Gost 9 or Acronis True Image?

[Louise]

I want to make a full image and regular daily incremental backups.

Will both programs do this and which would you recommend?

I have been using Dantz Retrospect with an external usb drive but
Retrospect has been throwing a lot of errors lately and their tech was
nice, but not helpful when all he could say about its stopping before
completion was that Retrospect was "choking on some file or other".

TIA

Louise

 

[Rod Speed]

I want to make a full image and regular daily incremental backups.

Will both programs do this

Yes, as long as the OS is XP or 2K with Ghost.

and which would you recommend?

There isnt a clear best.

The big advantage with Ghost is that its by far the most widely
used so there are a lot more who can comment on odd quirks etc.

Main downside with Ghost is that you cant boot a CD and do
a backup of the system without installing Ghost. Thats not that
important for the main machine where installing is no big deal,
but it is handy if you want to work on a system that isnt backed
up and want to do a safety image before doing anything to it.
And Ghost 9 will only do XP and 2K too, not the older Win9xs.

Ghost 9 is still a little buggy, you can just always
just browse the lan drives for images, particularly
if the default workgroup WORKGROUP isnt used.
Just a nuisance tho, you can name the PCs explicitly
with fully qualified PC names instead of browsing.

True Image is a bit cruder and simpler and some stuff
isnt that well documented in the manual, even quite
basic stuff like mapping drives for network ops etc.

And while you can boot True Image off CD and dont need to
install it for safety image creation, you cant do that over the
network, because there is no way to map a network drive.
Thats a damned nuisance in practice if you do want to do
a safety image of a system before doing anything to it.
I normally plug those systems into the lan because its
most convenient to have them use the broadband on the
lan for even quite basic stuff like installing various stuff etc
and a drive on the lan is a handy place to put a safety image.

You basically need to use a USB or firewire drive for the safety
images done in that situation. Does support all the OSs tho.

I have been using Dantz Retrospect with an external usb drive but
Retrospect has been throwing a lot of errors lately and their tech was
nice, but not helpful when all he could say about its stopping before
completion was that Retrospect was "choking on some file or other".

Thats pathetic and good reason to bin it.

 

[Louise]

Yes, as long as the OS is XP or 2K with Ghost.


There isnt a clear best.

The big advantage with Ghost is that its by far the most widely
used so there are a lot more who can comment on odd quirks etc.

Main downside with Ghost is that you cant boot a CD and do
a backup of the system without installing Ghost. Thats not that
important for the main machine where installing is no big deal,
but it is handy if you want to work on a system that isnt backed
up and want to do a safety image before doing anything to it.
And Ghost 9 will only do XP and 2K too, not the older Win9xs.

Ghost 9 is still a little buggy, you can just always
just browse the lan drives for images, particularly
if the default workgroup WORKGROUP isnt used.
Just a nuisance tho, you can name the PCs explicitly
with fully qualified PC names instead of browsing.

True Image is a bit cruder and simpler and some stuff
isnt that well documented in the manual, even quite
basic stuff like mapping drives for network ops etc.

And while you can boot True Image off CD and dont need to
install it for safety image creation, you cant do that over the
network, because there is no way to map a network drive.
Thats a damned nuisance in practice if you do want to do
a safety image of a system before doing anything to it.
I normally plug those systems into the lan because its
most convenient to have them use the broadband on the
lan for even quite basic stuff like installing various stuff etc
and a drive on the lan is a handy place to put a safety image.

You basically need to use a USB or firewire drive for the safety
images done in that situation. Does support all the OSs tho.

Thanks for the thorough analysis. I'll probably go with Ghost. I used
a much older version several years ago to clone a drive and it worked
flawlessly - but it wouldn't backup NTFS at that time. I'm sure it now
does.

Louise

 

[Rob Nicholson]

Will both programs do this and which would you recommend?

I've used Ghost for years - it's performed well but TrueImage is a good
product too. We like it:

o On the fly backups
o Incremental backups
o Restore from NTFS drives from boot CD
o Support for wide range of network cards from boot CD
o Support for NT 4 which we still use
o Nice snazzy interface

That said, Ghost 9 has caught up with some of these features; on-fly backups
& incremental for sure.

Cheers, Rob.

 

[Doug Ellice]

Louise,

This is strange to say, but I'm happy you're having trouble because that
proves to me that my problem is not unique. On Dec 10 I posted this
message here:

Does anyone here use Dantz Retrospect Express HD? It is the software
that came bundled with my Maxtor "One-Touch" external drive.
It appears to lock up on me every time I try to change the defaults.

O/S = Win XP
Doug

I do nut yet have a solution, and neither Dantz nor Maxtor support has
been any help.

 

[Louise]

Louise,

This is strange to say, but I'm happy you're having trouble because that
proves to me that my problem is not unique. On Dec 10 I posted this
message here:



I do nut yet have a solution, and neither Dantz nor Maxtor support has
been any help.

Interesting - before I had the problem myself, I recommended that a
friend get the Maxtor with Retrospect Express. She now has a situation
in which her windows desktop changes display (from classic to XP),
everytime she turns on the drive.

Dantz says it's Maxtor and Maxtor says they have no idea - try it on
another machine. Not Mine

I'm thinking about having her reformat the drive completely and then use
different backup software.

Louise

 

[Irwin]

I have used Retrospect Express, and I much prefer Backup MyPC, which is
a similar style program but works very well. I have never used it with
USB, but I have to assume that new versions support it. It is a solid
program.

IMF

 

[Will Dormann]

And while you can boot True Image off CD and dont need to
install it for safety image creation, you cant do that over the
network, because there is no way to map a network drive.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. When booting from the rescue CD,
you can image to or restore from any network location. (by just
browsing the "network neighborhood")

What functionality is missing by not being able to map a network drive?

 

[Louise]

I have used Retrospect Express, and I much prefer Backup MyPC, which is
a similar style program but works very well. I have never used it with
USB, but I have to assume that new versions support it. It is a solid
program.

IMF

other".

I agree - I still use it for partial backups of data which I write to
DVDs and take off site. It has saved me many times over the years.

For my system backup and nightly incrementals, I'm using Retrospect
Professional, no with some reservations.

So, knowing I was nervous about Retrospect after tech support had no
idea of why it was freezing, I decided to get Ghost and backup a
complete image to a spare usb drive I have hanging around. I must say
the image backup went very smoothely and I tested the restore of a few
files - it works like a charm and the interface is reasonable and user
friendly - much more than can be said for Dantz.

When I finally decide I'm crazy to be using three different backup
programs , I know Dantz will be the one to go.

Louise

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by this. When booting from the rescue CD, you can
image to or restore from any network location. (by just browsing the "network
neighborhood")

I dont get any network neighbourhood to browse when I have
booted the rescue CD. I only get the local hard drives shown
when I have previously selected the Image Archive Location
as Fixed hard disk drive. Get the same result when I select
Removable disk drive too, but obviously just see the removable drives.

Thats with TrueImage Deluxe 8

 

[Rod Speed]

Whoops, sorry, stuffed that up rather comprehensively.

That limitation with the booted rescue CD applied to TrueImage Deluxe 6

You can select networked PCs fine with 8

The item is actually called 'Computers Near Me' which is good enough.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

The item is actually called 'Computers Near Me' which is good enough.

True Image has very impressive support for a wide range of graphics cards.
We used to have to build Norton Ghost boot CD-ROMs by hand before, with lots
of messing around with SYSTEM.INI, PROTOCOL.INI and DOS drivers. All history
now.

Rob.

 

[Rod Speed]

True Image has very impressive support for a wide range of graphics cards.

It does however still have a problem with one of my dinosaurs that lives
in the kitchen and is essentially just a terminal for the main system, running
an Access app from the main system and allowing web browsing etc.

Works fine with the installed TI but the rescue CD basically never
gets a proper visible screen. That machine has an onboard video
which shares system ram, so that's likely to be the problem.

Damned nuisance in many ways because that particular system
is ideal for TI instead of ghost 9 if it wasnt for that problem.

The detail of what you can see when its booted varys
with the builds of 8 and is improving a bit over the later
builds, so presumably it will get fixed eventually.

We used to have to build Norton Ghost boot CD-ROMs by hand before, with lots
of messing around with SYSTEM.INI, PROTOCOL.INI and DOS drivers.

Sure, but that's gone with ghost 9 now too.

The main problem with ghost 9 is that you cant just
boot the CD and create an image of the drive that
you booted the CD on onto a drive across the lan.
You can restore but not create the image. You
have to install ghost 9 to create an image.

That would be handy for systems you want to do
some work on, do a safety backup of the system
before making any changes to it.

All history now.

Yeah, thats the main reason I have been playing with TI and
ghost again, because I backup my dinosaurs over the lan.
Pain in the arse with ghost 2003 and drive image 2003.

Tho one way to simplify the problem is to just use Bart's
network boot system and just put the imaging app on that CD.

 

[Al Dykes]

It does however still have a problem with one of my dinosaurs that lives
in the kitchen and is essentially just a terminal for the main system, running
an Access app from the main system and allowing web browsing etc.

Email Acronis with the model of your video chip. They might be able
to tell you how to pick lower video specs that will work. or add it to
the next maint release. This assumes there are linux drivers
for the chip. If you boot knoppix what happens and what does
Knoppix identify as the driver. Send that to Acrinis.

 

[Rod Speed]

Email Acronis with the model of your video chip.

Everest lists it as

[ Intel(R) 82810-DC100 Graphics Controller (Microsoft Corporation) ]

Video Adapter Properties:
Device Description Intel(R) 82810-DC100 Graphics Controller
(Microsoft Corporation)
Adapter String Intel(R) 82810 Graphics Controller
Chip Type Intel(R) 82810
DAC Type Internal
Installed Drivers i81xdnt5 (6.13.01.3198 )
Memory Size 32 MB

They might be able to tell you how to pick lower video
specs that will work. or add it to the next maint release.

Tad disappointing that it couldnt handle that from scratch given its Intel.

This assumes there are linux drivers for the chip.
If you boot knoppix what happens

Works fine.

and what does Knoppix identify as the driver.

How do I work that out ?

The initial text mode screen at boot time lists the display as
Video is 82810 - DC100 GCG (i810) using Xfree86 (i810) Server

system/info list the same i810 data