Alternative to True Image (nervous nellie)

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by bellgamin, Jul 18, 2006.

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  1. jbak

    jbak Registered Member

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    How does it work when you do it from another machine? Over LAN?
     
  2. crofttk

    crofttk Registered Member

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    That's precisely how I did it with Retrospect.

    Another way would be to take your new (or recovery candidate) hard drive out of your machine and open another machine up and put it in as a slave drive, run the restore from that machine's master, and then take it out and put it back in your machine as the master, ready to boot -- that's more along the lines of how you work with cloning, except you would normally clone the master to a slave, then take the slave out and put it in safe keeping somewhere offsite to use on that same machine if its hard drive goes south.
     
  3. HAN

    HAN Registered Member

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    Just wanted to add my 2 cents. :)

    I have been using IFW and then later soley IFD for the last couple of years. There is no other software I trust as much. I image to DVD every week or two and never bother verifying anymore. For various non-malware reasons, I restore from images approx every other month or so. IFW/IFD has never failed me.

    Oh that other Windows PC programs were as reliable... ;)
     
  4. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    Just wondering!
     
  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    You are right about that. I've gotten to the point, every image I create, I restore, as the final test. IFW/IFD have never failed.
     
  6. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    There are reasons to mount an image.
    It is not a bell and whistle.
     
  7. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Howard

    I understand why you want to do that, but for the average user, I don't think it's an issue.

    Pete
     
  8. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    What are those except to verify the image.
     
  9. crofttk

    crofttk Registered Member

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    You can extract individual files just like from a file based backup, for one thing.
     
  10. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    In case of IFD and BING u can,t mount but I think u can still get files by additional free tools. So no need for mounting. Am I correct?
     
  11. crofttk

    crofttk Registered Member

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    That's correct, aigle. Someone else will have to give you reasons why mounting is not a bell and whistle that IFD and IFW are not capable of doing without mounting.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2006
  12. HAN

    HAN Registered Member

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    One example was when I tried out a new software firewall (the name of which I won't mention.) It gave me my first major BSOD dump I've ever had on this PC. Needless to say, I picked up my most recent IFD restore set and in approx 45 or so, I was happily back to using my PC as if nothing had happened... :)
     
  13. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    1. Extract files and directories.
    2. Work with the files and directories and save, or not, the changes.
    3. Remove malware from the archive in lieu of discarding the archive.
    4. Correcting incorrectly restored dates/times. See http://www.standards.com/index.html?ChangefileTimes
    5. Comparing files.
     
  14. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    Thanks. I am not expert so can,t say anthing that BING/ IFD can do all these in some other ways or not.
    However I can well guess that all these options are mainly for advanced users.
     
  15. Fruit

    Fruit Registered Member

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    I scanned through most of this "debate" about ATI/BING/IFD/IFW/etc but have one question: Which, if any, of these will work with my RAID array as my only hard drive? When installing Windows, you need to install a driver for it (the F6 option) -- an Intel ICH7R. Obviously, for anything that runs while Windows is running, access to the drive is not an issue. I'm concerned primarily about the restore case -- with separate boot floppies/CDs/partitions, will I have a driver available to access the RAID array?

    I used to use Ghost 9 but gave up with Ghost 10 for all of the reasons I've seen expressed by others. So, I'm looking for a replacement product.
     
  16. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I've only actually tested restores with IFD/IFW. My new desktop is a raid 0 array and IFD (Image for DOS) works just fine, as does FDISR and Perfect Disk. IFD just see's my c: drive as one big disk.

    Pete
     
  17. Clearline

    Clearline Registered Member

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    Hi
    My first reply in this forum

    I repair, customize and rebuild systems. It is now a standard practice for me, before doing any work on a system, to put a boot cd in, and stream a backup image to my system over the network. (or I pull the hardrive, and make the image in a usb enclosure). So if anything goes wrong I can just put the original system back.

    While working on a system, I may make many backups, to preserve my work and have had to reinstall them on occassion. TI has allways performed well. I have also booted it from USB cards, on computers that would, and it ran fine.

    On my own system, I run it for my drv C: about every two weeks, as my system is always changing. Full system crashes have set me back months till I got evertything reloaded and running. Now a system restore takes about 15 minutes.

    When I back up C:, I am usually using the system, but try to work on files in other drives, but as far as I can tell, TI hasn't ever had a problem backing up an active system.

    I use multi drives and partitions, Drv C: being only for program files. Temp files, documents, pictures, videos, multimedia, are all out on other drives, so my drive C: is usually under 6gbs, and the backup about 2.5 gbs. I save the files to one of the other drives, and then on occassion move them over to a DVD-RW backup. Very few incrementals, they are usually full image overwrites, and take < 10 minutes to make.

    I am a picky programmer and have some minor complaints about the program, but overall this is the best all around multi system backup program that I have used; and I don't feel a need or inclination to test others. :thumb:

    Majic
     
  18. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Majic

    Welcome to Wilders. Your right. It's wonderful when you get a program you are confident in.

    Pete
     
  19. twhk000

    twhk000 Registered Member

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    Hello All

    Just went through the posts which backup image software is good. To say so and so software is good and degrade any other is simply ignorance. My question is give me one software which has never failed.........Can anyone ?


    That is to those who cant see anything beyond there nose.


    I m using ATI since couple of months and i must say it did fail once and i think its a bug or what i cant say yet (I will describe that later) however apart from that i did restore one single image of my healthy lovely system which i ideally desire and it keeps restoring it in 30 mins...without failing so far....


    ATI is pretty simple and ease to understand use it and it works well along with FDSIR and its a deadly combination along with ZoneAlarm and steganos spyware...and jv16 system tools.....

    You have a pure imaging ATI software and instant recovery software FDSIR


    More to follow

    Knight
     
  20. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    I'm also using ATI + FDISR and I'm also trying to convince Terabyte-fans, that BING/IFW/IFD will fail one day, but it's hopeless. :D
     
  21. Tommy

    Tommy Registered Member

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    Hm, i guess you jumped on the 'Ironic-Train', no? :D
     
  22. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    You got that right. :)
     
  23. bellgamin

    bellgamin Registered Member

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    In your opinion, Erik, WHICH of the following (#1 or #2) is hopeless...

    1- Trying to convince us Terabyte-fans that BING/IFW/IFD will fail one day?
    OR
    2- The possibility that BING/IFW/IFD actually WILL fail.

    As to the former -- maybe in a millennium.:p
    As to the latter -- Dream on, kimosabe!:D

    I have restored & restored & restored (ad nauseum) using IFD multiple times. I do so every time I test a software & decide to dump it -- which is often. In all seriousness, IFD is MUCH less fragile that ATI. The big difference is that IFD isn't dependent on Windoze, whereas ATI is.

    As to FDISR -- have you tried RestoreIt yet, Erik? It sounds really quite good and I would value your comments (vis-a-vis FDISR) if you ever decide to give it a whirl.
     
  24. Tommy

    Tommy Registered Member

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    It was a joke from Erik :D
     
  25. twhk000

    twhk000 Registered Member

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    Hi folks

    I repeat.... give me a name of a software which has never failed?

    I will give a very few and simple reasons as to why i am sticking with ATI...

    I m not a software or hardware geek? that doesnt mean that i cant evaluate softwares......lol

    Secondly i have tested ATI by crashing my hard disk and it restored my entire Active partition..... Many people talk about ATI is windows dependent well you are making me to feel that on your computer ATI screen apart from back up option nothing else appears?...... There are options in ATI by which you can backup/Restore your system without windows...either by activating ATI startup manager or through the recovery disk...You can back up your entire computer by accessing ATI mini os use the simple GUI ....

    I believe that ATI has shown for more consistency and reliability in imaging and restoring than any other software....


    About RestoreIT it will never work with ATI and Restore IT is an instantneous recovery software and lemme tell you when you load that up on your system if it works it works but if doesnt it willl give a headach...and more over there are compatibility issues with other softwares working along with RestoreIT .... and it might slow down your system a bit...as well... but over all its a good software for simple usage but you cant experiment much with it. It has its own limitations as well...


    Knight
     
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