Looking for a disk imaging program

I am currently using Acronis 2013 and not thrilled with the hoops I had to jump through to get an image to restore. I want a no nonsense disk imaging program that will do full backup, incremental, and differential. I do not need any other features. No disk cleanup, no online backup, no additional services that run for extra garbage I do not need. It has to be reliable. This is for personal use on Windows 8 64 bit. Is there such a thing? I am having little luck finding it. I have had good luck with O&O DiskImage in the past, but their incremental/differential is slooooooooow.

 

Macrium Reflect PRO.

Best regards,

 

my vote Macrium Reflect PRO as well

 

Image For Windows.

 

+ 1 on that.

it's small, it works and it's fast.

just like it says on the tin.

 

My experience with o&o is that the differentials are slower than steam.But an actual incremental backup on my win 7 average 7-8 minutes(still no speed record)It is a reliable imager imo.

 

I usually did differentials but are you saying the incrementals were faster? I was sure I had tried incremental once to check the speed but maybe I should retest it. I see a 3 PC license is $49.95. I have a desktop and laptop so at least 2 licenses are in order.

The Macrium looks nice, but $118 is probably more than I can currently budget. I have heard others complain of activation issues with Macrium in the past, but I must assume they have resolved such problems by now.

I have never looked at the Image for Windows before. I guess I have some research to do. Thanks for the suggestions so far.

 

You may try Aomei backupper . I am using it to create full system backup and restore using boot cd. It has incremental and differential backups but I am yet to try these features.

http://www.aomeitech.com/aomei-data-backuper.html

I am using version 1.1. There is discussion here:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=339122&highlight=AOMEI

 

Another vote for Macrium. I have used it many many times to recover all my machines from botched updates, failed experiments, etc. It worked 100% of the time. I also used it to upgrade from one computer to another and also from HDD to SSD. No failures. It proved itself enough to be trusted.

 

I use the macrium rescue disk without the installation of macrium itself and it has worked flawlessly every time and i have restored approximately a dozen or so images with no side effects what so ever.

 

I have been using Image for Windows for several years. It is highly recommended.

 

xxJackxx,

IFW is licenced for 3 home computers and costs $39. IFD, IFL and TBOSDT Pro are included.

If you decide to buy, I suggest spending another $11 and getting the Bundle. In addition to the above it includes BootIt Bare Metal.

Each app has a free 30 day trial.

 

I dont wish to appear rude here.
But what on earth is the point of having a 30-day trial of an imaging program?

The chances are that when you really need to restore an image the trial will be over.

 

You can image and restore during the trial period. Many people would feel uneasy about restoring images but at least they can play with the menus, read the userguide and decide whether they like the software. Testing. If you need to restore after the trial period is over then you should buy the software.

 

you can test the software during the trial period to make sure everything is working fine, including creating disk images AND restoring them, and that you like the program.

then you can decide if you want to purchase it or not.

 

Thanks, I may have to give it all a look. I will probably wait until Moday or so. Then I will have access to all of my VMs which are perfect for this sort of testing, and I can consider these products work machines as well. We will likely replace Acronis there as we move to newer operating systems that our current version does not support.

To those that have suggested Macrium, it looks nice as well but the pricing seems a little high. I will probably test it at work as well, the boss always like to see more than one product evaluated in real world testing before spending money. For me personally I wish there were better deals on software for a desktop/laptop setup. Everything is per machine or for 3 (4 for Macrium). Where are the 2 machine deals? Though $39 for IFW is nothing to complain about.

 

TBOSDT contains a VM script (but it isn't in the trial). It does this...

// This script is used to do the following:
// 1) Copy a Windows installation on a physical drive to a new virtual drive
// to create,
// 2) Restore a TBI Image file to a new virtual drive to create,
// 3) Process Windows installations already installed on an existing virtual drive
// to make them bootable.
//
// This script can process VMWare Monolithic Sparse files (IDE or SCSI .vmdk files),
// and Virtual PC files (Dynamic Expanding or Fixed .vhd files).
// Depending on the type of Virtual HD file selected and the Windows installation,
// the script removes all old drivers, install the IDE drivers, the SCSI drivers
// (if needed) and the correct HAL file.
//
// This script can be run under Windows, DOS or Linux

 

Okay.
But im not going to restore images just for the sake of it to see if the program works correctly.
Why buy these programs when there are plenty of full free options available.Even windows itself has a perfectly capable imaging program.

 

I've written about the Windows Imaging app in the past. It has to be one of the worst and is not a patch on third party image/restore apps.

 

You would if your job depended on it. If the program you bought/recommended failed to restore an image then it would be a huge deal. And that is usually where a product fails.

Perfectly capable is a matter of interpretation. It does not do incremental/differential. Full backups require a lot of storage space and if you are replacing your previous full backup while in the process of creating a new one and the machine takes a dump while you are doing it you have nothing.

 

I ended up buying IFW and liking it works great, I like the way it backs up and restores. all flavors. So yes I changing my vote ;
Image for windows

Chris

 

Active DiskImage

I also bought a copy of their BootDisk wich is full of useful softwares and it was really helping me a lot at work.

 

Hi Brain,

I am computer savvy, but I find IFW very hard to use. For example never been able to use IFW incremental and differential. Also, every time I take a full backup I have to go through all the steps which is a pain.

My Image Drive is C
The destination drive and folder is D:\Imaging BackUp!\Image For Windows

Do I need to build a script and how?

Also first time I tried to do Backup (Changes Only) and went through the hoops. It started and half way it stopped with an error that PhyLock.sys doesn't have enough cache.

1. What does the above mean?
2. Is the above a incremental or differential image?
3. Do I need to build a script and how?


Best regards,

Mohamed

 

This is a secret. With one license of Macrium Reflect, you can activate 2 computers. They frown on this, but allow it. You have to activate both of them and the activation is online. If you want to activate to another computer, then you have to deactivate from that computer and activate to your another computer.

The at folks at Macrium Reflect are very helpful. Never had any licensing problems. When I moved my four computers from Windows 7 to Windows 8, I forgot to deactivate from Windows 7. One email it took.

Best regards,

 

Mohamed,

99.9% of my backups are done from a script, scheduled. My script runs Ccleaner to delete temp files, creates and verifies an image and renames the image. You can have a simple or a complex script. Let's start with a simple one for a full backup.

Batch file....
Run through the IFW menus until you get to the Backup Options screen
Select your Options (just accept the defaults)
Click Show Command
Put a tick in Save to file
OK
In the Edit window put /uy and /um after /b so you will have something like "...\V2\imagew.exe" /b /uy /um /d:w0@0x1......". These switches stops IFW from asking questions.
OK
Give it a name (no extension) and click Save
Click Cancel on the IFW screen
You now have a .bat file that will run your backup. Just double click it.

Schedule....
Run through the IFW menus until you get to the Backup Options screen
Select your Options (just accept the defaults)
Click Schedule Backup
Click the Schedule tab and click New
Choose your Schedule Task, Start time, etc
OK
Enter your logon password
OK, OK
Click Cancel on the IFW screen
You now have your backup running on a schedule.

You can do the same thing for a Changes only backup image. A Changes only image based on a previous full image is a differential image. A Changes only image based on a previous Changes only image is an incremental image. I prefer differential images and don't do incremental images.

Regarding PHYLock errors. I've rarely seen them. When I re-ran the backup the error didn't recur. Others see the errors more frequently and have to do this...

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=551

If the errors are annoying you can use VSS instead of PHYLock. The VSS choice is on the IFW Settings page.

Try this test. Create a full script and double click it. Create a differential script and double click it. Please let me know the result?