and no direct access
(so no DMA use possible, obliged to switch from 32 bits to 16 bits mode
at each access, could not read more than 64Kb at each call, ...). I
think DI or Ghost use direct acces to disk."

His program works, and it is free, but it is somewhat slower than Ghost and
Drive Image. I think that is the main conclusion of the comparison.

For somebody who has moderately sized partitions to backup and restore his
program is useful.

Somebody said that a big partition with 20 GB took half an hour to copy.

If we have a typical C: drive with only the operating system on it we may
have 1-2GB of data on it, and that would take only a few minutes to copy or
restore.

I use Drive Image and it is faster, but not dramatically faster.

To have best use of a partition saving program you should have your
computer organised in a sensible way to begin with.

Put a few 4GB partitions in the beginning of each hard disk and use them
for operating systems. Other partitions may be larger and be used to store
data and uninstalled programs.

It is the operating system which needs partition saving most.

The first partition on the first disk, where windows is installed, is the
one that needs backing up most.
When a virus or technical fault makes booting up impossible it is very nice
to be able to restore it to what it looked like a week ago, or a month ago.

I sometimes restore it just because I have installed a lot of programs and
I want to get back to a much cleaner installation of windows.
It goes a lot faster to restore the C: partition than to try to clean out
all the programs and registry entries manually.

All these partition saving programs work alike in practice. You have a
floppy disk (or CD) you boot from and copy or restore a disk image which is
stored on another partition on the hard disk or a CD.
 
http://www.partition-saving.com/
"Partition Saving is a DOS program that is used to save, restore
and copy hard-drive, partitions, floppy disk and DOS devices.

With this program you could save all data on a partition to a file
(such as you could save this file on a CD for example). Then if
something goes wrong, you can completely restore the partition from
the backup file. You no longer have to reinstall every piece of
software from scratch. All you have to do is restore the partition
from the backup file and then update any software that was modified
since the backup was created."

=======================================

Diskman: http://diskman.dyndns.org/about.aspx
Click to expand...
Thanks, just what I need, I going to have a few small partitions on each
drive for OS and temp files and 2 or 3 larger partitions on each drive
for programs, downloaded files and the website I provide for an animal
charity.

Gerald
 
is xcopy still around? (xcopy c e h k r s)
Al Smith said:
I don't think there is any. Unless something new has come out that
I haven't heard about. Basically, you've got two choices, Ghost
and Drive Image. Both work well, both cost money. The free stuff
is buggy and doesn't work well. That's the way it is.
Click to expand...
 
Bjorn Simonsen said:
A better alternative to xcopy is XXcopy <http://www.xxcopy.com>
Click to expand...
==============================

Well, let's stick to the subject of the original post ... imaging. XCOPY
or XXCOPY will not produce an image. To answer the original post,
there is a freeware program called
 
==============================

Well, let's stick to the subject of the original post ... imaging. XCOPY
or XXCOPY will not produce an image. To answer the original post,
there is a freeware program called PartSave.exe located at:

www.partition-saving.com

This program is very like another DOS-only program by TerraByte called
Image.Exe. Both work very well. TerraByte is commercial ware, although
inexpensive enough .. made in the Netherlands, I think.
But, Partition-Saving is french-made, or ... Quebecois ... and, the author is
reached at: (e-mail address removed)
Click to expand...
 
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