Best program to back up an entire hard drive

This one is something that has always perplexed me. I am looking to backup (snapshot) my entire C: Drive for the simple reason that if anything goes wrong i would want to have something to restore my machine exactly how it was instead of the long route i.e doing the manufacturers system restore then spending days reinstalling all my software.

So i am looking for something reliable, very easy to use and something that will take an exact snapshot of everything on my c: drive including all settings i may have in place.

Which would you recommend to try. (can i also ask how good is norton ghost as that is the only one i have really heard of)

Thanks

 

Hi Anthony,
Ghost works fine for me.

 

Anthony,
A couple of recent threads.....
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=65420&highlight=backup
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=65288

Also you might want to look in the Acronis forum.
Cheers,
Buck.

 

I use Nero. I can easily fit my entire system to one DVD. Fast and simple.

 

I use Acronis TI also - seems to work quite well although I admit that the restores I have done so far have been "tests" and not under "duress" so to speak. Nonetheless, they have been successful up till now and I find the application rather intuitive - although I sometimes seem to disagree with others in regards to the intuitiveness of programs.

 

I retored twice my C: drive with Acronis TI without problems. Just pay attention if you have anti-malware progs on it regarding the updates of engines/definitions.

Gerard

 

Acronis True Image

 

Hi

I in a sense alternate between Ghost, Drive Image, and Acronis True Image

Ghost has been my first imaging software a couple of years ago, probably because of the hyper active policy of Symantec to promote their products (nothing wrong with that). I thought G2002 was a good product.

It served me well when I was running W98SE. Now I am on WXP, and current version (2003 and 9) does the job... BUT, when restoring an image, I get error messages... although the restoring process has unfolded without a crash. The restored drive seems to work flawlessly after that also, but I don't like those error messages, 'cause I can't be really sure everything is allright.

Rather expensive also, IMHO

Symantec recently bought Powerquest (which created Drive Image a few years back), but I still think Symantec has the bad habit of in some way mess up the good software they buy from other companies. Just IMHO, of course.

Acronis True Image was a good surprise for me. I came along it by chance, and decided I would give it a try. I must admit I tend to like Acronis's products more and more now I know them better. The only thing I hope will be improved in the near future is the needed time to restore images. Easily takes up on my machine (XPSP1 or SP2) four to five times (!) longer than Powerquest Drive Image for same quantity of data...
I love the interface, though, and the real time imaging works flawlessly and quickly, and I think it's a good thing another company stays in the competition for such softwares (would not be a good thging if Symantec should take the entire market shares!). Incremental imaging I first came across because of True Image. Much cheaper than Symantec's products, too, and Acronis products I tend to trust more.

Although no longer developed as such, nor by Powerquest, Drive Image 2002 I still prefer, even over the excellent Acronis. VERY quick, reliable, easy to use, never had any problem with it. The DI 7 version allows for real time imaging, but it needs .NET from M$ to install on your system (DI 2002 does not need anything at all to install). DI 2002 still works perfectly on WXP, but that's likely to go unnoticed in the future. Why? DI2002 installs and runs smoothly on WXPSP1. If you then upgrade to SP2, it will still work perfectly. What doesn't go without problem is installing directly on WXSP2
I love the StartUp Restore floppies pair created by DI2002. DI7 cd is also bootable, so the restore can be launched from this cd.

Old boxes of DriveImage7 are still available for buying on the net. If you do purchase one, make sure it is an original box, containing both DI7 AND DI2002.

Ghost 9 is, in a sense, a mix of Ghost and DI7, but as I've said, my heart went to DriveImage (Powerquest versions) and stayed there, although I'll be monitoring Acronis's future progress. Should DI become obsolete with future versions of the OS's, I'll go for Acronis.

 

The is no decent answer on your question, when you read the forums with topics about image programs and problems that exist with ALL of them, you will know what I mean.

It's a question of personal taste AND experience, my taste now is Symantec Livestate Recovery.

 

Forgot to mention that Floppies made from Drive Image to boot-and-create or to boot-and-restore will do the job eternally as long as one has the ability to boot the system from a floppy drive. It then has to be an integrated drive, because booting from an usb-floppy-drive is not possible.

 

i use to use norton ghost. worked great until i upgraded to sata drives.
i then tried acronis. pure crap as far as i am concerned. could not get it to do anything without problems.
i am now using "image for windows" . great program.. is not as graphically user friendly as the others, but it is rock solid. and cheap!!

 

I recommend Acronis True Image 8. Never had one problem with it.

Thanks,

Chris

 

I have been using GHOST forever ... at least 7 years? (Before Symantec bought the company that invented GHOST.)

My current GHOST is from Norton Ghost 2003 that fits on a boot floppy. I use the GHOST boot floppy and a Lite-ON 1633S DVD burner to make a bootable DVD.

I'm running W98, XP/SP2, SuSE Pro 9.2, and have NEVER EVER NEVER had any errors/problems with GHOST.

Mike

 

I used the Ghost version from Norton 2002 for a long time. When I decided to image to DVD media, that option was not supported.

I tried TI8, quickly forming the opinion that it is unreliable bloatware.

I use terabyte 'Image for DOS'. It's inexpensive, non-bloatware and reliable. I've successfully restored my OS partition from DVD media several times with this product.

Hope this helps!

 

Based on your clearly described objectives, I strongly recommend Acronis True Image. I have it on my home computer, and it works like a champ. You can read about this product, download their user guide for free, and buy it online.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Best wishes,

butterfly

 

A minimal install of Fedora, Ubuntu or any good Linux distro on another partition and run a program called Partition Image. It will save and restore your windows NTFS partition without need for cd, just reboot computer, load linux and It's what I use, no problems what so ever.

It only takes me 7 minutes to save this windows xp 3.00GB partition and around 5 to restore. Using Ubuntu.

 

Another Vote for True Image ... Which is the best Imaging Software I've used yet

 

I don't use any backup system to save my entire harddisk.

All my softwares are stored on CD or diskette.
All my personal files are stored on CD and deleted on my harddisk, except the ones I'm working on.
So my harddisk must be very boring for hackers, because it contains nothing but software and a few personal files and nothing on my harddisk exposes my identity, except my initials.
If something serious happens, I'm always able to re-install my computer from scratch at any time.

Most of my scanners congratulate me that nothing was found (Only an idiot believes that).
I don't trust any of these security softwares and that's why I re-install my harddisk twice a year to get rid of all the malwares, that weren't detected/removed by my scanners.

Why would I need an expensive backup system ?
Please tell me some good arguments to convice me that I really need one.
What's the point of having a True Image, when your computer is infected already ?

 

Hi Erik,

There are two main reasons for me ... 1. beta testing or just testing/tying out software temporarily, 2. Having a nice baseline image to start with after reformatting - With all your Security Apps and other programs installed and configured, services config the way you like them etc. etc. instead of fiddling around for several hours, it's just a quick update for windows (which you could DL'd prior to), and basically updating your security apps.

It all comes down to Acronis' slogan to me ... "Compute with Confidence" ... ~No Fear~

Steve

 

Dog,
Thanks alot for your reply.
Before I start reading all about Acronis, I have one question.
Can I create an Acronis True Image of my harddisk on CD and recover from that CD after re-formatting my harddisk ?
I have a PlexWriter 12/4/32 that is able to write on CD, not DVD.

Keep in mind that I don't mind the time that will be needed to create such a CD or several CD's. I'm just asking if it is possible ?
I wouldn't like to buy additional hardware to make an Acronis True Image possible, because all my hardware is still working fine and I don't need any additional hardware.

 

I use Acronis True Image...

 

VaMPiRiC_CRoW,
Sorry, but that doesn't make me any smarter and doesn't answer my question

 

Hi Eric,

Yes, Acronis will write direct to CD, and it can also write to DVD with the use of 3rd party programs such as Nero's InCD (and it is planned to have native support for direct DVD writing in a future release) . I don't write direct to CD/DVD, I create the image on the HHD (split into the appropriate size 650MB for CD, and up to 2GB for DVD), then burn them to disc later using Nero ROM. I generally store my images on a few different partitions on my secondary HHD, because it's much quicker to restore for the HHD, compared to CD or DVD (about 31/2 to 4 mins to restore my main partition on my primary drive - roughly 10GB uncompressed, the image file is roughly 4GB using normal compression)), but I also do burn those images to disc as backups for storage. (And as extra security I have two copies of my baseline image - just incase the unthinkable happens). Acronis has a bunch of nice features, such as setting the file split size manually, a few choices of compression levels, password protected image files, the ability to write a summary of the image.

All in all, as a former Ghost user, in didn't know what I was missing. True Image is worth every penny, it's one of the best software purchases I've ever made. Give it a whirl, you won't be disappointed.

Steve

 

ErikAlbert, I answered the author of the Topic