I use my XP Computer to run a small business. I want to create an exact
image of my C drive. Which software do you recommend? Can the IDE drive I
mirror to reside in an external USB case?

Talal Itani

"Talal Itani" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:bCBUh.1845$xP.36@trnddc04...
>
> I use my XP Computer to run a small business. I want to create an exact
> image of my C drive. Which software do you recommend? Can the IDE drive I
> mirror to reside in an external USB case?
>
> Talal Itani
>
>

"Mirroring" refers to the on-line process of maintaining
a near identical copy of a disk partition. This facility is
not available under Windows XP. You can either to it
with a hardware mirror or with an off-line imaging process,
e.g. with Acronis True Image.

Talal Itani wrote:
> I use my XP Computer to run a small business. I want to create an
> exact image of my C drive. Which software do you recommend? Can
> the IDE drive I mirror to reside in an external USB case?

What is your reasoning behind making an exact mirror (live mirroring I am
assuming?)

I think you would be much better off backing up the important data (you
could even do this in addition to a hardware RAID (mirror)).

You could also using an imaging software to automatically and periodically
make full images of your computer to an external piece of hardware.

However - anything you do not also take off-site on occassion may still come
back to haunt you later.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

"Talal Itani" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:bCBUh.1845$xP.36@trnddc04...
>
> I use my XP Computer to run a small business. I want to create an exact
> image of my C drive. Which software do you recommend? Can the IDE drive I
> mirror to reside in an external USB case?
>
> Talal Itani
>

Mirroring is described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redunda...ependent_disks
See RAID 0+1.

What you apparently want is an on-hand clone from your description. In your
case regarding your potential solution, I would keep an updated image (not a
clone) on the USB drive. Keep a backup drive available to restore the image
to in event of the current hard drive failing.
--
Dave

Apathy and denial are close cousins

"Shenan Stanley" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Talal Itani wrote:
>> I use my XP Computer to run a small business. I want to create an
>> exact image of my C drive. Which software do you recommend? Can
>> the IDE drive I mirror to reside in an external USB case?
>
> What is your reasoning behind making an exact mirror (live mirroring I am
> assuming?)
>
> I think you would be much better off backing up the important data (you
> could even do this in addition to a hardware RAID (mirror)).
>
> You could also using an imaging software to automatically and periodically
> make full images of your computer to an external piece of hardware.
>
> However - anything you do not also take off-site on occassion may still
> come back to haunt you later.
>

I use the PC for business purposes. I backup my data, but I always worry
that my disk drive may fail. If the drive fails, I have to rebuild the
entire system, and that can take some time. If I have an image of the
drive, I can simply remove the broken drive, and install the new drive.

Maybe RAID is a better way to go, but I do not know much about RAID. My
mother board is and Asus P4PE with Raid 0 and 1 support.

"Dave" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:uTLmg$(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Talal Itani" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:bCBUh.1845$xP.36@trnddc04...
>>
>> I use my XP Computer to run a small business. I want to create an exact
>> image of my C drive. Which software do you recommend? Can the IDE drive
>> I mirror to reside in an external USB case?
>>
>> Talal Itani
>>
>
> Mirroring is described here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redunda...ependent_disks
> See RAID 0+1.
>
> What you apparently want is an on-hand clone from your description. In
> your case regarding your potential solution, I would keep an updated image
> (not a clone) on the USB drive. Keep a backup drive available to restore
> the image to in event of the current hard drive failing.
> --
>

Let me make sure I understand this correctly. A clone is an identical
drive. An image contains everything the drive contains, yet it cannot be
installed and executed, but it has to be brought in. I would run restore
from floppy disk, that brings everything from the image drive, into a newly
blank installed drive. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thank you. Which
software does that?

"Talal Itani" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:ybEUh.7979$h8.6940@trnddc06...
>
> "Dave" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:uTLmg$(E-Mail Removed)...
> > "Talal Itani" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> > news:bCBUh.1845$xP.36@trnddc04...
> >>
> >> I use my XP Computer to run a small business. I want to create an
exact
> >> image of my C drive. Which software do you recommend? Can the IDE
drive
> >> I mirror to reside in an external USB case?
> >>
> >> Talal Itani
> >>
> >
> > Mirroring is described here:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redunda...ependent_disks
> > See RAID 0+1.
> >
> > What you apparently want is an on-hand clone from your description. In
> > your case regarding your potential solution, I would keep an updated
image
> > (not a clone) on the USB drive. Keep a backup drive available to
restore
> > the image to in event of the current hard drive failing.
> > --
> >
>
> Let me make sure I understand this correctly. A clone is an identical
> drive. An image contains everything the drive contains, yet it cannot be
> installed and executed, but it has to be brought in. I would run restore
> from floppy disk, that brings everything from the image drive, into a
newly
> blank installed drive. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thank you.
Which
> software does that?
>
>

Acronis TrueImage (among others). And it boots from a CD, not
a floppy disk.

"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:
> "Talal Itani" wrote
>> Let me make sure I understand this correctly. A clone is an identical
>> drive. An image contains everything the drive contains, yet it cannot be
>> installed and executed, but it has to be brought in. I would run restore
>> from floppy disk, that brings everything from the image drive, into a
>> newly blank installed drive. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thank
>> you. Which software does that?
>>
>>
>
> Acronis TrueImage (among others). And it boots from a CD,
> not a floppy disk.


If you want to clone the entire contents of the HD, True Image
is fine. If you want to clone a single partition from among 2 or more,
and perhaps put it among 1 or more existing partitions on another
HD, True Image can't do it (according to its documentation).
Utilities that *can* clone single partitions are Symantec's Ghost and
Future Systems Solutions' CasperXP. Done as single partitions,
more than 1 clone can be stored on a large capacity HD, and if
that archiving HD is connected (or on a slide-in tray), any one of
those archived clones can be booted up in seconds as a selection
from a multi-boot menu.

*TimDaniels*

"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:
> "Talal Itani" wrote
>> Let me make sure I understand this correctly. A clone is an identical
>> drive. An image contains everything the drive contains, yet it cannot be
>> installed and executed, but it has to be brought in. I would run restore
>> from floppy disk, that brings everything from the image drive, into a
>> newly blank installed drive. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thank
>> you. Which software does that?
>>
>>
>
> Acronis TrueImage (among others). And it boots from a CD,
> not a floppy disk.


If you want to clone the entire contents of the HD, True Image
is fine. If you want to clone a single partition from among 2 or more,
and perhaps put it among 1 or more existing partitions on another
HD, True Image can't do it (according to its documentation).
Utilities that *can* clone single partitions are Symantec's Ghost and
Future Systems Solutions' CasperXP. Done as single partitions,
more than 1 clone can be stored on a large capacity HD, and if
that archiving HD is connected (or on a slide-in tray), any one of
those archived clones can be booted up in seconds as a selection
from a multi-boot menu.

*TimDaniels*

"Timothy Daniels" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:46232af9$0$24777$(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:
> > "Talal Itani" wrote
> >> Let me make sure I understand this correctly. A clone is an identical
> >> drive. An image contains everything the drive contains, yet it cannot
be
> >> installed and executed, but it has to be brought in. I would run
restore
> >> from floppy disk, that brings everything from the image drive, into a
> >> newly blank installed drive. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thank
> >> you. Which software does that?
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Acronis TrueImage (among others). And it boots from a CD,
> > not a floppy disk.
>
>
> If you want to clone the entire contents of the HD, True Image
> is fine. If you want to clone a single partition from among 2 or more,
> and perhaps put it among 1 or more existing partitions on another
> HD, True Image can't do it (according to its documentation).

Only partly true. The OP can create an image file of the source
partition, the restore this image to the destination partition. It would,
of course, be nicer if the OP did not have to take this detour . . .