Drive Clone 3 Pro & Norton Ghost 12

I wouldnt be looking any further than Paragon HDM for an imaging solution, if it wasnt for the fact that the Paragon Recovery Disk completely screws up my Drive letters when trying to restore.
I am not new to imaging software having used Ghost, and ATI for a number of years, but it can get very confusing at a time when you have had a system crash and are already stressed to have to try and figure out what the program requires for input. Yes, all my drives have labels, but I can't see why Paragon is not able to get it right. Even ATI which I have had bad experiences of in the past identifies correct drive letters.
Otherwise it is a fine program, but spoilt by this quirky and potentially dangerous behaviour.

@Erik Looking through the DC3 manual, there is an option to restore the MBR. What I dont like is that it also uses a "Secure Area" (on the system drive) and it also seems to be a very large program install. (250Mb) which is even bigger than Norton!!

Be interesting to see reports from Ghost 12 testers

 

Very good points. However, when you have covered a good amount of variables (filesystems, enough hardware support, reliability, enough features), the app shouldn't need great maintenance.
Some folks are using imaging apps from 2002/2003 without troubles
Obviously, a freebie won't conquer/dominate the market, but it'll have its place.

 

I installed the 30-trial version of Norton Ghost v12.0, but couldn't create a Recovery CD, because it was greyed out.
As usual Norton takes over your job and conducts the backup.
So you better let Norton guide you to take full advantage of Norton's backup system.
All very userfriendly and informative, visual gadgets, messages, green=good, red=do something, so that you can't forget your backup. It has even a visual calender of what is done.
According member "mata7" Ghost is able to recover all FDISR-snapshots.

Pretty fast backup, not faster than ShadowProtect but very close.
Certainly an Image Backup software for less-knowledgeable users, but a bit overloaded.

This is an overview of tasks and tools.
Tasks
Run or Manage Backups
Run, define, remove or edit an existing backup job.
One Time Backup
Create a one time independent recovery point without saving the backup job for future use
Recover My Computer
Recover my computer to a specific time and day when it was working correctly
Recover My Files
Recover specific files or folders that have been lost, damaged, changed or deleted

Tools
Manage Backup Destination
Optimize the hard drive space being used for storing backups
Copy Recovery Point
Copy an existing recovery point to CD,DVD or any physical location
Convert to Virtual Disk
Convert an existing recovery point to a virtual disk format, such as a VMware VMDK file
Copy My Hard Drive
Copy all existing files, programs and settings from one hard disk to another
Run Recovery Point Browser
View and recovery files within recovery points

 

Sorry Kenny, but you don't have that right... Here are the comparative requirements for Acronis TI 10, Drive Clone 3, Norton Ghost 12 and Paragon HDM 8.5. The following system requirements were taken directly from the product's website.

Software ... Min CPU (MHz) ... Min RAM (MB) ... Disk Space (MB)

ATI 10: ...............133 ............... 128 ................... 150
DC 3.0: .............. 133 ............... 512 ................... 130
Ghost 12: ........... 300 ............... 512 ................... 160 + 280*
PHDM 8.5: .......... 300 ............... 128 ..................... 40

* Norton Ghost 12 requires .NET Framework 2 before it can be installed on Windows - which adds 280MB of disk space (not to mention processing overhead)! To be fair, I should mention that the .NET Framework requirement disappears if Ghost 12 is used only from its Boot CD.

 

lol so 300 CPU, 512Ram and 300mb hard drive space is allot, how many people you think that use a computer Whit that specification today, i really don't get it, you really think people care about thus low requirement

 

Sorry PV. From the DC manual I got this :-

250Mb Free disk space for installing Drive Clone. I assume this to be for the program itself?

 

ErikAlbert, how many processes loads at start-up?

Thanks
^Ale

 

only 2 but you can turn it off if you want to, and they use like 3mb

 

Thank you Mata.

^Ale

 

Kenny, at this point I can only presume that the 250MB in the manual is overhead for DC's first 'RestoreIT' snapshot. You have to understand that unlike ATI, NG and PHDM, DC3 supposedly provides the functionality of RestoreIT ('instant-restore snapshots') in addition to its disk-imaging functionality!

However, all of that is guesswork at this point. I will be testing DC3 and possibly NG12 (by just using its Boot CD) in the near future, so I'll know for sure at that time.

~pv

 

Don't you have to buy both to create a Recovery CD, because this CD is not included in the trial version

 

That's true Erik, but I'm sure I can borrow the boot-disks from the IT Dept (they have full copies which were purchsed for evaluation).

 

DriveSnapshot: There is NO INSTALLATION NEEDED, just run it.
Recovery Media fits on a FLOPPY.

It requires you to type a command at the DOS prompt, please don't give up on that too soon
Like Graham says:

If you like simple, you like DriveSnapshot.

 

Hi pv. Thanks for the info. Please let us know what you think of the programs.

kenny

 

wil, is there an iso available to create a Boot CD? - nowadays, floppies are no longer common-place!

You got it kenny (but don't expect it tomorrow)!

 

I have been playing with DriveSnapshot.
The backup is pretty fast, very close to ShadowProtect, the verification lasts almost 5 times longer.

The Recovery Diskette however doesn't give me a menu, just a DOS-prompt A:>. That's 20 years back.
(You can't restore from Windows, DS doesn't allow this like ATI.)
Am I right about this or am I missing something ?

 

http://drivesnapshot.de/en/Tips.htm

20 years back, that is like the old good times, right?
Did you try to launch drivesnapshot in one of your BartPE CD's?

 

I have to admit i'm suspicious of any imaging app that is as small as what's been described. But, if it restores along the same lines as the big players, which i have reservations about that, then i suppose it's as reliable an alternative as one might need for emergency recovery.

Seems to me something is not exactly on que with it but i won't discount it's ability since i never tried it, but i think i would rather stick with a big league player in PARAGON like others do in Ghost & Acronic, unless theres something earth shattering about it i simply couldn't do without.

 

For those who grew up with DOS and still know DOS, it might be back in the good old days, but that generation of users will fade away.
You don't give applications with a DOS-interface like DriveSnapshot to less-knowledgeable users, you give them at least a menu with options.

Yes, I have a BartPE CD, which is not exactly what I'm looking for. Recovery CD's seem to be a general problem for Image Backup softwares. None of them seem to have a good one or don't give them during the trial period.

The best and fastest loading Recovery CD, I've seen until now was Paragon, but it doesn't recognize USB and is therefore worthless.
Nevertheless it proves that a fast loading CD is technically possible, they only have to fix the USB problem.

 

Hold on there. You should rephrase that. You can't consider the CD worthless just because right now it doesn't support USB Drives, which i assume what you're getting at.

Not everyone takes that route. Some of us forego externals for a simple internal hard drive. Yeah, it takes a little effort but then you have to open the hood of your vehicle once in a while to add fluids, etc.

Not useless, just not supported ATM.

 

One thing this thread demonstrates is that there is not (and never likely to be) a 'one-size-fits-all' solution. We all have different demands, expectations and technical skills which will make one user very comfortable with a particular solution and others who think that route is a complete nonsense .

I have to say that I am rather more suspicious of the application that requires 100MB of code to do what I want when DS manages it with a tiny fraction of that . I have been using it since 2004 and although I have tried out many backup solutions since then, DS is the one I always come back to.

....and I defend your right to stick with whatever you are comfortable with . For me, DS is like a poor man's ShadowProtect IT, at a fraction of the cost. I have it on my pen drive and can backup whatever and wherever I need to.

Did I mention that it wasn't for housewives?

It is true to say that DS would have a much wider market if the authors gave it a front-end from DOS and I have said as much to them but he/they presumably have their own reasons for avoiding this.

To put it into perspective though, you don't need to be a dos guru to use it (I'm not!). For simplicity, I will normally put a copy of the program in the directory where the backup is to be restored from so that I don't have to remember path names. A normal restore would then just consist of navigating to the backup directory and typing:

snapshot restore hd1 auto filename.sna

...and that's it!

As Wilbert says, BartPE or, my preference as it is so useful, Ultimate Boot CD for Windows are completely dos-free alternative options and DS doesn't even need to be built in as a plug-in, it can just be run from wherever you have it stored.

Graham

 

@Graham. Very interesting that DS can be used with Bart and not need a plugin. Do I take it that you just use A43 file manager to navigate to where the program is and run it from that?

I take it this would mean more to me if I get the program and try it?...

Good to have your input.

 

I know how to work with DS, I grew up with DOS-commands, but that doesn't mean I have to approve it, when I have the less-knowledgeable user in mind, who doesn't know anything about DOS, because he is used to the userfriendliness of Windows, where each application is menu-driven.

I don't even understand why Recovery CD's are such a big problem and certainly not in 2007. If USB was something exceptional, I would understand, but USB's are common on most computers nowadays and Image Backup CD's have still a problem with USB's. Maybe my sister would accept this, but not me. If one company comes up with a Linux CD, BartPE CD or WinPE CD, the rest follows, but that doesn't mean they fixed it. As a user you are just lucky when you have the right CD and USB to do a restore.

 

You keep talking up satisfaction about DS like that nexstar and you'll have me jumping ship, well, at least joining company with me long time fav.

I like to read more results about DS. Does is also save the MBR? Partition Table? etc?

 

You keep talking up satisfaction about DS like that nexstar and you'll have me jumping ship, well, at least joining company with me long time fav.

I like to read more results about DS. Does is also save the MBR? Partition Table? etc? Can it clone at all? How reliable in a pinch is it?