Alternative to True Image (nervous nellie)

For comparison BING/IFD/IFW see:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/prodgrid.html

 

@Bellgamin; What are you up to?
It sounds like you are rebuilding fromscratchif Iread your recent posts.
You seem to be testing and checking and re-jigging and looking for "best of" options.

From some-one with no discernable expertise at all

As per OP
1: cant comment. Never used it.
2: IFW/IFD/Copy wipe/BING IMHO; solid gold.
3:
Casper XP: http://www.fssdev.com/products/casperxp/
Drive Snapshot: http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/index.htm

Lots of others and can be v.expensive: Ultra-Bac: http://www.ultrabac.com/

4: dont know what that is?

As to other psts:

Cant agree with that go here and hit links
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/webnews.html
to see Terabyte support in the open and as noted EXCELLENT e-mail support, even for dodos. Good searchable KB from home page. Even some posts that admit errors in utilities and supply fixes !!

Sort of but better!
Easy to use with IFW/IFD/BING

Why do you need to mount? to check validity?: Do you not trust your utility??
TBI view (free) from Terabyte allows file by file view and copying out of image file.
Drive snapshot does a far better "mount" than Ghost imo.

To other novices; DO NOT BE AFRAID; BING WILL BE YOUR SALVATION
I novice. I very happy with BING. And use fdisr as well.

Yes. Easy peasy I can assure you.

Even a Dutchman can use it

You are right this is a fun thread.
Regards

 

Touché. If a bloody Dutchman can use it, you can use it !

 

Here's how I run BING:

1.Reboot PC and hit ENTER at the BING splash screen (15 seconds)
2.Click on PARTITION WORK
3.Right click on a partition if you want to create an image file of that partition, and select IMAGE\CREATE IMAGE. Right click on the partition or drive where you want BING to store the image file and select PASTE. Follow the on-screen prompts.
If you want to restore an image file, then right click on the partition or drive containing the image file, and select IMAGE\RESTORE IMAGE. Select the image that you want to restore and click OK. Right click on the partition that you want to restore this image file, and select PASTE. Follow the onscreen prompt. I would recommend a name for each partition (ex. WXP, DATA, PROGRAM, BACKUP, etc).

IFW is a good application, but I must use a boot disc if I want to image my primary active partition. BING does not require a boot disc because it resides in a small FAT16 primary partition at the end of the HDD. If you accidentally delete the BING partition, then you can still use the BING installation disc to restore the image file.

The folks at Terabyte also provide a free utility called Copywipe. This program can secure erase (several levels of wipe option) and COPY/CLONE a HDD. Very simple interface like BING.

There's another free utility for BING called TBIView. With this program, once can view the contents of the BING image file in windows, and extract any data within this image file.

With BING, you get an excellent e-mail technical support, and ultra generous upgrade policy. Many companies will make you jump thru fire before they will allow you to contact tech support. And their answers are often "generic". Throughout the years, all my e-mails to BING were answered accurately within one day.

 

I use Norton Ghost. It has never failed to restore an image.

Used True Image for a year or more and backed up regularly with verification of each backup.

When I had a problem and needed a restoration, all five of the ATI backups that I had created and verified as valid failed to restore. Ended up using a 6 month old Ghost Image which restored with no problems.

Took ATI off my machine until they straighten up their problems.

Norton Ghost, Norton Partition Magic and Symantec Internet Security are on sale in a package for $zero net cost after rebates at www.outpost.com. Postage and possibly taxes should be the only cost and that will be true on most things bought on line.

I downloaded a trial of a program called Shadow Protect after seeing it mentioned on a posting in this or another forum. It worked well and they offered a special of $35 for it in an email. Interface is simple and it backed up with no apparent problems.

 

But Ghost requires .NET? That's really stupid (hey, it's SYMC).

Didn't SYMANTEC purchased Drive Image and renamed DI to Ghost after some minor tweaks? I was a big fan of DI 5 until it failed to restore a highly overclocked PC.

 

Yes, Symantec acquired PowerQuest along with their software, including Drive Image and Partition Magic. Symantec also acquired several other software products, including the much discussed GoBack (from Roxio). Since Symantec's makeover of those programs, they have become bloated in size with degraded reliability. Way to go Symantec!

PS. Of course, Symantec's first major acquisition was Norton Software - and imho, they did the very same thing to Norton's products. Seems like everything they touch turns to sh*t...

 

SYMC has the LEAD touch. DI 5 was quick. Its image file was also more compressed than BING. Unfortunately, the newer versions were bloated and buggy, just like many SYMC proggies.

I hate software that would work okay most of the time, then when you encounter condition X, the damn thing would die! That's what happened to me with DI 5. A true workhorse until I push those AMD CPUs 30% above spec. The image file is not corrupt, but it may take +30 attempts before I can restore the image file! Sometimes, DI 5 would not see the image file, even though I can access the image file from Windows!

I also loathe greedy software developers who make the image file of an older version incompatible with the new version. If I lose my old software, then my old image file is worthless with the new software!

I purchased BING at the same time as DI 5 (2001). What I like most about BING is that it will either work OR fail with a PC. Encountered a PC with a damaged BIOS. BING would refuse to load/run.

 

Why use Rollback? Because I keep trying to justify the fact that I spent money on it. Ah well, I surrender. I'm moving to FDISR.

@furballi & pete & longboard & egghead & crofttk & all the others who spoke well of BING --

Ba-da-boom! ba-da-BING!
Hear me sing:
BING's the king

(I'm getting BINGed today. And THANKS for the great advice!)

@furballi- I have cut & pasted much of your BING How-to's into my archives. Thank you verrrry much.

NEW QUESTION- Even though I begin making new images using BING instead of ATI, I would like to keep a couple of the very early images that I made with ATI -- just in case I later discover something evil in my computer's groin area.

*Should I uninstall ATI before using BING? In other words, will ATI conflict with BING?

 

That's why I backup with both Ghost 10 and TRue Image 9, but Ghost is intrusive and see http://forums.hardwareguys.com/ikonboard.cgi?s=4492619c5fa1ffff;act=ST;f=13;t=4573.

I've been testing ShadowProtect.
It has problems, some of which I described in their forum at http://forums.shadowstor.com/Forums/.

I've got further positive and negative comments about ShadowProtect, but until they resolve why it won't back up two of my 10 drives, no point in expending the energy.

I do like that their personnel is upfront about issues I've raised.

I'm curious to see how long it takes to get a response to the rather severe problem I reported over the weekend.

 

That's strange ... when you already have a license for TI. Your willing to keep using a product that doesn't work properly and has issues ... yet you shy away from a product you have a license for ... yet haven't ever tried it ... basing your opinion on issues some others experienced? --- I find this hard to understand. I'll reiterate my opinion from the first page of this thread -> https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=798868&postcount=10

You've lost out on a great product.

 

I haven't tested TI9, therefore, I don't know if it will interfere with BING. Based on my limited knowledge of TI9, I would think that you're going to be okay. However, why not shoot Terabyte an e-mail to confirm this?

Remember, DO NOT purchase BING until you have completely tested the software. The download is FULLY functional. Simply enter the registration key if you want to use BING beyond the 30 day trial.

If you are unsure about how to load and use BING, stop and exit the program. Sent Terabyte an e-mail or post your questions in this forum.

 

They aren't for the same purpose. IFD/IFW can back up from windows and you would use IFD to restore system partitions, either one you would use for non-system partition restores.

IFD/IFW does imaging only and has a much higher functionality and plug-ins for that purpose than BING does.

BING, in my mind is PRIMARILY for multi-boot partition managment and is very complete in that respect, including the ability to back up and restore.

They are different enough to me that I was willing to buy both BING and IFD/IFW for the discount price.

Even though I already owned Partition Magic 8.01 (pre-Symantec) and Acronis Disk Director 10 I was willing to take on BING because I liked the potential for multi-boot and its simplicity, whereas PM is great, I view it effectively unsupported software from the point where Symantec bought and forward in time. I don't mean to pick on Acronis, but it's a fact that I had reliability problems with ADD too (not near as many as with ATI).

I'm happy with BING but not really actively using it. Any time I need partition management, I will pick one of the three softwares I own, but if I decide to try multi-booting, I will start off by trying BING at it, based on Fred Langa's recommendation, until I determine it should be otherwise.

 

If you stick STRICTLY to imaging entire physical disks with ATI, and restoring ONLY same entire physical disks when necessary, you will have no conflicts between BING and ATI.

ATI STILL has the problem, as I perceive it, that you have to pay good attention to make sure you don't get caught where you have "drive" backups but no MBR backed up and, if something happens to the MBR, especially a customized one which occurs with FD-ISR or BING either one, you could find yourself screwed.

 

Hi bellgamin,

I am also an Image for Windows / Image for DOS user. Excellent little program. There is a recent thread from this forum with good comments here:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=114475&highlight=terabyte

Rather than retype, I will quote my previous comments from post #13 from the above linked thread:

One other interesting but potentially scary observation. When using Acronis True Image, the creation of the image appeared normal without any warnings but discovered when I went to restore that the the images were corrupt. Not good. Again, not knocking TI, just did not work for me.

Hope this helps.

 

Uh-oh. Something new (to me, at least).

How does one go about backing up the MBR? (I thought a drive image would include the MBR. Wrong?)

 

As far as I know (i.e., unless it has changed in recent builds which I haven't tested), the only way currently to get ATI to back up the MBR is to activate the check mark next to "Disk 1", assuming your C drive is your boot drive and that it's on Disk 1. Selecting Disk 1 as a whole will image EVERYTHING on the physical disk including MBR, partition table, and ALL drives, whether primary or logical.

If you only select your C Drive (i.e., only activate the check next to C Drive), it will ONLY back up C Drive and NOT the MBR, partition table type info. You can still restore your C Drive if you only check that but you will not automatically get EVERYTHING you need for an MBR disaster by just checking C. This has been a thorn in the side of many a novice using ATI.

If worse comes to worst, one can boot from their Windows installation CD (assuming they have one) and enter the recovery console, where a standard MBR can be restored using the fixmbr command. Some people consider that not so big a deal for novices, others shudder at the thought.

As long as you select the disk for backup, you can freely experiment with multi-boot and partition management programs, like BING, since you then have EVERYTHING backed up. -- That's my main message to you bellgamin

However, remember you may want to have that "secondary backup" that you started this thread on already stowed away in addition to an ATI image before you make bold with the multi-boot and partition management stuff.

 

Thanks for the prompt & detailed reply. It helps me to better understand the *MBR factor.*

Please take a look at the screenshot below. In the build of ATI which I have, if I check "C" it automatically checks "Disk 1." Also, if I instead check "Disk 1" it automatically checks "C." So it looks like Acronis noticed the situation you mentioned, & fixed it (Attaboy, Acronis!). Does it look that way to you, too?

 

Well, I believe it behaved that way because you have ONLY the C Drive. Here's what mine looks like by default:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/crofttk/3rdstep.jpg
THAT's the trap waiting for a newbie who doesn't realize the implications of having only the C Drive checked. This selection would NOT back up the MBR. You have it simpler because yours has only the C drive -- and I must admit, perhaps so do the majority of novices. But, just in case you get "partitionitis", remember this problem.

The plain answer to your original question -- yes, it looks like they've got you nicely covered when you have only one partition -- YOUR default selection WILL backup up your MBR.

 

For true-blue drive imaging, I have gone with nothing but Terabyte's Image For Windows. It's very easy to use and has been rock solid in its stability and reliability. Directly boots a CD image from CD-ROM (or USB drive). Perfect.

----securityx----

 

The current version does not provide for MOUNTing of volumes from the archive.
THis is necessary to check an archive before doing a restore using programs such as:
ReadFile
GetFileTypeDistribution
CompareDrives