cloning, imaging, and backing up

[Jo-Anne Naples]

I use Windows XP, SP3, on a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer with USB2 ports
and a 60GB hard drive. I'm about to buy an external hard drive (or maybe two
of them) for backing up, and I'm confused about whether there's a difference
between cloning and imaging. I want to do a few different things and wonder
if one software package would do it all or if I need more than one:

* Back up or clone or image my internal hard drive to an external USB drive
in such a way that I can recover everything easily if my internal drive
crashes. That is, I'd like to be able to boot from the backup and/or copy it
to a new internal hard drive or a messed-up but functional old one so I can
seamlessly start working again, without having to reload programs and redo
my personal settings.

* Be able to do regular incremental backups as well.

* Be able to copy individual folders or files from the external drive to the
internal one if I simply screw up something rather than crash completely.

So...does any single program do all of what I want? I've been looking at
Acronis True Image and Casper 4 (at the suggestion of someone on one of the
newsgroups); years ago I had Ghost but never actually used it.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

 

[duke]

I use Windows XP, SP3, on a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer with USB2 ports
and a 60GB hard drive. I'm about to buy an external hard drive (or maybe two
of them) for backing up, and I'm confused about whether there's a difference
between cloning and imaging. I want to do a few different things and wonder
if one software package would do it all or if I need more than one:

* Back up or clone or image my internal hard drive to an external USB drive
in such a way that I can recover everything easily if my internal drive
crashes. That is, I'd like to be able to boot from the backup and/or copy it
to a new internal hard drive or a messed-up but functional old one so I can
seamlessly start working again, without having to reload programs and redo
my personal settings.

* Be able to do regular incremental backups as well.

* Be able to copy individual folders or files from the external drive to the
internal one if I simply screw up something rather than crash completely.

So...does any single program do all of what I want? I've been looking at
Acronis True Image and Casper 4 (at the suggestion of someone on one of the
newsgroups); years ago I had Ghost but never actually used it.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

 

[duke]

I use Windows XP, SP3, on a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer with USB2 ports
and a 60GB hard drive. I'm about to buy an external hard drive (or maybe two
of them) for backing up, and I'm confused about whether there's a difference
between cloning and imaging. I want to do a few different things and wonder
if one software package would do it all or if I need more than one:

* Back up or clone or image my internal hard drive to an external USB drive
in such a way that I can recover everything easily if my internal drive
crashes. That is, I'd like to be able to boot from the backup and/or copy it
to a new internal hard drive or a messed-up but functional old one so I can
seamlessly start working again, without having to reload programs and redo
my personal settings.

* Be able to do regular incremental backups as well.

* Be able to copy individual folders or files from the external drive to the
internal one if I simply screw up something rather than crash completely.

So...does any single program do all of what I want? I've been looking at
Acronis True Image and Casper 4 (at the suggestion of someone on one of the
newsgroups); years ago I had Ghost but never actually used it.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

Acronis True Image is an outstanding product that will meet every one
of your expectations.
You have full control of what you want imaged, incremental images if
requested, plus image isolation to an area of your backup drive that
is accessible only to Acronis itself.
I believe it is the best piece of software ever written for this
purpose.
Go for it you won't be disappointed.

Duke

 

[Fred]

You can't go wrong with Acronis. Good support.
Fred

 

[Bill in Co.]

Acronis True Image can do most of what you want. See below.

I use Windows XP, SP3, on a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer with USB2
ports
and a 60GB hard drive. I'm about to buy an external hard drive (or maybe
two
of them) for backing up, and I'm confused about whether there's a
difference
between cloning and imaging. I want to do a few different things and
wonder
if one software package would do it all or if I need more than one:

* Back up or clone or image my internal hard drive to an external USB
drive
in such a way that I can recover everything easily if my internal drive
crashes. That is, I'd like to be able to boot from the backup

That's more like Casper, since you're CLONING a disk there.
That won't be doable if you just make an "image backup", BUT the next thing
will:

and/or copy it
to a new internal hard drive or a messed-up but functional old one so I
can
seamlessly start working again, without having to reload programs and redo
my personal settings.

Yes - THAT will be doable using Acronis True Image (using imagining). You
simply restore the backed up image (which is like a compressed file
containing all your stuff) to the new source drive, and get everything back
as it was on the source drive.

* Be able to do regular incremental backups as well.

Can do this in True Image, yes. (But I often just rewrite it fresh again,
since it doesn't take all that long, and I have it all together). (or you
can do it in Casper, too)

* Be able to copy individual folders or files from the external drive to
the
internal one if I simply screw up something rather than crash completely.

You can access the files in the backup image on the backup drive with True
Image to copy some of them back to the source drive if you want, in Windows
Explorer.

 

[Lil' Dave]

I use Windows XP, SP3, on a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer with USB2
ports and a 60GB hard drive. I'm about to buy an external hard drive (or
maybe two of them) for backing up, and I'm confused about whether there's a
difference between cloning and imaging. I want to do a few different things
and wonder if one software package would do it all or if I need more than
one:

A clone is an identical copy to another hard drive including the file system
and master boot record.. The copied partitions may be larger if the hard
drive target is larger in capacity. This may be an option of the cloning
software.

An image is a file or files that contain the master boot record information,
the disk signature, the partition(s) information, each partition's
filesystem, all file data. The image file or files must be restored to a
blank hard drive, or capable of being voided by the restoration software,
via the imaging software. After restoration, the restored information on
the hard drive allows same use as the previously used hard drive. There may
be allowances duirng the image restore to increase the size of the
partition(s). However, by default, the restore will make the target hard
drive identical parttion sizes as the source hard drive.

* Back up or clone or image my internal hard drive to an external USB
drive in such a way that I can recover everything easily if my internal
drive crashes. That is, I'd like to be able to boot from the backup and/or
copy it to a new internal hard drive or a messed-up but functional old one
so I can seamlessly start working again, without having to reload programs
and redo my personal settings.

* Be able to do regular incremental backups as well.

* Be able to copy individual folders or files from the external drive to
the internal one if I simply screw up something rather than crash
completely.

So...does any single program do all of what I want? I've been looking at
Acronis True Image and Casper 4 (at the suggestion of someone on one of
the newsgroups); years ago I had Ghost but never actually used it.

There are many, many cloning and imaging softwares out there. Casper
clones. TI images, and clones partitions not entire hard drives. Similar
with Ghost.

I haven't been able to determine what you want from your post.

 

[Bill in Co.]

A clone is an identical copy to another hard drive including the file
system
and master boot record.. The copied partitions may be larger if the hard
drive target is larger in capacity. This may be an option of the cloning
software.

An image is a file or files that contain the master boot record
information,
the disk signature, the partition(s) information, each partition's
filesystem, all file data. The image file or files must be restored to a
blank hard drive, or capable of being voided by the restoration software,
via the imaging software. After restoration, the restored information on
the hard drive allows same use as the previously used hard drive. There
may
be allowances duirng the image restore to increase the size of the
partition(s). However, by default, the restore will make the target hard
drive identical parttion sizes as the source hard drive.


There are many, many cloning and imaging softwares out there. Casper
clones. TI images, and clones partitions not entire hard drives. Similar
with Ghost.

I haven't been able to determine what you want from your post.

That's why she's asking. She's trying to sort all this out, and admitedly,
it can be confusing.

 

[Jo-Anne Naples]

Thank you, everyone! You've been extremely helpful.

Jo-Anne

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I use Windows XP, SP3, on a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer
with USB2 ports and a 60GB hard drive. I'm about to buy an
external hard drive (or maybe two of them) for backing up,

Or you can install another internal hard drive.

Or you can install a mobile rack if you have a spare
expansion bay, and you can put bootable clones
or images on it (them). Here is a manufacturer of
mobile racks that has a large product line:
http://kingwin.com/ide.asp (assuming that you have
IDE hard drives and not SATA).

I'm confused about whether there's a difference between cloning
and imaging.

The utility writers' terminology varies a lot, but for the purposes
of this NG, a clone is an exact sector-for-sector copy to another
hard drive, and it is directly bootable. An image is a *file* that
contains all the information necessary to re-create the original.
Acronis's True Image does both, but the clone will be of an entire
hard drive, and it cannot make clones of individual partitions.
Acronis's Disk Director 10 *can* make clones of individual
partitions. As a matter of personal taste, though, I prefer Casper 4.0,
which can make clones of individual partitions, and it does it
quickly because it doesn't bother cloning sectors that are empty.
Casper 4.0 also doesn't require one to disconnect the hard drive
that contains the original OS when one starts up the clone for its
first run.

I'd like to be able to boot from the backup and/or copy it to a new internal
hard drive or a messed-up but functional old one
so I can seamlessly start working again, without having to reload
programs and redo my personal settings.

The fastest up-and-running-again backup is the clone. It already
resides on a hard drive in bootable form. If that hard drive is another
internal hard drive, all you have to do is to restart the PC, and go into
the BIOS and put the backup hard drive at the head of the hard drive
boot sequence (some BIOSes instead allow just "enabling" one of the
hard drives as the "boot drive"). As the boot drive, the drive containing
the clone will boot up the OS as long as the OS's partition is marked
"active" and its boot.ini file points to the right partition.

* Be able to do regular incremental backups as well.

* Be able to copy individual folders or files from the external drive to the
internal one if I simply screw up something rather than crash completely.

So...does any single program do all of what I want? I've been looking at
Acronis True Image and Casper 4 (at the suggestion of someone on one of the
newsgroups); years ago I had Ghost but never actually used it.

I don't believe Casper does images, but it does incremental cloning
that greatly reduces the cloning time after the initial clone is made.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Brian A.]

There are many, many cloning and imaging softwares out there. Casper clones.
TI images, and clones partitions not entire hard drives. Similar with Ghost.

Incorrect, both ATI and Ghost can clone and image the entire disk.

I haven't been able to determine what you want from your post.

--


Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Windows Desktop User Experience }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Peter A]

I use Windows XP, SP3, on a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer with USB2 ports
and a 60GB hard drive. I'm about to buy an external hard drive (or maybe two
of them) for backing up, and I'm confused about whether there's a difference
between cloning and imaging. I want to do a few different things and wonder
if one software package would do it all or if I need more than one:

* Back up or clone or image my internal hard drive to an external USB drive
in such a way that I can recover everything easily if my internal drive
crashes. That is, I'd like to be able to boot from the backup and/or copy it
to a new internal hard drive or a messed-up but functional old one so I can
seamlessly start working again, without having to reload programs and redo
my personal settings.

* Be able to do regular incremental backups as well.

* Be able to copy individual folders or files from the external drive to the
internal one if I simply screw up something rather than crash completely.

So...does any single program do all of what I want? I've been looking at
Acronis True Image and Casper 4 (at the suggestion of someone on one of the
newsgroups); years ago I had Ghost but never actually used it.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

I can't speak about other programs for this task, but Ghost has a good
reputation. I use it, although I have never needed to call on it for a
system restore. It works by saving a "restore point" to a network or USB
drive. I do this automatically once a week. You also create a boot CD.
Then, if your hard drive goes loopy, you boot from the CD and perform a
restore from the external drive.

 

[Jo-Anne Naples]

I didn't know one had to have a crisis to post.

No problem. See you in a couple hours when your next crisis occurs.

 

[Jo-Anne Naples]

Thank you, Tim! This is the clearest explanation of cloning versus imaging
that I've seen and answers my question about the differences in the programs
as well.

Jo-Anne

 

[Jo-Anne Naples]

Thank you, Peter! It looks like it's a good idea to create a boot CD as well
as having everything on the external drive.

Jo-Anne

 

[Fred]

Acronis makes a boot CD for use with the Image Backups.
Fred

Thank you, Peter! It looks like it's a good idea to create a boot CD as
well as having everything on the external drive.

Jo-Anne

 

[Bill in Co.]

LOL. That's just PD43 being is usual self.

I didn't know one had to have a crisis to post.

 

[Jo-Anne Naples]

Thanks much, Fred! I'm about to order that program.

Jo-Anne

Acronis makes a boot CD for use with the Image Backups.
Fred