Image for windows and restoring c: drive

I am evaluating Terabytes IFW. I have done a image of my C and D partition on to a external USB drive.
This program is very simple to use I guess that is why many praise it

This is my conclusion, please correct where I am wrong:

1. If I want to restore my C: drive I will have have to install and use IFD (Image for Dos) since for obvious reasons I cant overwrite C: while I am booted into it.

2. IFW will split the image to many files with the size of 2Gb or 698Mb, not one large file. In my case 7 2Gb files for C: and 25 for D:

3. Incremental backups are not possible. I will have to do the backup from scratch everytime.

I downladed the Makedisk program from Terabyte to make a bootable CD, but it says a file called MAKEDISK.CFG is missing.
From the readme file for MakeDisk:

I cant find such file on my drives and there were none in the zip file.

 

Thanks for confirming Pete. Reliability is my main priority and simplicity often provides just that

 

Just a small point

Correct, you cannot overwrite the active partition with IFW
From the IFW manual:

IFD is not "installed": boot from the floppy or cd you have created.
Remember to use DOS naming for your image file for IFD to recognise it.

The BING boot disc will also allow image restores from "outside" the OS.

The image created may require more space than you think to restore.
Your "disc properties" may say "10g used 30G free" or such; however, the actual 10G of data may be spread over 20G space on the disc and so the restore will require at least 20G.

If you are using another backup option like FDISR then there will need to be evn more space to allow functions related to the snapshots.

You could get a rough idea of how the data is spread by viewing your partition in a defragger GUI. There are other mapping utilities but I dont Know enough to use them.

Bing can shrink your system partition without loss of data prior to imaging if you wanted. Same size data, just smaller image to restore.

HTH.
Longboard.

 

And thank you Longboard. I have noticed that you like Bing and your postings here have made me curious about it. It looks like a very interresting piece of software, but I think that I can not use it since Firstdefence do not like to have any other software competing of the MBR. Unless I am wrong in beliving that those two programs are not compatible.

 

My pleasure
I have FDISR on my box and am using the BING boot floppy with no problems to date.

You are correct that INSTALLING Bing to your HD will take over the MBR and wil probably cause conflict with FDISR. I have not tested that!

The only thing that has happened to me with BING from floppy was after shrinking my 'C' (system) partition with FDISR installed, it moved the location of the $ISR files on the partition and I had to do a reboot for FDISR to "find itself". I have imaged and restored the "C" partition with FDISR and snapshots with no problem.

You are correct: BING is a great utility. Obviously not needed all the time, but I use it now interchangably with IFW and IFD. Particularly when restoring images and needimg to resize partitions. I have learnt a lot about partitioning work and boot management.

Currently this is true and may not be a bad thing if you read about corrupted incremantals and differentials in other imaging utilities. It is a bit of a time issue, but, as you say reliability is key here. 20 minutes or so is not too great a hardship IMO.

Having said that read here:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/cgi-bin/dnewsweb?cmd=article&group=public.announce&item=33&utag=
Sounds exciting; especially the bit about "free"

Get the lot for the discount you wont regret it.

Check this thread for experiments with IFD and FDISR and recovery options.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=802464#post802464

Regards

 

Due to all the praise, I purchased IFW/IFD. It is an incredibly simple program to use. I made my c drive image directly to DVD so it would just boot up on restore. I held my breath last night and for the first time fully restored without a hitch. It recognized the boot disk and restored and verified the c drive. It's back to when I set it up perfectly. Thanks to all of you Terabyte people who turned me on to this easy easy imaging program. As for True Image, I'm glad it works for some, I had nothing but trouble and the support was less than helpful. This new program is just what I had been looking for.

 

Just a point of clarification from an earlier posting...sorry I've been at a golf outing over the weekend, so I'm a little behind.

One never really installs Image for DOS, but rather an IFD disk is created that is used to run the program. The program runs from the disk when it is inserted.

 

Yup, I have now realized that. All I have to do now is to see if restoring works flawlessly and then I´ll buy it.
One more question:
I have for some reason hard to find the info on their site, (maybe it is too obvious?) but I assume IFD is fully functional during the trial period? ie I can do a normal restore without any limitations?

 

Yes, all Terabyte software is fully functional during the Trial, at least it used to be.

Acadia

 

Hey, thanks a lot for that, longboard. That does sound exciting. Hopefully, Terabyte's programmers will stick to the KISS principle as they've maintained it up until now.

 

I am interested in this issue as so far I have found this to be the single advantage of ATI over IFW. So u mean while choosing between the two, this feature should not matter much( BTW, I have never used any one of the rwo)?
Also how the two( ATI and IFW) compare in regards the image compression.
Thanks.

 

It takes much longer to do a full image rather than just update with new and changed files. I guess it is personal preference. I really dont need incremental. I can put it to imagine the drive when I go to sleep. Personally I like to keep it simple in programs like this, because the more features you have, then there is slightly higher risc that something might go wrong.

I cant speak for ATI, but the image I have made, with IFW, of my C: drive is 13Gb, uncompressed it is 22Gb. Thats pretty good imo.
I have not yet done a full restor of my C drive, but I Belive that the image I made contains all my FDISR snapshots (they are not compressed by FDISR). I also made an image of my D: drive containing (uncompressed) 56Gb of data. It didnt seem to compress that as much (obviously it depends on that there are more already compressed files in D: mostly games) The IFW image is 52Gb

*edit*

I have now done a full restore of my C: drive. Everything went fine. So easy and flawless. All the snapshots where there. Software bought

 

Expect to see an average of 40 to 45% compression with IFW/IFD/BING. If your D partition contains a lot of COMPRESSED files (*.VOB, *.MPEG, *.WMV, *.CAB), then the resulting image file may only be a few MBs smaller than the source partition.

There are reports about a bug in True Image 9.x where the resulting image file would be BIGGER than the source partition if TI is set to compress those files. I don't have TI9, therefore, I cannot confirm this.

 

Thats true. I forgot that I have alot of zipped movies on that snapshot and now I noticed I had a couple of Linux distros (cd images) too

 

Can u do it with ATI? Thanks.

 

My opinion is that one should avoid overwriting the active partition. Unless there is some special reason one has to restore while active, this seems a risky endeavor.

 

I find it hard to belive that any program can over write Windows while it is activ.

 

I should try and clarify this a little:

For system partition restore;
If only single boot system; then need IFD or BING to overwrite system partition from outside OS, can use images created by IFW/BING or IFD.

If you have multiboot system then can restore with IFW from other OS.
Any of the image options will restore any other partition as req.

There is one other option provided by Terabyte: COPY/WIPE.
It is possible to keep a copy of OS partition (or any other) on External HD or other media. Copy function "could" be used to restore system partiton: will overwrite existing data.

This might be helpful:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=140271

Regards.

 

Not I. I have multiple alternative means of getting to Terabyte's website and multiple copies of my license info. available.

 

I made a second CD for ATI...just in case.

 

Me
Have hard copies of IFD and BING discs.
Have terabyte files and instructions and discs copied to 1Gb portable flash USB , so could take them anywhere to recreate if req.

Next box will have mobo/bios that can boot from USB port.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/09/windows_in_your_pocket/index.html
That should cover it.

HMMM; Might have to make a couple of CDs as it looks like floppy drives are on the way out
Or; make PE CD with IFW plugin