Restore complete PC backup using USB boot?

[DevilsPGD]

My laptop has two physical hard drives, so I have been doing an
occasional complete PC backup from the main drive to the second.

When I am traveling I carry a Vista DVD so that I can restore if needed.
This has saved my butt a couple times.

Unfortunately, having just destroyed my third Vista DVD (Copies, I don't
carry the originals when traveling... Whew), I'm looking for a better
solution.

Ideally I'd like to make a USB stick bootable and use it to kick off the
restore process, if possible. Alternatively, I believe I can boot from
the second hard drive, so if it's possible to make it entirely
self-contained on the second drive, that could be useful as well.

Anyone have any pointers on where to start?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Windows Vista Complete PC Backup and Recovery screencast
https://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2006/08/25/451838.aspx

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------

:

My laptop has two physical hard drives, so I have been doing an
occasional complete PC backup from the main drive to the second.

When I am traveling I carry a Vista DVD so that I can restore if needed.
This has saved my butt a couple times.

Unfortunately, having just destroyed my third Vista DVD (Copies, I don't
carry the originals when traveling... Whew), I'm looking for a better
solution.

Ideally I'd like to make a USB stick bootable and use it to kick off the
restore process, if possible. Alternatively, I believe I can boot from
the second hard drive, so if it's possible to make it entirely
self-contained on the second drive, that could be useful as well.

Anyone have any pointers on where to start?

 

[Paul Randall]

One thing you could try is doing a clean install including activation plus
install the software including Windows updates & drivers you want, then
create an image of the hard drive on your second drive, using Norton Ghost
or Acronis True Image. Set up a bootable CD that allows you to run the DOS
version of Ghost to restore the image to your primary hard drive whenever
you want. It might be a quicker install with fewer user interactions
required. And of course, no activation required. You will want to test and
validate the whole setup before you rely on it during a trip. If your
version of Ghost doesn't do the Vista MBR, use the DOS version of MBRWiz to
save the good MBR and later restore it after recovering with Ghost. The
whole restore process could take as little as 15 minutes. DOS Ghost could
restore from a USB or FireWire external drive and possibly from a USB memory
stick or camera flash card slot.

-Paul Randall

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> "Carey

Windows Vista Complete PC Backup and Recovery screencast
https://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2006/08/25/451838.aspx

It mentions this:

# I said during the beginning of the restore discussion that hopefully
you'll have the Windows Vista Recovery Environment (RE) on a partition
so that you can run Complete PC. Uh, hello? If you lose the drive, you
lose the RE partition. This is where the Windows Vista DVD comes in
handy.

Unfortunately I don't see the "how" part -- The above description would
be great as I can easily put a boot manager on a USB stick, and/or get
my laptop to boot from the second hard drive (I haven't looked yet, but
I'd put money down this is possible -- Absolute worst case, I swap
drives)

I'm not really worried about physical drive failures either, as much as
OS issues, compromise while working at a client's site with client's
files, etc -- If I can restore back to a known-good state with the OS,
apps, drivers, and an older version of my files, I have the ability to
pull my updated files over a VPN (using an rsync like method, so only
changes come across, rather then re-downloading my entire 12GB profile
over a hotel wifi. Been there, done that after a complete laptop
failure, wasn't fun)