TrueImage 8 vs. Ghost 9?

Hello guys !
Very interesting thread, congratulation

I'm myself looking for a drive/partition backup utility.
I read about Ghost 9 and True Image 8 troubles (even with the latest updates ?). A major turn-off is also that those two programms launch processes that can't be simply turned down even when you don't use it.

I'm actually looking for a proggie that would :
- reliable (no bug, no image perfect till you use it)
- backup a big (approx 30 GBs) system partition onto DVD-r(w)s without having to store the whole back-up on a drive before burning the file (alternatively a proggie that let you store images on a NTFS drive)
- possibility to restore the system with the burnt DVD-rs without having to boot from hard-drives
- no permanent proggie running in background
- possibility to "explore" the files on the burnt DVD-rs to restore individual files on demand

It's ok to me if the proggie has to reboot or wouldn't even work directly from XP (though it would be better of course).

I'm not sure any of the programm discussed in this thread can do all those things, am I correct ?

 

Yes, I do this all the time but I do the backup to a drive which is not being monitored by GoBack and so has no impact on the GoBack history file.

In the interests of science I have just restored a Drive Snapshot image of my system partition. As GoBack modifies the MBR, you have to restore the MBR first. Drive Snapshot includes the ability to do this. Once you restore the image then you lose your GoBack history. I guess this would be the case if you restored any partition monitored by GoBack.

At this point GoBack is disabled so you just need to enable it again to carry on monitoring.

Before I did this restore, I made a Snapshot image of the drive as it was then and then I also used GoBack to turn the drive back to near the start of its history (almost 3 weeks ago) and created another Snapshot image from that time...just in case!

No. I also own a copy of First Defense (I seem to collect these things) but I found it has different limitations to GoBack. To maintain as much GoBack history as possible, you have to set your system up carefully.

This is very off-topic for this thread. If you want to be bored senseless with my experiences of First Defense and GoBack then I'd be happy to oblige in a new thread

 

Loul

Bootit ng should meet these requirements.

 

lol... but I am glad that more people are reading it, because maybe someone who understands the mechanics of in-Windows 'hot' backups will be able to identify my mysterious problem with Ghost 9! <grin>

As nod says:

...but does anybody know more about how the 'locking' or 'shadowing' actually happens? And what 'conditions' could these be, when they seem to be wholly arbitrary (occuring even on a fresh XP install with no other programs at all!)?

Clearly the conditions must ultimately have a predictable cause -- the PC is, after all, just a machine -- but I am wondering if anybody here has relevant experience of diagnosing such *seemingly* unpredictable problems?

For instance, is there a comprehensive real-time system monitoring prog (ideally a free one!) that would let me keep a close eye on what's happening while Ghost makes its backup? (Not something that just takes a snapshot.)

Thanks all for your advice so far.

 

Nexstar...
please do start the new thread... I wanna replace GoBack (It came in NSW2004 with some stupid piece of hardwareas a bundle... so it's free for me and I'd like a free replacement if possible)

 

HEYYYY.....
FDISR doesn't support my FAT32 "data" drives... i can have my C: (NTFS) backed up... but that's it...
Any other contenders for set-it-and-forget-it HDD backup/restore utils? Any free ones? Can any util help me with my RHL ext3 partition too? GoBack caused me to use a boot disk to use RHL... and me being afraid of harming Linux (being a newbie), I haven't seen RHL for 2 months now!

 

If you have problem with Ghost, even with a clean install partition with NO OTHER mods done to the OS, then there may be a hardware compatibility issue. The only other solution is to try another software. I doubt that Symantec will come up with a patch to fix your problem in the next few months. Why sweat over a mediocre software that doesn't work on your system?

 

Indeed - my suspicion does now lie with the hardware. Nonetheless it is still bizarre because I would have thought a hardware incompatibility would result in 0% success, not erratic behaviour as I'm experiencing.

Odd as it sounds, I would sooner (within reason) replace a bit of hardware than start testing out different software. This is because I have already got some use and value from my hardware, but I have not yet got use from the software.

Also if I were to buy a new bit of hardware then it would upgrade the component it would be replacing; whereas getting new software - at the present time - wouldn't do anything new.

So does anyone have any thoughts on what *hardware* issues might upset a 'hot imaging' backup program?

 

There's been enough detailed discussion on the alternatives in this thread to answer most of these questions (although the 3rd requirement seems to contradict your "OK to reboot" statement later). Drive Snapshot should cover all these except that you will need to use a boot disk or another partition to restore a Windows system partition (no program can overwrite a Windows system partition while it is in use). A trial download is available here so try it and see...

I can't think of any hardware (aside from faulty memory - use software like Memtest86 to check this, but it may take a few hours to run) - but there are a lot of software issues. Anything that writes to disk not using standard Windows file/disk access procedures could cause problems (some disk defragmenters and MS SQL server are candidates here - but if in doubt try shutting down all other processes via Task Manager) or anything that amends or limits disk accesses (disk overlay managers, security programs limiting file access - only Tiny firewall springs to mind here though, non-standard DMA/UDMA drivers or even SMART monitors). Even motherboard chipset drivers could be the cause (have you checked for updates?).

 

I have tried several drive/patition utility's:

1) Powerquest Drive Image v7
2) Norton/Symantec Ghost v9
3) Acronis True Image v8
4) Symantec V2i Protector v2


The very sad and bad results:

1) Powerquest Drive Image v7: backup and restore no problems at all, even no problems with backup and restore to and from an USB-drive.

2) Norton/Symantec Ghost v9: several problems with both backup and restore, and big problems to do the job with an USB-drive.

3) Acronis True Image v8: backup no problem, restoring the image was destroying the target-partition several times.

4) Symantec V2i Protector v2: same problems as with Ghost v9, cause: same technique as Ghost v9.


My conclusion:

for a reliable backup take Drive Image v7, I don't know you can buy it anymore.

Some people are screaming about the long boot time it takes to start the "rescue" boot-cd, but what do they expect/want?

A reliable utility that takes 2-3 minutes to boot or a very fast boot-utility that is not reliable at all?


Ciao,

Smokey

 

Thanks for answering.
Can you actually browse a drive backup splited on different volumes (DVD-Rs) without copying all of them onto a Hardrive ?
I know you're a big supporter of this product, but have you tried "Image for Windows" by the same editor ?
Here's a compareason made by the editor : http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/prodgrid.html

I don't care that much for the extra options provided by Bootit in terms of Partition & Boot Management and the use from within Windows (using ironically the same trick as Drive Snapshot is pleasing.
Provided you can effectively browse splitted images that proggie would seem very interesting for my needs. Besides it seems easier to use for bootable saves burnt on optical media.

Thanks for answering too (maybe nod32_9 motivated you referring to BootIt ;-) )

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough as English isn't my mother tongue.
What I meant by "possibility to restore the system with the burnt DVD-rs without having to boot from hard-drives" is the capability to actually restore a system with just Disks/CDs/DVDs as sometimes your hard drive simply won't boot for whatever reason (and I don't want that Vanilla W2K trick even if it suits your personnal needs ).

As Drive Snapshot doesn't handle the "burning part" is it actually possible to "pause" the backup after each "volume" (I mean a file which holds a part of the whole backup splitted for burning purpose) has been completed to burn them onto a DVD (so you don't need tens of GigaBytes available on your system for this operation) ?

Besides as for BootIt I'm eagerly wanting to have the confirmation that you can browse for a file into the saves burnt on SEVERAL (remember my system is approximatively 30GB that won't hold on a single DVD) DVDs without having to copy all of them onto Hard Drive (you don't always have that much space available).
What is your personnal experience on that topic ?
Thanks for your help !

 

There's no browse option with Bootit. The safest method of "fixing" data is to restore the entire partition. If you have frequently changed data, then move the data to another EXTENDED LOGICAL PARTITION on the same hard drive and image that partition. There is no need to image the whole hard drive.

Check out my review of IFW in another post. If you MUST have a windows-based imaging software, then IFW may be worth a look. I want the highest degree of reliability when creating and restoring the image file. That's why I use Bootit.

 

Smokey, could you say some more about the problems you experienced with Ghost 9? Did you get the "pqi" error I've been describing in this thread?

Thanks very much for these further suggestions. Memtest was just the sort of really thorough prog I'd been looking for... and lo and behold! It showed up about 160 errors on each pass. Now I need to work by elimination to work out which module is to blame. A memory problem would certainly account for the *inconsistent* Ghost behaviour (though it *does* surprise me that this hasn't affected any other apps). So maybe Symantec support were right all along that one ought to "swap out the RAM", despite my earlier protestations. <blush>

I'll keep you informed, and hopefully whatever happens the experience will help somebody else.

 

I've been using Drive Image for years and has saved me tens of hours. When I saw DI 7 could do "hot" backups, I had to have it. The booting from CD and the time it takes IS the only annoyance. But Symantec had already snagged it. I bought my DI 7 on eBay. So far Symantec has snagged a bunch of programs I used to use. They work but I don't entirely like what they do to them or trust they are of the same quality. Drive Image 7 has caused me NO problems. The only thing that brings me to research others is a recent PC World article that had good things to say of True Image. Drive Image also completely sets up external USB or CD/DVD burners making the options that much easier. I've never really needed to image/restore a hidden partition but I do have them. I have PartitionMagic around and turning on/off a partition for imaging is extremely simple. Looking at these discussions, it looks a wise choice for me to snag the last version of Drive Image before Symantec started trying to fit under the Ghost name.

 

Glad that somebody agree with my positive opinion about Drive Image v7.

Magazines like PC-World I always read with a lot of scepsis, the reality is what counts.

They are doing one test and have then their opinion ready , I work every day with, in this case, image utility's and because all other image utility's failed and Drive Image never, never showed any problem I stay with it.


Ciao,

Smokey

 

As author of Drive Snapshot I might be qualified to answer that.

Drive Snapshot (and probably also TI/DI) work on the raw disk level, and intercepts calls, going to 'write sector 15, 4096 byte length'

So interception works with virtually any software like disk defraggers (file system level) (tested), MS SQL (some of it writes directly to sector 123) (tested) and similar stuff. It probably wouldn't work with Disk Manager(this requires exclusive access to the disk anyway).
UDMA again is no problem, unless it suddenly stops working.

it even works with disk encryption software, that work on sector level as well like Saveguard Easy.

So far, this technic works with basically everything, unless you write your own device driver to do direct *physical* disk writes, just to prove me wrong.

 

Dear Tom Ehlert

Many thanks for contributing to the discussion.

I'm sure as I can be that I'm not experiencing a software conflict with the 'hot imaging' facility (of Ghost 9 in my case, but I guess the technology for the actual intercepting of disk writes is essentially the same), because I've tried it on a fresh XP install.

In your experience, could my seemingly bad RAM -- as reported by Memtest86, although not otherwise obvious -- account for the oddly inconsistent behavior (the "invalid or corrupt" but nevetheless browsable backups) I've been experiencing?

Thanks.

 

Hehe I'm glad to see Tom Elhert contributing to this thread.
I actually emailed him this afternoon (in Europe) to have some more info about Drive Snapshot capabilities and he kindly answered me a couple of hours later ( that's a sign of good software support, isn't it ?).
I find it amusing since I didn't refer to this thread


I'm sure he won't mind that I paste his answer in here

Actually it surprised me you couldn't restore any individual file with BootIt/Image for Windows as I thougt the opposite so I went back to TeraByte site.
Actually you can with TBIView (TM) which is provided on their website at that address http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html :
TBIView extends Windows Explorer by enabling it to open image files created by Terabyte Unlimited's Image or BootIt NG software programs.

If the image file is based on a FAT, FAT32 or NTFS partition then you'll be able to view and extract individual files or folders. See the readme.txt file in the zip for more information.

Here's what the readme.txt says about that programm's use.

So it does seem that BootIt/Image for Windows will meet my personnal requirements and I'd like to thank you again for telling us about it. I will definitely try one of them in the coming days (I need to do some files sorting first ).

 

My bad. TBI Viewer is a free add-on ultility that's provided on an as-is-no-warranty basis. You can try it on your system, but I wouldn't rely on this for mission-critical stuffs.

"The image files produced by Image and BootIt NG are not optimized for
individual file/folder access."

 

Just another note about Drive Image 7. I've never restored single files but thats fairly easy. A new feature that fascinated me the most in version 7 was the ability to mount a image.

I thought it a rather interesting trick to have a highly compressed image mounted as a lettered hard drive in Windows Explorer. I can't add stuff to it but I can pull files, run programs and dink around in the image as if it were a separate hard drive or partition.

 

I have, without any problems.

Ciao,

Smokey

 

The older DI 5 has a much smaller installation footprint, and works will ALL versions of windows. No problem with image creation/restoration. You can fit DI 5 on a 3.5" floppy. Good imaging software like DI 5, Bootit ng, and Snapshot share some common traits. They are small, robust, and simple to use.

 

Now here's a program that's been around for a while I haven't seen mentioned here yet. It's called Restore It. http://www.farstone.com/home/ensite/products/rit.shtml

It looks somewhat like Symantec's Go-Back. But it also seems to have the ability to store your backup data on cd/dvd as well as on a secret partition on your hard drive like Go-Back/First Defense (not sure about storing it on internal/external hard drive).

It seems sorta like a combination of Go-Back and Ghost in one program (though I doubt it's really that good).

Has anyone had any experience with the program? Or know more about it?