Backup Software Programmes

[raceylady]

I am thinking of using a backup sofware programme i.e Acronis or Ghost.

I have had my hard drive fail on my desktop and while this is being repaired (and thank the lord that I did do a backup of my files and settings through the transfer wizzard). But unfortunately all the windows xp and the rest have to be reinstalled and then updates, security, printers and everything else.

So getting back to my question backup software programmes. Any good and any recommendations would be welcome, and what about bootable cd is that easy.

[artyman]

I use the backup program that comes with XP, and use that for my regular monthly full backups using an external drive. Fortunately I haven't had to do a restore from cold, apart from when I had problems when I first had the machine, an iffy drive! I also have Acronis True Image though as I said, not had to use it in anger.

[tasone]

I am thinking of using a backup sofware programme i.e Acronis or Ghost.

I have had my hard drive fail on my desktop and while this is being repaired (and thank the lord that I did do a backup of my files and settings through the transfer wizzard). But unfortunately all the windows xp and the rest have to be reinstalled and then updates, security, printers and everything else.

So getting back to my question backup software programmes. Any good and any recommendations would be welcome, and what about bootable cd is that easy.

Ghost is a very good program.

the one built into windows is ok (bit of a pain)

Syncbackup SE is a good little program, and you can get a free version of it.

Andy

[yorkie]

Power Quest is also very good,

yorkie.

[Dae]

Hi Racey,

I can recommend Acronis TrueImage (http://www.acronis.co.uk/homecomputing/products/trueimage/) for your backups (if you don't mind a paid for app) and have been using the workstation version for quite sometime.
It can easily handle the full imaging of a partition and the creation of individual backup archives, all of which can have incremental updates.

And there is a wizard for creating the bootable recovery cd - when there is a problem just pop in the cd, start reloading the image
(whether off a backup partition/drive or DVD) and ~10mins later everything is restored to a working state.

There have been a few reports that TrueImage has problems with some Vista setups,
although I haven't experienced any myself, but on XP there are no issues.

In addition to TrueImage you might also want to consider O & O DiskImage 2 (http://www.oo-software.com/home/en/products/oodiskimage/), I have tried the demo and it has a nice clean interface and seems reasonably easy to use, although it didn't appear to produce an image that was as well compressed as TrueImage - but certainly worth a look.

Both apps have demos that you can try out for 30 days and are in the same price bracket.

On the freeware / GPL front there are Partimage (http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page), Clonezilla (http://www.clonezilla.org/) and PING (http://ping.windowsdream.com/).

I have only used Clonezilla before (as part of a GParted LiveCD) so can't comment on the other GPL options.
The GPL route might also be a bit more involved than what you are looking for.

Hopefully you should find something from that lot that meets your requirements. :)

N.B.
It is worth making a full drive image as soon as you have reinstalled the OS/updated it/installed the apps that you use most often/and have it setup as you like. Then you always have a cleanly installed system available if anything should go wrong

Just make sure that all your important data (images/music/docs etc) is stored elsewhere before restoring the image
as it will obviously be overwriting the whole partition. ;)

[tonys]

I've used Acronis TrueImage for some years now, taking a complete image on a regular basis and transferring to an external drive.

Backups are only as good as the last one, and they do take time to do. I usually keep at least two previous images before I overwrite the oldest, just in case of problems. I've used a backup image occasionally to rescue copies of individual files, but I've only had to use the complete restore option once - I'm pleased to say it worked like a charm!

Also as Dae said, it's a good idea to take intermediate backups of key personal data e.g. MyDocuments, you can do this with something like Cobian Backup http://tinyurl.com/7sydh which is easy to use. So e.g. use Cobian on a weekly basis for key files (couple of minutes to run in background) then use Acronis on a monthly basis for a complete image (much longer and you'd best go away and have your tea ;))

[raceylady]

Ghost is a very good program.

the one built into windows is ok (bit of a pain)

Syncbackup SE is a good little program, and you can get a free version of it.

Andy

Where is the built into windows one I have windows xp not come across that

[tonys]

Where is the built into windows one I have windows xp not come across that

As usual, it's not easy to find :rolleyes: http://tinyurl.com/3lvzn

[artyman]

Another important point is to keep the backups somewhere else rather than the house, else if you have a disaster you don't want to lose the backups as well. My son lives nearby so I would have to be very unlucky to have both houses burnt down at the same time.

[miljee]

I use two programs - Casper 4.0 to make an entire copy of my main drive to a duplicate drive (incrementally backed up every night) and SyncbackSE to back up selected imported folders to another external drive - both programs I strongly recommend. Casper is the only program I've found (I'm sure there are probably others) that will clone a drive while it is use, so you get an exact mirror of the drive. That way if my main drive dies, its a simple matter of swapping cables and jumpers to the second drive and off I go again.

Everyone who has ever been burned by a hard drive failure must have something in place - I wouldn't want to go through that pain again (particularly explaining it to the missus where the kids photos have gone!)

[artyman]

................ I wouldn't want to go through that pain again (particularly explaining it to the missus where the kids photos have gone!)
'Ere you haven't been moonlighting doing BT ads have you :D

[miljee]

'Ere you haven't been moonlighting doing BT ads have you :D

My cover is blown!

Kris

[gillmacca]

I use Acronis. Found it to be a great program, which also allows you to explorer the backup image, and copy any file in the image back to your desktop (handy if you accidentally delete a file)

[tboorman]

A couple of good freebies:

SyncBack Freeware - http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware

DriveImage XML - http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

[TimeRider]

Old DOS version of Norton Ghost for Me, works for all my windows partitions anyways, XP and Vista, as well as a FAT32 DOS partition where I store the images...

And for Linux (on here too), 'remastersys', a little buggy sometimes, but allows you to create a live CD image of Ubuntu based distros, which can be used without touching the drive, or installed onto the drive.

Steve!