Image burning to DVD-R's

I am trying to plunk my HDD image onto DVD-R's for later remounting using ATI 9.

I have: ATI Home 9 build 3567, plenty of DVD-R's, and a pc with XP on the HDD.

The task: Image the entire HDD and then save it onto DVD-R's for later recovery.

Let me know if I have this wrong or am missing vital information. It has been over a year since I've even thought about ATI or any imaging. I've been going over all the old threads regarding the two step process, etc.

I know it's easier all around to have another HDD for image backups but that isn't an option for me.

From what I can tell I can use ATI to make a complete image of the HDD and then save it on the same HDD volume ideally divided up into 1492MB .tib's. And then three 1492MB .tib's will fit on one DVD-R. Then (depending upon the HDD size) ATI will produce a certain number of .tib files onto my HDD at the location I've specified.

Then I need to use some 3rd party burning software to slowly burn these .tib files exactly as they are (ISO burning?) to the DVD-R's. And I need to keep them in order because ATI won't mount unless the last .tib is mounted first, yeah?

So provided I can burn these 1492 .tib's to a number of DVD's then I need to verify the integrity of the burnt DVD-R's .tib's using ATI. Otherwise I'll have plenty of beer mats if a byte is off somewhere.

And I need a bootable ATI recovery CD-R with all the ATI program features so that I can eventually remount all the .tib's spread across the numerous DVD's onto the HDD.

The Nero 6.6.0.17 I'm using likes to befugger large files by reworking them with Nero BackItUp into non-ATI-usable chunks with extensions like .nc_ in a directory that it burns onto the media. There are advanced burning options in Nero but I'm uncertain which would burn these 1492 .tib files directly onto the DVD-R's without putting them into directories or otherwise ruining the .tib's.

Maybe there is some very quick and easy/painless burning freeware/shareware (without malware) that will burn these 1492MB ISO .tib files besides Nero.

Thanks in advance for any/all helpful input!

 

In the 2-step method, you burn the 1492 sized .tib files as data - ISO doesn't come into the picture at all. Even if you verify and the result is positive it doesn't mean that when you restore, the result will be a successful booting drive. There have been many false positives in the verification process.

The only sure way to know that your backup is good is to restore to another hard drive (never test it on the original source drive).

 

Hi DwnNdrty,

Well, yes and no . You are correct in that the .tib files should not be burnt as an ISO image. However, using Nero Burning ROM, the user should opt to burn up to three 1492MB .tib files per disk as a DVD-ROM (ISO) data compilation (2000MB max individual file size) rather than a DVD-ROM (UDF) data compilation (approx 4.5GB max individual file size).

Regards

Menorcaman

 

Thanks for the clarification .... usually when I use Nero to burn files as data, I accept the defaults so I never even look at the type of compilation.

 

for what you want to do, the most important thing is the quality of your dvd blank media. All blank dvd's will say "burn is successful" but will give you problems when you try to read it back. If possible do a quality test on one of the DVD's you have burned with nero, good media will score in the 90 percents.

check this link, and see where your blank dvd media is ranked.
http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/47

My system winxp pro, true image 9.0, dual partition hard drive. C:system =20gb, d:data=180gb. My system partition I keep small, always small enough to fit in one blank dvd. All large programs/games I install on my data partitiion, instead of c:/program files.
To backup my C: system partition ,I just do an image backup and save it on the hard drive, since in my case it's about 4gb ,I then copy it to dvd using nero.
To backup my data partition I can just copy those files(without compression) to dvd's using nero. To restore I just copy them back from dvd's to hard drive. Always works, only problem I might have is to create new shortcuts.

From what I've read in the forums, the smaller your image dvd backups are the better chance for success. My 1 dvd system backups always work (and I can restore onto a new hard drive in less than 20 minutes) when I have used quality dvd media.

 

Thanks a bunch guys! The posts help a ton!

I currently have 7 .tib files that I saved onto the same HDD as I'm going to re-image (there's plenty of empty space). I don't have another HDD. Just one drive with one large partition.

The .tib files are all 1.45GB in size. ATI didn't allow me to specify 1492MB. The dropdown under Archive Splitting only allows 100MB, 650MB, 700MB, and 4.34GB split archives although it defaulted to 1.45GB when I backed out. When I typed the archive size into the field it didn't keep/hold the numbers (i.e. I typed 1492MB and it went to 1.45GB). It made 7 archives of 1.45GB with the last one slightly less than 1.45GB.

My DVD-R media is Sony DVD-R Ver.2.1/1x-16x 120min/4.7GB. I didn't see my spindle of Sony DVD-R media listed. I'm not certain which link from that Afterdawn forum gives the rankings. Still, it's a useful site -bookmarked it before.

Does anyone know the correct parameters/changes I should make in Nero 6 to make sure the .tib's are burnt precisely as ATI made them? Possibly the default options? I'm leary of Nero 6 as last time I tried this I ended up with a coaster of Nero .nc_ files made by Nero BackItUp. Wish me luck - I'm going to try burning the .tib's onto my DVD-R's today.

 

The conservative people on this forum will tell you to set your burning program to burn at a maximum of either half the rated speed of the DVD or half the rated max speed of the drive. So if you have a 12X drive and 8X media tell Nero or whatver to burn at 8/2=4X maximum.

I'll pass on a comment I've seen but take it as a comment and nothing more: Sony CD media was excellent, their DVD media is not as good.

You have to know who made the media and also what factory it came out of since companies may just put their name on disks they are getting for a good price. Brand XYZ made in Japan may be excellent but the same brand made in China may be poor.

 

No, don't use Nero BackItUp. Simply burn the .tib files as Data - use the Data feature in the Nero Express menu.

And as you have found when you specify the split of 1492, Acronis changes it to the nearest matching size - that's okay. Three of those will fit on a dvd.

 

As far as TI is concerned, 1GB = 1024MB. Therefore 1492MB divided by 1024MB = 1.45703125GB, which TI then curtails to 2 decimal places i.e. 1.45GB.

Regards

Menorcaman

 

This is one of those things that is a pain in the anatomy when it comes to computer stuff. The techies and programmers like 1GB=1024MB because it is the actual amount that can be addressed using the binary bits.

The advertizing people like using 1GB=1000MB because it makes the numbers look bigger when they are trying to peddle HDs and DVDs. Things like DVDs holding 4.7GB where the other method gives a number closer to 4.3GB