a reliable free imaging and restore program?

Hi Jim,

Thank you for the above information on LazeSoft. Will surely give it another try. Have you used EasyBCD to create the WinPE ISO as boot menu? It is great, as it does away with the USB and so forth.

Happy New Year to you too!

Best regards,

Mohamed

 

Hi Mohamed

I have used EasyBCD to boot the IFL ISO from the hard disk and having it added to a boot up menu, and it works great I do also create USB bootables just in case a problem would happen with the disk though, but yes, EasyBCD is a really versatile tool, and nice to be able to boot ISO directly along with winpe, etc.

Thank you for the reminder

Jim

 

Testing out EaseUS todo first

am a bit confused by the options. Do I just do an image of my partitions that I want to backup or do a disk clone?

I want to store it on a USB drive so when something happens, I can just winpe boot and then restore it. OS and all.

Not really sure what is the benefit of a drive clone? is that so you can actually keep a spare drive and then just swap it when things go bad, therefore saving more time? No need for boot restore?

 

I've been using Macrium Pro for a year now. Restored multiple times one more than one machine. Even upgraded two computers to an SSD drives and the restore was always flawless. Recently, I had problems with the Macrium restore CD because I moved to Windows 8 and the WinPE 3 CD couldn't load Win8 drivers. However, the recent update to WinPE 4 solved all my issues.

 

Cloning (I think) is mainly for moving everything to a new drive - though I'm not sure if there's any real difference to using System Backup, providing you only have C partition. The last time I used System Backup - it only saved System\Recovery\Os Install (drive C) - If you have additional data partitions, I would use Disk\Partition option - this allows you to select which ones you want to include in your image (or include them all) - IMO Disk\Partition is probably the more flexible option to use.

 

If you are looking for a reliable and free Imaging and Restore Program,
you should check out Paragon Backup and Recovery Free,
i have been using it to make images and restore from them for about 3 years now, have never faced any issues whatsoever.

 

Both macrium free and easus todo free will not restore to computers of dissimilar hardware. you need to upgrade to do this. What does it mean by dissimilar hardware.

Say your HD dies and you replace it with a bigger HD, iis that dis-similar? of course you cannot get the same HD as you have before because of obsolescence.

Hey also I just have a funny idea, If I get easeus todo home which comes with winPE. can I use that to restore an image made with easeus todo free? Everyone is raving about winPE as the restore evirnoment that is most reliable yes?

 

Does EaseUS ToDo come free with WinPE?

I believe they charge $20 for this.

Best regards,

 

It seems to me that a large majority of these "free" imaging programs are being very deceitful.
You download and install them and then discover you need to download more enormous amounts of data to create a recovery environment which you cannot say for certain is going to work anyway.

I wasted a lot of time with macrium reflect free installing the program and then discovering i cannot restore because it does not see my external HDD and then wants a further download.
This is utter garbage in my opinion as the windows built in imaging has been flawless in restoring my images.

Ive yet to see a program which comes close to the windows 7 imaging program.
It does what it says it can do and without any further downloads so why cant some of these other programs just do the same.

At the moment im just going to stick with the windows7 imaging as its been reliable and i was hoping for a secondary imaging program in case windows failed me but thankfully it has not.

Many thanks for the suggestions given but im not prepared to download any more huge amounts of data on a program which isnt certain of restoring.

 

Blame Microsoft for changing their licensing terms on WinPE. Those imaging apps are no longer allowed to distribute pre-built WIM images. Don't blame the apps.

 

Then the imaging companies should state clearly on their websites etc that a further download may be required instead of allowing users to blindly download and install and then discover they cannot restore.

 

It's right on Macrium's front page.

http://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50154.aspx

There are no exceptions. All imaging apps are like that now. Don't use any if it offends you so much.

 

Clonezilla is the best free imaging app I have ever used. Can't be installed (which is awesome and means your system speed is untouched), its reliable and it's fast.

Yes, the interface is initially daunting but excellent help screen captures are on the website and after a time or two of use, it becomes pretty easy to use.

Highly recommended!

 

Yes but i bet it requires a massive download to restore anything.

 

I find the Linux restore environment more reliable than Win PE.

Not having a Win PE restore disk is not a hindrance. Just my .02.

 

I did some testing of 'free' imaging programs (Easeus Todo\Paragon\Macrium) awhile back and still think Windows own imaging program is the easiest and most reliable - the only reason I stopped using Windows was backup time - one week it would take an hour, next week 2-3 hours! (same size!) - It simply became too unreliable! - Easeus Todo\Paragon\Macrium consistently take about one hour (or under) for me! The Linux bootable CDs that these 3 programs create can be very problematical in 'seeing' external drives - whereas the Windows Repair CD, in my experience, doesn't seem to have any issues seeing external drives. The only time I had a problem with the Windows disk was when I was replacing my HDD with a SSD and Windows refused to restore! Had to disconnected all other plugins in my Notebook to get Windows to run the restore!

 

The Clonezilla you download is complete. No additional download is required beyond the initial one. If you download one of the default Debian based versions, the downloads are approximately 120 MB. I recommend using the i486 version because of it's universal fit to virtually all systems. Of course, you could use a specialty version (like 64-bit) if you want.

Take a look around a the website. IMO, very informative and worth the time spent.

As I said, the initial look seems like it may be too confusing to use. But if you take it step by step, it becomes very easy to use. I have co-workers using it on their home systems that are not geeks in any sense of the word!

Main website

http://clonezilla.org/

Screen shots for images and restorations

http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live-doc.php

 

With Paragon I can always force it to see external drives by letting the bootcd do it's routine, select 'restore image' in the menu (at which the external drive doesn't show), go back in the menu 2 steps and let it re-scan all drives and voila, the ext. drives always appear.

 

I've never had a problem with the Paragon bootcd before - but that's a good tip to remember in future!

 

Can easus todo winpe boot be created on a usb stick?