Two sets of Back Up Software on One machine?

Hi,
First, sorry for the strange title .

One of my machines comes with a 'Recovery Disk' instead of a copy of the OS (XP). The Recovery Disk is done with Norton Ghost and from what I can gather uses a 'secret, hidden' partition to restore to factory settings.

Would there be a conflict if I was to install another backup program and then made a backup of the machine with all the extra stuff installed after it left the factory. The Norton Ghost program isnt available to me to access on the machine, its just used when I use the recovery Disk

Hope this makes sense, confused myself after reading the above

Thanks in advance

 

Noone with any views ?

 

My daughter bought a Dell with supposedly Symantec recovery on it. It also had a copy of Ghost on a D drive which is in addition to the main C Drive. When she got the computer, I set it up for her, and looked at the Ghost which you had to register and pay for, so I uninstalled it. I don't want any Symantec products on my computers. However, she doesn't have any recovery disk, and I don't know how she's supposed to do a recovery if she has to. Was Ghost it? If so, I guess I'll have to get her an imaging app like Acronis or something right? Do you have any thoughts to help us?

 

Hi,

Sorry for late reply !

On my machine (XP-home) I too have such an hidden partition.
It was factory installed.
I too have a Recovery disk made when I first started to use the machine.
I don't know whether it is powered by Ghost

I have Acronis True Image 9.
I don't use its Secure Zone feature.
I make my TI backups to an external USB-2 HD.

I have no problem with making back-ups of my entire internal disk, nor with restoring, using True Image.

I hope that this helps a little bit.

 

1. I use Acronis True Image Home v9.0, as main backup for system partition and data partition. I didn't upgrade to v10.0 because all its new features make no sense to me, except compatibility with winVISTA, which I don't need in the next 5 years.
Nowadays, I would buy ShadowProtect as Image Backup software, because it's better than ATI, but I keep ATI because it didn't fail yet.

2. I don't see any benefit in running two Image Backup softwares.
I use FirstDefense-ISR as second backup (= archiving snapshots) and FDISR does alot more than that, what ATI or any other Image Backup software is unable to do.
Archiving snapshots is also much faster than any existing Image Backup software, but it doesn't cover harddisk-crashes, ATI does.

These two softwares together make you feel invincible, one of the psychological side-effects of this combination.

 

twl845, I think this should have been a separate thread. Unless I am mistaken, there should be a utility provided with her new Dell to create her own recovery discs (since Dell doesn't normally include discs with the purchase of the PC). Perhaps that utility is what you deleted? The Dell support site can be helpful - I recommend you check it to see what the provided recovery utilities are and how to use them. Dell will sell her recovery discs for her particular system for a nominal fee. But those discs will only restore the computer (assuming hardware is functional) to the factory state, no programs or files added since the factory will be there. It is possible her computer is setup to boot into the recovery partition if you interupt the normal bootup in a certain way, but again, this would probably offer her only an opportunity to restore to factory state. Just guessing here...

 

Optigrab, OK thanks for the info. I'll check with Dell.

 

I am looking into this too, and I have many questions myself... but I will tell you what I (think I) know: My Thinkpad comes with a hidden recovery partition and an IBM imaging/recovery program "Rescue and Recovery". From the unofficial Thinkpads forums, I have read that many owners successfuly image and restore with Acronis and Ghost. So it is obvious these programs can successfully image and restore both partitions if used properly. For Ghost 2003, the correct command line switch(es) and perhaps a setting in the BIOS are requires to get a completely usable image, but if done right, the image is fine and can even be used to migrate to a new hard drive. I imagine TI requires some user know-how also (perhaps not so much). I can't speak to the other imaging and roll-back programs often discussed here (ShadowProtect, IFD, RollbackRX, etc.) though I am very interested in them because the IBM product doesn't fill me with confidence and is quite slow.

 

Thanks for the replies. The pain is that I cant access Ghost on the machine. I only know its Ghost after doing a recovery and the Ghost panel came up when inserting the recovery Disk

 

i read in a pc mag that if you moan enough to dell they send you recovery discs
lodore

 

Good service, if you have to beg for your recovery discs.

 

lodore, Is there any special story that works? How about if I offer to pay for a replacement.

 

I've never had a problem installing True Image while leaving the OEM's recovery program installed. I don't think mine was Ghost, though, so I suppose compatibility is dependant on the specific program. I wouldn't expect there to be conflicts, however. Normally when I get an OEM machine I will format it using the provided license key and just install True Image, making an image as soon as I have the basic stuff installed.

 

Try Drive Snapshot. Acronis or Paragon would also work. But you should create a separate partition to put the image on. paragon will also successfully back up to DVD so maybe that would be an option.

 

You can add BootIt NG (BING) to the list of imaging apps that can coexist with a Thinkpad's system recovery tool. I have BING installed on my R40 as a boot manager. Installing BING to its own partition (although not required) did involve shrinking and sliding the existing factory partition to make room for BING's EMBR partition. Easily done, though, with BING's bootable disk. When I use IBM's system recovery to recreate a clean factory partition, BING's partition and functionality are unaffected.

Nick

 

you might as well offer to pay for recovery cd's
i dont know of any special storys sorry
lodore

 

That seems strange that dell didn't give you an OS disk. Everyone i know who has a dell got a windows installation cd with it.

 

Nick, thank you so much for that reply. I've had many questions about how not to interfere with Rescue & Rescovery. I am looking into adding either TI, Paragon or ShadowProtect because they support differential backups (though BING/IFD/IMW seem great). The problem is I don't yet wish to ditch R&R. I may PM you to pick your brains...

 

my old dell has a recovery cd.
the newer dell pc's all come with recovery partision.
unless you order online and scroll down to the option with cd instead of recovery partstion
lodore

 

Lodore & Farmerlee, Here's an update on my Daughters recovery disk. I checked at the Dell forum, and was told that my daughters computer has a PC restore feature that you access by pressing ctrl and f11 together during the period that the blue Dell startup bar shows at the top of the screen and release both at the same time before the PBR loading message comes up. It is a hidden partition, so the only way to see it is to execute the procedure. It restores to the factory status.
I was told to call Dell customer service and ask for a Windows XP sp2 reinstallation disk. I got the phone number off the support page and called. After an hour of wading through menus and waiting on hold, then transfered to sales and then back to tech support, I spoke to Mohammed who verified I'm still under warrante and said they will send the disk out tomorrow.

 

wow they are gonna send you a disc!
good work
lodore

 

Hi optigrab,

I've got a spare hard drive for my Thinkpad (in fact, it's the original that shipped with it). If I get some free time this weekend, I'll install Rescue and Recovery on it and see how it works. Will keep you informed...

Nick