how to back up windows, not the whole drive?

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Doc

How could I backup windows XP so that I could restore it to the exact
settings I have in place without having to backup the entire drive?

Thanks
 
It all depends what you mean by "exact settings".
Click to expand...

In other words, Windows crashes. Instead of using the install disc, just
wipe the drive and recopy the backup of windows back to the drive.
 
just
wipe the drive and recopy the backup of windows back to the drive.
Click to expand...

Sounds feasible. Shame about the user settings, user data and
applications that would be lost though.
 
In other words, Windows crashes. Instead of using the install disc, just
wipe the drive and recopy the backup of windows back to the drive.
Click to expand...

Think differently. Install Windows on empty hard drive, perform basic
configuration. Take a disk image and store it on medium from which you could
easily restore it. Test restore. Done.
 
Peter said:
Think differently. Install Windows on empty hard drive, perform basic
configuration. Take a disk image and store it on medium from which you could
easily restore it. Test restore. Done.
Click to expand...

What's the difference between a disc image and backing up the harddrive?
 
What's the difference between a disc image and backing up the harddrive?

What difference aspect are you interested in?
Backup is a broad term to duplicate selected portions of your file system to
another storage media.
Disk image reduces selection criteria to a disk as a whole. It preserves
file system properties.
 
How could I backup windows XP so that I could restore it to the exact
settings I have in place without having to backup the entire drive?

Thanks
Click to expand...


Use ghost to create an image of the partition instead of the whole
drive if XP goes dead the just use ghost to restore the partion
 
Peter said:
What difference aspect are you interested in?
Backup is a broad term to duplicate selected portions of your file system
to another storage media.
Disk image reduces selection criteria to a disk as a whole. It preserves
file system properties.
Click to expand...

Actually, the latest and greatest enterprise solution from Symantec (which
is what I suspect they were _really_ after when then bought out PowerQuest)
can do incremental images, just imaging the parts that were changed since
the previous image.
 
What difference aspect are you interested in?
Actually, the latest and greatest enterprise solution from Symantec (which
is what I suspect they were _really_ after when then bought out PowerQuest)
can do incremental images, just imaging the parts that were changed since
the previous image.
Click to expand...

Yes, they can do incremental disk images (Acronis TI can also) but they are
based on data changes on disk sectors, not file content changes. I consider
that approach flawed due to disk defragmentation issue.
Not recommended, unless you never defragment disk or copy your files.

I consider disk images for disaster recovery, while data backups for data
archiving and recovery.
Restoring OS falls into a disaster recovery scenario.
 
Peter said:
Yes, they can do incremental disk images (Acronis TI can also) but they
are based on data changes on disk sectors, not file content changes. I
consider that approach flawed due to disk defragmentation issue.
Not recommended, unless you never defragment disk or copy your files.
Click to expand...

Pardon me if I sound disrespectful, but that's a bit nonsensical, isn't it?
Why would this be a problem? Do you mean that disk defragmentation would
cause unnecessary updating? If so I agree that it could be considered
ineffective, but it wouldn't result in excessive data, just a longer
backup.
 
Pardon me if I sound disrespectful, but that's a bit nonsensical, isn't
it?
Why would this be a problem? Do you mean that disk defragmentation would
cause unnecessary updating? If so I agree that it could be considered
ineffective, but it wouldn't result in excessive data, just a longer
backup.
Click to expand...

I have performed a quick test. 8GB partition, 5GB used. Performed a base
image, resulting in 1.74GB image file. Performed a quick defragmentation, no
files were added. Incremental image produced another image file of 390MB. So
if you have a bigger drive and more fragmentation, expect a hefty
incremental image file if you defragment your disk after taking a base
image. And the size of it is very hard to predict. So is the time to take an
incremental image. That is the part I don't like.
 
Actually, the latest and greatest enterprise solution from Symantec (which
is what I suspect they were _really_ after when then bought out PowerQuest)
can do incremental images, just imaging the parts that were changed since
the previous image.
Click to expand...

Solaris calls this FlashBackup, and it rocks. Basically you take a FB
of a system as it sits now. If that system barfs you can netboot it
drop that same image back. Takes alot less time since you're
transferring data blocks instead of installing software.

Images are exactly that. Think of it like a picture of your system
that you can put back in place as a whole picture if it goes away. No
installs, just data transfers.

Ghost works similarly, which is the FB of Windows last time I worked
with that stuff. There might be some freeware out that will do what
you need. If so I'd be interested to hear about it.

~F
 
Peter said:
I have performed a quick test. 8GB partition, 5GB used. Performed a base
image, resulting in 1.74GB image file. Performed a quick defragmentation,
no files were added. Incremental image produced another image file of
390MB. So if you have a bigger drive and more fragmentation, expect a
hefty incremental image file if you defragment your disk after taking a
base image. And the size of it is very hard to predict. So is the time to
take an incremental image. That is the part I don't like.
Click to expand...

I stand corrected then - that is indeed a flaw! But I don't really
understand why they made it like this... Are they trying to make it into
some kind of versioning system so that you can restore a previous state or
have they just erred? Interesting...
 
Snip!
Ghost works similarly, which is the FB of Windows last time I worked
with that stuff. There might be some freeware out that will do what
you need. If so I'd be interested to hear about it.
Click to expand...

François Dupoux's Partition Image program partimage worked just fine
for me. http://www.partimage.org/

At http://www.sysresccd.org/ there is a 100MB CD image that can be
written to a bootable CD, includes partimage and several other useful
programs.
 
Find a spare partition on the existing drive or a second drive, install
XP on it. Then boot to the new XP. Run the built-in backup program to
back up your old XP files to a .bkf file. Restore later to the exact
same settings.

This is completely free. No need to spend money on imaging software.

..cs
 
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