Boot dvd for automatic restore image of XP

[Riccardo]

I'm going to prepare a boot dvd to restore automatically image of my
hard disk laptop which is divided into 2 partitions:
Windows XP (NTFS) + recovery partition (unknown)

What kind of product is it more suitable to create boot dvd to use for
automatically restore of Windows ?
My notebook is Dell Precision 6400

I know these product Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, Ghost.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

I'm going to prepare a boot dvd to restore automatically image of my
hard disk laptop which is divided into 2 partitions:
Windows XP (NTFS) + recovery partition (unknown)

What kind of product is it more suitable to create boot dvd to use for
automatically restore of Windows ?
My notebook is Dell Precision 6400

I know these product Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, Ghost.

I'm a big fan of Acronis TrueImage. You need a boot CD (doesn't have to be a
DVD) and then the backups will have to fit on whatever medium you choose.
I'd be very surprised if you could fit it on a DVD, even compressed -
although you may not have much data on there. Get a removable hard drive for
your image backups. You can't back up directly to a DVD anyway that I know
of (I wouldn't want to risk it).

Additionally, with Acronis you can do another backup to a hidden partition
of the hard drive itself. I like to have a separate data partition on my
laptop, so all I'd care about would be an image backup of my system
partition for use in an emergency while on the road. I'd do regular full
image backups to the removable hard drive.

 

[Malke]

I'm going to prepare a boot dvd to restore automatically image of my
hard disk laptop which is divided into 2 partitions:
Windows XP (NTFS) + recovery partition (unknown)

What kind of product is it more suitable to create boot dvd to use for
automatically restore of Windows ?
My notebook is Dell Precision 6400

I know these product Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, Ghost.

I prefer True Image. If you buy it retail, the CD is bootable. If you
download it, install the program and create the bootable media.

Malke

 

[Daniel Schaffer]

Hi Ricardo,

You are certainly doing the right thing in making a backup image of your OS
and programs. I'd like to second the advice that you use an external hard
drive, but I'd also make DVDs and move them off your premises. (Belt and
suspenders in other words.) External hard drives have become really cheap.

My backup program of choice is Terabyte's Image for DOS (which comes with
Image for Windows and Image for Linux at no extra charge.) Or you can use
Terabyte's BootIt, which will also function as a tool for changing the size
of partitions and creating new partitions and, if you use more than one OS,
will make it easy to tell the computer which one to boot.

Good luck, Dan S

 

[C.Joseph Drayton]

I'm going to prepare a boot dvd to restore automatically image of my
hard disk laptop which is divided into 2 partitions:
Windows XP (NTFS) + recovery partition (unknown)

What kind of product is it more suitable to create boot dvd to use for
automatically restore of Windows ?
My notebook is Dell Precision 6400

I know these product Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, Ghost.

Hi Riccardo,

I used UBCD4Win which contains image software and also
allows me to do system maintenance when necessary.

Sincerely,
C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

CSD Computer Services

Web site: http://csdcs.site90.net/
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)90.net

 

[Riccardo]

I'm a big fan of Acronis TrueImage. You need a boot CD (doesn't have to be a
DVD) and then the backups will have to fit on whatever medium you choose.
I'd be very surprised if you could fit it on a DVD, even compressed -
although you may not have much data on there. Get a removable hard drive for
your image backups. You can't back up directly to a DVD anyway that I know
of (I wouldn't want to risk it).

Additionally, with Acronis you can do another backup to a hidden partition
of the hard drive itself. I like to have a separate data partition on my
laptop, so all I'd care about would be an image backup of my system
partition for use in an emergency while on the road.  I'd do regular full
image backups to the removable hard drive.

My purpose is :

to put the dvd, which contains image file and binary files of
restoring software, into the drive unit and to start immediately.
I bought Dell Laptop with Vista downgraded to XP, but Dell does not
give no cd media for Windows XP ! Only Vista cd.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

My purpose is :

to put the dvd, which contains image file and binary files of
restoring software, into the drive unit and to start immediately.
I bought Dell Laptop with Vista downgraded to XP, but Dell does not
give no cd media for Windows XP ! Only Vista cd.

If you're trying to create a recovery CD, from an image provided by Dell on
the hard drive, you don't need any of this. However, if you're trying to
back up your system entirely via image, do try Acronis.

 

[Lil' Dave]

I'm going to prepare a boot dvd to restore automatically image of my
hard disk laptop which is divided into 2 partitions:
Windows XP (NTFS) + recovery partition (unknown)

What kind of product is it more suitable to create boot dvd to use for
automatically restore of Windows ?
My notebook is Dell Precision 6400

I know these product Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, Ghost.

What you're asking is to be able to boot to the restoration asset of the
imaging program on DVD, automatically set for restoration to remove the 2
current partitions, able to access the image files of the 2 partitions for
recovery by some known drive letter for the DVD for which can vary from PC
to PC/ laptop to laptop at boot time, and access by image filename, and so
forth. There's 2 hurdles. One being how to manipulate the imaging software
to do that. The other is the DVD boot portion must point at whatever
operating system to run, and move on to the imaging program when done.
Usually beyond the scope of readers here, including myself. Good luck.

I have done similar on CD with Windows 98 restoration using the old
DriveImage 5.0. I made a multisession CD, first session had the dos and CD
driver section as drive letter A. The second session contained DI 5.0 and
the image file as drive letter D. Still had to manually run the DI program.

 

[Lil' Dave]

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

I'm a big fan of Acronis TrueImage. You need a boot CD (doesn't have to be
a DVD) and then the backups will have to fit on whatever medium you
choose. I'd be very surprised if you could fit it on a DVD, even
compressed - although you may not have much data on there. Get a removable
hard drive for your image backups. You can't back up directly to a DVD
anyway that I know of (I wouldn't want to risk it).

Additionally, with Acronis you can do another backup to a hidden partition
of the hard drive itself. I like to have a separate data partition on my
laptop, so all I'd care about would be an image backup of my system
partition for use in an emergency while on the road. I'd do regular full
image backups to the removable hard drive.

If you do have resulting image files to put on DVD, one caution if using
standard ISO 9600. The files can be no larger than 2GB. Most imaging
programs allow limiting size of the image files and results in multiple
image files, and the restoration allows spanning. I use 2000MB size
limitation in that case.

 

[Anna]

I'm going to prepare a boot dvd to restore automatically image of my
hard disk laptop which is divided into 2 partitions:
Windows XP (NTFS) + recovery partition (unknown)

What kind of product is it more suitable to create boot dvd to use for
automatically restore of Windows ?
My notebook is Dell Precision 6400

I know these product Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, Ghost.

Riccardo:
Let me offer you another suggestion to the ones you've already received...

Your Dell Precision comes equipped with an eSATA port so that you can use
this device to create SATA-to-SATA connectivity between an external SATA HDD
enclosure and your laptop.

This is an important consideration because now you can use one of the
disk-cloning programs that have already been mentioned to you and clone the
contents of your *entire* internal HDD to the external SATA HDD that's
connected to your system via the eSATA port. The great advantage to this
configuration is that because you've achieved SATA-to-SATA connectivity, the
system treats the external HDD as an *internal* HDD. Thus the external SATA
HDD containing the cloned contents of your internal HDD is *bootable* and
completely functional in an identical way to your *internally-connected*
HDD. So you have what amounts to a byte-for-byte copy of your day-to-day
working HDD that's completely bootable & functional.

So if you're not entirely set on using DVDs as your backup medium, my advice
is to take advantage of your hardware configuration. SATA HDD external
enclosures are modestly priced these days. Take a look at newegg's
offerings. While you're there take a look at the Vantec NST-D200SU external
device - see http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392028
We've been using this model for a few months and it seems to work just fine.
It has an added advantage in that it accommodates both 2 1/2" & 3 1/2" HDDs.
(I'm assuming your laptop takes 2 1/2" drives). You just slip the bare drive
into the appropriate slot. It is a bit bulky so take that into consideration
if you would be looking for a more compact unit.

I know you've rec'd suggestions re using a disk-cloning/disk-imaging
program. My personal preference is the Casper 5 disk-cloning program. (It
does *not* have disk-imaging capability). It's simple to use, very
effective, and extremely fast in backing-up (cloning) one's HDD when the
program is used on a routine frequent basis. There's a trial version
available at http://www.fssdev.com/trial.
Anna