Need help backing up hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roy N.
  • Start date Start date
R

Roy N.

I desperately need to backup my hard drive. There is extremely critical
information on it which needs to backed up in case of data loss. And my
computer is intermittently making these strange vibrating sounds. It's
coming from something that is spinning in my computer. My guess is that it's
the fan rather than the drive because I'd be surprised if a hard drive could
make this much noise without complete failure or serious performance
problems (I haven't noticed any).

Anyhow, every backup program in existence seems to come with a laundry list
of sortgalls and potential catastrophes. For isntance, I've read quite a few
reviews (including one in PC Mag) where Norton Ghost 2003 crashed systems.
Seems like for every application that has glowing reviews in one forum,
there are boatloads of dissatisfied and disgruntled users in another forum.
This is madenning! Usually there are at least one or two really good
programs in a given sector, so picking one is just a matter of user choice
and splitting hairs. But here it seems like there are cases where every
backup program has either crashed a hardrive, or when a restoration was
needed, the resotration was impossible due to flawed backup.

Acronis TrueImage 6.0 seems to get a lot of positive reviews, but tech
support is reportedly very bad.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I've gone too long without a
backup, and a crash right now would be a complete disaster!

HELP!
 
Roy N. said:
I desperately need to backup my hard drive. There is extremely critical
information on it which needs to backed up in case of data loss. And my
computer is intermittently making these strange vibrating sounds. It's
coming from something that is spinning in my computer. My guess is that it's
the fan rather than the drive because I'd be surprised if a hard drive could
make this much noise without complete failure or serious performance
problems (I haven't noticed any).

Anyhow, every backup program in existence seems to come with a laundry list
of sortgalls and potential catastrophes. For isntance, I've read quite a few
reviews (including one in PC Mag) where Norton Ghost 2003 crashed systems.
Seems like for every application that has glowing reviews in one forum,
there are boatloads of dissatisfied and disgruntled users in another forum.
This is madenning! Usually there are at least one or two really good
programs in a given sector, so picking one is just a matter of user choice
and splitting hairs. But here it seems like there are cases where every
backup program has either crashed a hardrive, or when a restoration was
needed, the resotration was impossible due to flawed backup.

Acronis TrueImage 6.0 seems to get a lot of positive reviews, but tech
support is reportedly very bad.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I've gone too long without a
backup, and a crash right now would be a complete disaster!
Click to expand...
HELP!
Click to expand...

I'd personally cut to the chase and just winzip the most
important stuff to a zip file and write that the more than
one CDR initially. That at least would have the most crucial
stuff backed up in case it is the hard drive thats dying.

As far as image backups are concerned, its important to
not get too worked up about those who have had a problem
with any particular program. By definition you will always
see lots howling about any particular program, just because
those who dont see any problems dont bother to say anything.

Ghost 2003 should work fine and its so cheap when its
part of SystemWorks Pro that you aint risking much to
try it. You can get the trial version first if you want too.

And if it doesnt work adequately for you, there is a very cheap
upgrade to True Image available for those with Ghost too.
 
Rod Speed said:
I'd personally cut to the chase and just winzip the most
important stuff to a zip file and write that the more than
one CDR initially. That at least would have the most crucial
stuff backed up in case it is the hard drive thats dying.

As far as image backups are concerned, its important to
not get too worked up about those who have had a problem
with any particular program. By definition you will always
see lots howling about any particular program, just because
those who dont see any problems dont bother to say anything.
Click to expand...

This isn't the usual howling you see for other kinds of applications. This
is outrage from people who have had their data completely lost because they
relied on a program that purported to protect their data. There are no
degrees of "goodness" when it comes to hard drive recovery - either it works
right or you are screwed.

I'd like to find a program that a significant majority of people can agree
does the backup/recovery job well.
Ghost 2003 should work fine and its so cheap when its
part of SystemWorks Pro that you aint risking much to
try it. You can get the trial version first if you want too.
Click to expand...

Ghost is the only application I refuse to use. I've read numerous reports of
Ghost crashing systems as a back-up was being made. And I don't mean BSOD -
I mean people having to reinstall the OS because Ghost removed/damaged
critical OS files. Sure it's unlikely to happen to me, but enough people
have reported this problem (inlucing PC Mag) that I will not take the risk.
And if it doesnt work adequately for you, there is a very cheap
upgrade to True Image available for those with Ghost too.
Click to expand...

By the time I realize Ghost doesn't work adequately for me it will be too
late to use True Image.
 
Eric Gisin said:
I have never heard of Ghost corrupting the disk you are backing up.
Click to expand...

Here are a couple of instances of serious damage influcted by Norton Ghost:

Skip Norton Ghost 2003 by PC World
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,107378,00.asp

Read the third review down (the long one) written by Alan Luber (author of
"PC Fear Factor: The Ultimate PC Disaster Prevention Guide")
http://reviews.cnet.com/Norton_Ghost_2003/4852-3514_7-20186188.html?pn=1&tag
=top&fb=2&ob=0
 
Here are a couple of instances of serious damage influcted by Norton Ghost:
Click to expand...
Skip Norton Ghost 2003 by PC World
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,107378,00.asp
Click to expand...

That one doesnt say that the disk being imaged was corrupted.
And since he doesnt say precisely what the situation was when
it did bugger something up, needs to be taken with a sack of
salt when we havent seen heaps of individuals howling about
what Ghost had done to their system.

The most we have seen in here is a few having problems with reading
the image files off CDs and a few with a problem when cloning a drive
when running one of the NT/2K/XP family, which are readily fixable.
Read the third review down (the long one) written by Alan Luber
(author of "PC Fear Factor: The Ultimate PC Disaster Prevention Guide")
http://reviews.cnet.com/Norton_Ghost_2003/4852-3514_7-20186188.html?pn=1&tag
=top&fb=2&ob=0
Click to expand...

Sure, thats certainly a valid example of Ghost delivering a lousy result,
but it clearly cant be common if we havent seen lots howling about it,
so one obvious approach would be to make a safety image using
something else, try the free trial, and when it almost certainly
results in a good image, buy it for peanuts as part of SystemWorks Pro.

You wont find even a single backup app that has never had problems
with any system, world wide, except one that no one uses.

I dont choose to image direct to CDs anyway, its too labor intensive
having to swap CDs when it wants a new blank, I prefer to write the
image file to a hard drive in CD sized chunks and manually move those
to CDs in a single session after the image files are complete. Sure,
you need more hard drive space, but hard drives are so cheap that
convenience comes cheap.
 
Rod Speed said:
That one doesnt say that the disk being imaged was corrupted.
And since he doesnt say precisely what the situation was when
it did bugger something up, needs to be taken with a sack of
salt when we havent seen heaps of individuals howling about
what Ghost had done to their system.

The most we have seen in here is a few having problems with reading
the image files off CDs and a few with a problem when cloning a drive
when running one of the NT/2K/XP family, which are readily fixable.
Click to expand...

Is the problem with the reliability of CD-ROMs? Would results be more robust
backing up to DVD instead?

Seems like "cloning" is what cuases the most problems. Is cloning the same
thing that HDCopy does? What other backup alternatives besides cloning does
Ghost offer? Pros/cons to cloning?
I dont choose to image direct to CDs anyway, its too labor intensive
having to swap CDs when it wants a new blank, I prefer to write the
image file to a hard drive in CD sized chunks and manually move those
to CDs in a single session after the image files are complete. Sure,
you need more hard drive space, but hard drives are so cheap that
convenience comes cheap.
Click to expand...

I plan to store to DVD or even make complete backups to a removable hard
drive so this won't affect me..
 
Is the problem with the reliability of CD-ROMs?
Click to expand...

Nope, you dont get that effect when copying CDs for example.

The problem appears to be that Ghost has started to drive the
burners directly and that sees a few warts in some situations.
Presumably those warts will be resolved over time.

We saw the same thing with general cd burner software
like with EZCD and Nero which did get resolved over time.

Another good reason for creating the image files to hard
drive and then manually copying those to CDs when you
want the image on CDs so you can hide the CDs etc to
protect yourself agains the entire PC being stolen etc.

I dont bother myself, I just write the stuff I'll slash my wrists
if I lose to CDs rather than a full drive image, and I do that
using WinZip and not an image app. And I dont have a big
collection of pictures, mp3s or video files, so the most
important stuff fits fine on a couple of CDs, obviously with a
particular file on more than one CD in case the media dies etc.

The only real point is image files of a full drive is for quickest
restoration, and fortunately theft of the entire PC or the house
burning down etc is rare enough that when the worst comes to
the worst, all I have to do is a full clean installation of the OS and
apps and then use those CDs to get the irreplaceable stuff back.

If the house does burn down, I'll be wasting much more
time organising a replacement for the house anyway.

I do full boot partition images, but thats in the test system so
I have a set of test images with particular OS and app configs
that I can run into the boot partition to test various things.
Would results be more robust backing up to DVD instead?
Click to expand...

Likely less robust just because they are newer technology.
Seems like "cloning" is what cuases the most problems.
Click to expand...

Not in the sense of damaging whats been cloned unrecoverably.
And even the fixable problems are readily avoidable with the
NT/2K/XP family just by ensuring that the original and the clone
arent visible to the OS in the reboot after the clone is done.

I personally think it makes more sense to write an image
file instead of a clone, because that cant produce any
problem on the OS boot after the clone operation. The
only real downside is that with an image file you do need
to restore it to the replacement hard drive if the original
hard drive dies completely. With a clone you can just
plug the clone into the ribbon cable and reboot. I dont
need that very quick recovery and if I did I'd use a
proper RAID system and not manual cloning anyway.
Is cloning the same thing that HDCopy does?
Click to expand...

Yes, at the general approach level, anyway.

Cloning is more complicated than it looks and you
have a lot of control at the fine detail level with Ghost on
exactly how the cloning is done, just what gets copied etc.
What other backup alternatives besides cloning does Ghost offer?
Click to expand...

Image files.
Pros/cons to cloning?
Click to expand...

No problems at all with the boot after the image file is
created, you can write the image files to CDs manually,
you can have more than one image file so you can say
step back by more than one image if you discover that
you buggered up the OS config before doing the image
file, or it got buggered up for you by a virus etc.
I plan to store to DVD or even make complete backups
to a removable hard drive so this won't affect me..
Click to expand...

So there isnt any reason to hyperventilate about
that one example you saw of a problem with Ghost.

Just make a complete backup to a removable
hard drive before you try the creation of an image
file to DVD. Then even if the worst happens,
you can step back gracefully and trivially.

One very big advantage with using Ghost is that its
so widely used by so many so you will always be
able to get some help with any problem you might
have, quite apart from what Symantec can offer.

Unlike the deafening silence you got with a question
about True Image, because its much less widely used.
 
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