Dear John, Here's the short version:
Use the image backup/restore that's built into Vista. You may need to
upgrade your version to get the integrated image tools. Be sure to perform a
complete restore to verify the procedure before you have irreplacable 'stuff'
installed.
The long version:
I've recently evaluated Ghost (Their Suite, as well as the stand alond
versions 11 and 12 of Ghost) and Acronis (both the Workstation versions and
the True Image flavors). Although I've used Ghost for over a decade, and
Acronis for over two years, I was not reassured by what I read in the specs
and the feedback from users posted on the internet. One reference that I
stumbled upon on the internet addressed the issue of the manner in which
Vista assigns partition boundries in relation to the geometry of the hard
drive. According to the article, Vista does not use the de facto rules for
this, or even document the new rules that it's adopted! If true, it destroys
any confidence in programs that are creating and installing images onto the
drives. Ergo, I'm staying with the image software supported by MS
Concerning the issue of multiple partitions, always respect the original
sequence of the partitions on the drive as well as the logical locations of
the devices with respect to one another. There are multiboot and multidevice
considerations too. My system has an original XP Pro installatin on Drive 1,
a data drive as Drive 2, and I added a third drive as I was installing Vista,
and installed Vista onto the third drive. Now I multiboot into either xp pro
or Vista, and each has it's own drive (only one partition for each drive).
Trust me, if I move a drive or a partition, this card house will not be
repaired easily, it will have to have a new foundation before it can even be
rebuilt!
