I am thinking of buying a backing up program so I don't
have to reload windows if I have a disaster. Can anyone
suggest something like Norton Ghost or Drive Image?
What are your recommendations?
Both Ghost 2003 and DriveImage 2002 seem to work equally well. Ghost is
more versatile with more options, while DI is more "user-friendly" with
a more intuitive interface. Both will install in Windows, but for
maximum safety run them from floppies if you're making changes to your
Windows partition -- trying to make changes to your Windows partition
from within Windows is rather like trying to change a car tire while
you're inside the car driving down the road. Yes, they both claim to
work from within Windows, and sometimes do, but it's amazing how this
logic seems to escape many people.
Note there have been occasional reports of problems with some NTFS
partitions because of changes MS made to the NTFS spec in recent SP
releases (XP SP1, 2000 SP4, and NT SP6, I think). Without identifying a
problem, PQ says DI 2002 is not certified for use with XP SP1, while
Symantec says nothing one way or another. A lot of people have no
problems with either product, but caveat emptor.
Stay away from the new DI7 -- PowerQuest shot themselves in the foot
with that one. It works only with XP, cannot run from a floppy, adds
80MB of bloat to do what previously was done with two 1.44MB floppies,
and I've seen recent reports that somehow PQ "broke" the CD-burning
part -- it no longer can span CDs when creating an image direct to CD.
And now that Symantec has bought PowerQuest, it remains to be seen
whether they will continue to market two competing products.
Lastly, for a worthy and less expensive alternative, you may want to
take a look at BootIt NG, which now supports imaging to USB2 drives from
a floppy boot. See
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-07-03.htm
for a further opinion.
