During testing of "IFW -Image for Windows" (one thread above), on a PC and after encountering several issues, I gave up. I tried D.S. and found it to be a very nice and simple program for backing-up. The problem is with the restore. There is no CD for this process and I have no skill using the DOS. Is there a simple way do perform the restore for someone who has no knowledge in DOS?
IFW has a nice boot ISO creator built-in. Once you make a USB boot stick with it you are good to go. No need to use command line prompt at all.
@samy, if you are still able to boot your system into Windows, then image recovery is very easy by using one of the recovery options on DS' main screen. In that situation, you 'tell' DS where your image-file(s) are located, respond to a couple of prompts, and DS will do the rest (i.e., it will reboot your system, enter into DOS, and perform the recovery, all automatically). A great feature of DS is that its executables (snapshot.exe, snapshot64.exe) are 'portable', meaning they do not require any other items (programs/registry to run and that they are able to run stand-alone from any other Windows environment (therefore, the DS executable can be copied onto any other internal drive/partition or external drive)! So in the event your system will not boot into its own Windows you can run DS from any Windows PE or RE boot-disk. After booting up into Windows PE/RE you just need to 'navigate' to wherever you have a copy of the DS executable and run it; then the process is as indicated above.
Hi, thanks for your time 1. Oliverjia- I created a bootable ISO CD, made a backup test using it and seems to work fine. The only problem the time is too long (twice the one it took for DS from within the windows) I stopped this test and will perform it during night. The problem was that I cannot run IFW on this PC from within the window. I will try IFW on another PC. Is it possible to create a USB boot stick directly from IFW, or do I have to use softwares like Yumi (or similar ones). 2. Pvsurfer - If I understood correctly: I have copy the appropriate executable (from the Program Files) on an external drive. When I reboot the PC using a Windows PE or RE boot-disk, I can see all the connected external drives (with their contents), and from there the executable. How to crate a Windows PE or RE boot-disk. Which is the preferable one.
@samy: Re your Win PE boot disk question, from what I'm reading above I believe your IFW CD can serve that purpose. If not, I would suggest the free AOMEI PE Builder which includes the free AOMEI Backupper, a reliable, versatile and easy-to-use image backup program (while DS is excellent it's not free)! PS. AOMEI Backupper can be installed on your C-drive so that you can make 'hot' backups, using the PE for restoring.
Samy, yes IFW does come with an app that will help you create a bootable recovery environment. It's very easy to use, and I could help you with that if you want. If you are going to be backing up more than one partition, I suggest you not use Drive Snapshot because it does not allow imaging of multiple partitions within the same image file. It's also important to note that neither IFW or Drive Snapshot are free. If free is a concern, I suggest you take a look at Macrium Free.
Nate, what you say is factual, but DS can image multiple partitions at the same time, producing a separate image file for each partition. That has never been a hardship for me.
Correct. However I always hated that, and felt that it was better to err on the safer side and have a product that did not require separate images should they need to be restored.
