Backup Software

[John Fitzsimons]

That's true. The comming version may be available to do something like that,
though. I don't see the need for this kind of feature but aparently there
are many people who want it, so we'll see. I really think that people should
stick to backup the real important information (the user files) and don't
waste space and time backing up the OS and applications, but that's just me.

Er... "and applications". Some of us have dozens, if not hundreds, of
programs installed. You are really advocating installing every single
one of them again if needed ? Rather than a single disk "image" ?
No thanks.

To get started on restoring a disk image takes a matter of minutes. To
install dozens of applications AND supporting libraries etc. can take
days, or weeks.

Added to that what about shell extensions ? Also, some of us "tweak"
many of our programs/utilities. Only a true "image" is likely to save
that situation properly.

Regards, John.

 

[John Fitzsimons]

On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:24:20 +0200, "Luis Cobian"

Seriously, before the comming version I made a survey with 300 of my users
and aproximatly 50% wanted the image thingy , and the olther half didn't
cared about it, so it's really a tie. I'm adding it, though.

50% ? Wow ! That's high. IF a percentage of YOUR users. I would have
thought that people wanting disk imaging would NOT be likely to be
using your product at all.

However, IF you did a survey of people who know the differences
between file backup, and disk imaging, then I would expect that 50%
to be very much higher.

Are you going to be allowing disk imaging of FAT32 XP installations ?
If so then that should be of interest to potential users as well.

Regards, John.

 

[bambam]

You're here, so you are.

Print out ALL the instructions, and just plod through them, following
everything, whether you understand it or not.

I went into "dumb follow-the-leader" mode one night and created one -
and it works - and if I had to do it again I'd need the instructions
again.

What can you lose? An hour and a 25 cent CD?

I used REM's very good downloadable walk through when creating the
UBCD4Win-

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2006/PL2006SYSTEMUTILITIES.php#3476-PW

http://www.woundedmoon.org/UBCD/UBCD.html

At the appropriate stage in the process point the program at the
DriveImage XML plugin-

http://www.runtime.org/peb.htm

Use an RW disk, then you only waste time if it goes wrong.

 

[John Corliss]

An incremental backup after a full clone does the same thing, though.

Al, that's what I'm saying. XXClone, the free version, won't do
incremental backups. Or do you have another freeware in mind for doing
the incremental backup?

--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls like Andy Mabbett, Doc (who uses sock puppets)
or Roger Johansson, for instance. No adware, cdware, commercial
software, crippleware, demoware, nagware, PROmotionware, shareware,
spyware, time-limited software, trialware, viruses or warez for me, please.

 

[John Corliss]

Anything for ME or 98SE?

Absolutely. XXCopy:

http://www.xxcopy.com

will do this easily, and as long as you set the disk up to be bootable
by using FDisk or better yet, the (probably free) utility that your hard
drive manufacturer provides, it will be bootable (make sure that when
you do this, the disk is hooked up as the master disk). And the great
thing is that XXCopy will do incremental backups in ME and W98SE.

--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls like Andy Mabbett, Doc (who uses sock puppets)
or Roger Johansson, for instance. No adware, cdware, commercial
software, crippleware, demoware, nagware, PROmotionware, shareware,
spyware, time-limited software, trialware, viruses or warez for me, please.

 

[Al Klein]

Al, that's what I'm saying. XXClone, the free version, won't do
incremental backups. Or do you have another freeware in mind for doing
the incremental backup?

At the risk of boring everyone to death, Karen's Replicator. It does
the job.

 

[Al Klein]

I used REM's very good downloadable walk through when creating the
UBCD4Win-

Archived for later use. Thank you.

 

[diesel]

Absolutely. XXCopy:

http://www.xxcopy.com

Sorry, I meant do an image.

 

[KM]

I don't see the need for this kind of feature but aparently there
are many people who want it, so we'll see. I really think that people should
stick to backup the real important information (the user files) and don't
waste space and time backing up the OS and applications, but that's just me.

Most people are better served by file backup than by image programs. I
purchased DriveImage 7.0, but I use file backup software. (Still in
search of a free one that does what I need well -- backup to removable
media.) Images require a lot more media (one must backup the empty
portion of the drive, not just the portion that has data), images are
difficult to keep current, and can be difficult to restore. One bad
disk in an image means the whole thing is useless. When something goes
wrong, the only thing I care about is data. Programs are on another
partition and the boot partition is easily recreated. Besides,
formatting and reloading Windows helps clean up the drive.

 

[Peter Seiler]

KM - 03.04.2006 01:55 :

Most people are better served by file backup than by image programs. I
purchased DriveImage 7.0, but I use file backup software. (Still in
search of a free one that does what I need well -- backup to removable
media.) Images require a lot more media (one must backup the empty
portion of the drive, not just the portion that has data), images are
difficult to keep current, and can be difficult to restore. One bad
disk in an image means the whole thing is useless. When something goes
wrong, the only thing I care about is data. Programs are on another
partition and the boot partition is easily recreated. Besides,
formatting and reloading Windows helps clean up the drive.

it depends what you want. I make image regularely once a day
(incremental for smaller images) with Acronis TrueImage (caution: is
payware) in case my systempartition is becoming corrupt and/or before I
install a new application (for testing purposes for example). in these
mentioned cases simple file-/directory backups mostly are not very helpful.

I don't want a discussion about file-/image backup. I prefer both
methods: TrueImage 9 has a good file-/directory feature implemented with
which I backup some very special files/directories very often as a very
fast way and image backups (to a 2. HDD or 2. partition and ~ monthly
burning to a RW CD.

I dont know a freeware program in comparison to TrueImage and/or Norton
Ghost :-(

 

[Gary R. Schmidt]

diesel wrote:
[SNIP]

Sorry, I meant do an image.

Just realised that no-one had mentioned this: "Ghost For UNIX",
<http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/>

Yes, I _know_ it says "UNIX", but it just images disks and partitions to
disks or over a network, it's free and it works. I've used it to image
and restore FAT16, NTFS, and Solaris partitions.

Cheers,
Gary B-)