Lowest resource eating imaging app?

Hi,

I wonder what's the lowest resource(from disc space usage to number of running processes) eating imaging app?

All suggestions are most welcome.

Best Wishes,
Amit

 

Unquestionably that would be Drive Snapshot ...and when cold-imaging, just about any of them.

Cruise

 

DriveImage XML is a good free tool coming in at a 1.78MB download

all the following are also (paid) small imaging apps with no running processes when program is closed;
Active@ disk image
Terabyte IFW
HDClone

 

The lowest would be one which is run from a rescue CD/DVD.
Nothing actually installed.

 

Great point tree DIXML is actually a very small yet capable imaging tool, with the only drawback being lack of boot media, although they do now have a 600MB Linux based disc that they say *should* work. I have used DIXML in the past and it is slower than many, but certainly reliable, but I have never used their boot cd. What I did was place the plugins on my USB HDD, and booting into a winpe type environment, just running the dixml exe file, it appears to work, although I have never made the bartpe boot media, but the plugins do work in a winpe environment. Have you tried DIXML linux based boot media? If so, what did you think?

My fav is IFL, due to its features and interface, and of course rock solid.

@Cruise: indeed, DS is the smallest and a great app, less the lack of the GUI boot media such as we hope for someday

Have a good day guys

Jim

 

imo ifw/ifl,and i like active@disk image as a close second

 

hi Jim

yes i have tried their boot disk and i really like it, it has lots of other useful tools too. i used it to create an image which worked fine, i will run a test restore in a few days.

what i used to do and probably still will do is to extract the plugin and use the it as a portable app which can be used from windows desktop environment or from any WinPE environment, hirens boot disk also has DIXML on it already.

so maybe DIXML has the most options from any imaging program to boot into a recovery environment from without needing to create a boot disk first.

hirens boot disk has it already so burn ISO and your good to go.
DIXML has its own linux boot cd which can be burnt and your good to go.
like i said the plugin can be extracted and used as a portable app anywhere (apart from linux environments) but a boot media needs to be created first.

 

For windows Vista and later the answer is simple.
Windows own "Backup and Restore". Is already included in the OS, so using it adds 0 bytes in disk usage.

Joke apart, another one that is not mentioned in the posts above is the open source Odin (odin.exe=756kb).
Similar portability to "drive snapshot".

Panagiotis

 

Thank you tree for your detailed experience Sounds like a worthy boot disc and Runtime has some very good utilities also. One thing I was unable to do with the DIXML plugins using them as a portable version. I have an old Hiren's boot cd that has a mini Win XP on it. I can run the DIXML portable plugins fine from within that environment. I simply place the DIXML plugins onto my USB external or on a partition on my hard disk. I execute Dixml.exe and the plugins work, although not showing all the drive details, meaning on my Dell laptop, it does not show the small Dell utility partition, it only shows this small 55MB part. if I choose "Drive to Drive", so in this case it may take a sector by sector or RAW image of the full hard disk to capture that small utility partition, which to me is a downfall in this instance, but it shows all the rest of the partitions and will image them fine. Also the plugin version does not show all the sector details such as the windows version does, but it will still image the chosen parts it seems fine. other imagers such as IFW/IFL, Macrium, Keriver Image, etc., no problem showing that small Dell utility part.

Problem is I tried to run Dixml from a Winpe disc using the command line, and it would not allow the plugin to be executed, gave an error about installling and then another error about could not start because "wow32'dll" was missing. So I was stumped by this as I had mentioned it would run from Winpe, but so far i can only get it to run on an old Hiren's boot CD within the Mini XP environment. Although the plugins are to be for a bartPE disc, they should run fine within winpe I thought.

My question then is, how were you able to get the DIXML plugins to execute within Winpe? I even booted up a Winre.WIM file I placed on a flash drive and made it bootable using EasyBCD...the recovery booted fine and went to the typical options screen to choose the various repair features, System restore, Start up repair, windows backup restore using an image, etc. I chose the command line and changed to the directory I had the plugins placed, then attempted to run Dixml.exe from that directory, and again, it would not execute giving an error of missing wow32.dll. So I have not been able to actually execute Dixml from within either the winpe or booting with the Winre.wim. I have only been able to execute Dixml.exe plugin from within the Hiren's mini XP. What am I doing wrong? I assumed that if it ran fine within the Mini XP it should run fine within basic WinPe, but not the case.

Just thought I would ask and see how you were able to execute from command line in Winpe. Thanks for any assistance with this. Although I rarely use Dixml for imaging, it does have unique features and I have played with it in the past and found it to be reliable for basic image and restore, but I am stumped about why I cannot run the plugins directly in Winpe, other than within Mini XP on hiren's, not using just the built in Dixml, but the latest 2.44 plugins. They run fine in MiniXP. Evidently, my winpe is missing some needed files. I tried several Winpe based boot media that I could bring up a command line, but just will not run Dixml plugin.

Thanks tree, have a good day!

 

hi Jim, i too was initially was stumped by the exact same situations as yours. but there was not really any need for me to work it out as DIXML works fine from a hirens boot disk as you have already stated but curiosity got the better of me so i did a bit of experimenting and i managed to get it to work from a windows installation disk. to do this you need to copy a few dll's from the system32 area of a windows 32bit system (wow32.dll, ntvdm.exe and a couple others) to the same directory of the DIXML.exe.

or you could just build an UBCD4WIN boot disk and DIXML runs without any messing about.

this is how i boot into a live environment to restore a DIXML image;
UBCD4WIN- works fine.
any windows installation cd- runs fine once you add correct dll's
active@ boot disk- same as above
hirens boot disk- works without any fiddling as you already know
bartPE- again the correct dll's need adding.

runtime boot disk (not yet used for a restore but am sure it will work ok)

the way i got around the dll issue is by putting the DIXML.exe in the same directory as the system32 folder and navigating to that folder (which can be copied to a USB drive) from the cmd line in any winPE boot disk

 

Wow, thank you so much tree

Indeed I followed your findings, and copied into the Dixml plugin folder on my hard disk the wow32.dll, ntvdm.exe, then I booted into a USB boot flash created using EasyBCD and the file Winre.wim. After booting into the recovery environment, I navigated via command prompt to the Dixml folder on the hard disk, and entered dixml.exe, I was told "apphelp.dll" was missing.

So i navigated to the windows\system32 folder and copied "apphelp.dll" to the Dixml folder. then tried to launch the Dixml.exe again and voila...it is working just great It even seems to work better than running it in the hiren's mini XP as that does not show all the sector details, etc., but running it now from the Winre environment, Dixml is fully working, and showing all drive details, except of course it does not 'see' my Dell utility partition but at least it shows up all details of what it "knows". If I click Restore or Drive to Drive function, it shows the Dell utility part, but shows it as "unknown".

I assume if I ever used it to backup the full disk, I would have to do a raw sector to catch it, but it is working great and enough to at least image Windows and the other partitions it sees. So my final step was to copy the entire Dixml folder from my hard disk to the boot flash drive, and it works great Just those 3 files made all the difference, and I see no need to bother with Runtime boot disk now with it working well in this fashion.

Great job my friend, and nice to see it finally 'fully' working in the windows recovery environment. Thanks again for your kind help! It is nice to have other utilities like this available that work as intended.

EDIT: I went through the process to create image with Dixml, got as far as choosing a location for the image, and the browse button on the right side gave only a gray window with no listing. Must figure this one out LOL, otherwise it is ok. I also out of no where had another issue after booting into Winre, it told me it could not find the OS...So I booted back into windows 7 and figured it had something to do with my copying the Dixml folder to the boot flash drive, so I ran a quick but safe defrag with Mydefrag, which has the option to defrag Flash and SSD drives, but only using the minimum amount of file moving, it took only about 2 seconds, and appears to have fixed the issue with Winre not finding the OS. I remembered that file fragmentation on a boot flash drive can cause some strange behavior...whatever it was, the quick defrag worked. Now I just have to figure out why Dixml browse location button during image creation does not show a listing. Clicking the browse under the File menu works fine, so it must be within the backup location section. I'll see what I can find LOL

Have a good night

Jim