Image Mounting vs. Image Test Restore ... Which Is Better?

Hello,

As several of you know, I recently used TI 9.0 Home to help me move my data, partitions, etc. from my Dell-included Samsung 80gb internal hard drive to my newly installed Seagate 160gb internal hard drive. The 160gb drive is now the only drive in my primary pc and contains all programs, files, etc. The reason for me beginning this thread is that I am questioning whether my initial planned use of the now unused 80gb hard drive is necessary.

Now that the 160gb drive has been installed in my primary pc, I planned on using the freed up 80gb drive to do test restores of images created with TI 9.0 and saved to my 250gb My Book external hard drive. My plan was to create an image, save the image on the My Book external drive, and then restore the image to the 80gb drive to make sure the image could be successfully restored in case the 160gb drive became unusable. Since I have two PCs, I would also repeat this process on my second pc (moving the 80gb internal drive to the 2nd pc each time I wanted to do a test restore of that pc's image).

Since I have become more experienced working with TI images, I realize that "mounting" an image would not likely be possible if the image was corrupt or would fail to restore. Although I have not created more than a few images, when creating images, I always have TI validate the image, and all images have validated successfully. I have also always "mounted" the images to make sure I could access files (as a secondary check of the success of the imaging process).

My question is, if I always have TI validate images during the creation process and always test-mount the images successfully, do I gain any additional level of confidence by restoring the image to another internal hard drive? Obviously, the best way to assure yourself that an image will restore successfully is to do a test restore, but would a corrupt image allow a successful mounting? Does anyone suggest doing image mountings and image restores to fully verify that the images will restore successful in the future in case the primary drive becomes corrupt?

If doing test restores is not beneficial, it will allow me to avoid having to move the extra 80gb drive back and forth between two PCs (which would be needed to accomplish the test restores). I will do it if there is a benefit, but need your input to determine if there is any benefit.

Thank you in advance.

 

Validating an image gives 100% confidence that an image has been written correctly. Mounting an image as a virtual drive proves its existence and that it can be read. However neither of these can guarantee that a restore using a particular hardware software combination will work. This is why I believe that a test restore be done to a spare drive. I do not suggest that this is done for every image but a sensible minimum would be one when first setting up the backup procedures. Then another after making storage hardware changes and a further test restore after installing a new build or version of True Image.
Because of the chore of swapping drives I eventually got round to fitting an exchangable hard drive system. Drive swapping is now so simple and quick that I do frequent restores and bypass the validation and mounting checks completely.
Different strokes for different folks .

 

Xpilot,

Perfect! This is very good news and excellent advice. Since mounting is an easy task, I will continue to validate and mount every image I create. As your suggested I will also do test restores to my spare hard drive only when I make changes to my storage devices or install a new build/version of True Image.

Your advice allows me to avoid having to do test restores with every created image (saving me alot of time and unnecessary trouble)