HDD Image Backup Restore Software Recommendations

P

Pete B

I currently use WinXP Pro SP3, with Acronis TI Home 2010 for backup purposes for my HDD. I am investigating other choices, because what I want is a package that will easily allow me to make an image of my HDD, then restore it to a new, different-size replacement HDD (say, from current 120 GB drive to a new 500 GB drive). As well, it would help if the software could do P2P restores where it can restore to a completely new PC system.

I see Paragon offers a Pro package that seems to do the task but I am not sure; anyone use it now? Does anyone have iodeas or suggestions on any products for this purpose? I am a home user, so this is just for upgrading in the future, otherwise Acronis works fine for me, but it has limitations in this regard.

Any ideas/comments welcome....
 
B

bobster

You could try the free trial version of Casper 6.0. It can make a clone
from your current 120 gig hard drive to a new 500 gig hard drive by mounting
the new drive in either a USB or SATA connected external holder or in the
second position internal slot. Then you would have an exact replica of your
original drive on the new 500 gig drive with all that neat new space.
Casper can be found here:

http://www.fssdev.com/default.aspx

I've used Casper 5.0 and now 6.0 for about a year and wouldn't be without
it. So much easier to use than Acronis IMHO.

==================================================================


I currently use WinXP Pro SP3, with Acronis TI Home 2010 for backup purposes
for my HDD. I am investigating other choices, because what I want is a
package that will easily allow me to make an image of my HDD, then restore
it to a new, different-size replacement HDD (say, from current 120 GB drive
to a new 500 GB drive). As well, it would help if the software could do P2P
restores where it can restore to a completely new PC system.

I see Paragon offers a Pro package that seems to do the task but I am not
sure; anyone use it now? Does anyone have iodeas or suggestions on any
products for this purpose? I am a home user, so this is just for upgrading
in the future, otherwise Acronis works fine for me, but it has limitations
in this regard.

Any ideas/comments welcome....
 
M

me

I currently use WinXP Pro SP3, with Acronis TI Home 2010 for backup purposes for my HDD. I am investigating other choices, because what I want is a package that will easily allow me to make an image of my HDD, then restore it to a new, different-size replacement HDD (say, from current 120 GB drive to a new 500 GB drive). As well, it would help if the software could do P2P restores where it can restore to a completely new PC system.

I see Paragon offers a Pro package that seems to do the task but I am not sure; anyone use it now? Does anyone have iodeas or suggestions on any products for this purpose? I am a home user, so this is just for upgrading in the future, otherwise Acronis works fine for me, but it has limitations in this regard.

Any ideas/comments welcome....

To use Acronis to image to a larger HDD, format the large HDD using
your perferred method (from Windows, installation CD, 3rd party SW),
when restoring do not click MBR and Track 0, do not format the HDD
from within Acronis.
 
D

Daave

Pete said:
I currently use WinXP Pro SP3, with Acronis TI Home 2010 for backup
purposes for my HDD. I am investigating other choices, because what
I want is a package that will easily allow me to make an image of my
HDD, then restore it to a new, different-size replacement HDD (say,
from current 120 GB drive to a new 500 GB drive). As well, it would
help if the software could do P2P restores where it can restore to a
completely new PC system.

I see Paragon offers a Pro package that seems to do the task but I am
not sure; anyone use it now? Does anyone have iodeas or suggestions
on any products for this purpose? I am a home user, so this is just
for upgrading in the future, otherwise Acronis works fine for me, but
it has limitations in this regard.

Any ideas/comments welcome....

Paragon's Miagration and Virtualization feature from their Backup &
Recovery 10 Suite is the only (afforadable) solution I am aware of with
regard to "restor[ing] to a completely new PC system." I am considering
it myself. More info:

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/brs/cat_migration.html

P.S., Please turn off Quoted Printable in your Plain Text settings,
which has the effect of negating your word wrap. Thx.
 
A

Anna

I currently use WinXP Pro SP3, with Acronis TI Home 2010 for backup
purposes
for my HDD. I am investigating other choices, because what I want is a
package that will easily allow me to make an image of my HDD, then restore
it to a new, different-size replacement HDD (say, from current 120 GB
drive
to a new 500 GB drive). As well, it would help if the software could do
P2P
restores where it can restore to a completely new PC system.

I see Paragon offers a Pro package that seems to do the task but I am not
sure; anyone use it now? Does anyone have iodeas or suggestions on any
products for this purpose? I am a home user, so this is just for
upgrading
in the future, otherwise Acronis works fine for me, but it has limitations
in this regard.

Any ideas/comments welcome....


bobster said:
You could try the free trial version of Casper 6.0. It can make a clone
from your current 120 gig hard drive to a new 500 gig hard drive by
mounting
the new drive in either a USB or SATA connected external holder or in the
second position internal slot. Then you would have an exact replica of
your
original drive on the new 500 gig drive with all that neat new space.
Casper can be found here:

http://www.fssdev.com/default.aspx

I've used Casper 5.0 and now 6.0 for about a year and wouldn't be without
it. So much easier to use than Acronis IMHO.


Pete:
Just let me add a few add'l comments to those of "bobster"...

I too am a long-time fan of the Casper disk-cloning program, particularly
the Casper 5 program which we've been using over the past few years.

You should note, however, that Casper is a disk-to-disk (or
partition-to-partition) cloning program. It does not have "disk imaging"
capability similar to that of your Acronis True Image program.

I'm not clear as to why you could not use your current ATI program in
accordance with your stated requirement of restoring the ATI disk-image to a
different-sized (larger) HDD. While except for some cursory experience with
the ATI Home 2010 program, I've worked with various earlier versions of the
ATI program and I'm pretty sure the program had the capability you desire.
If I'm wrong about that I'm sure other responders will correct me.

And, of course, Acronis also has disk-cloning capability as well.

But getting back to the Casper disk-cloning program...

In addition to its outstanding qualities in terms of general effectiveness,
simplicity of design, and ease of use even for inexperienced users, the
chief advantage of Casper (in our view) is its rather extroardinary
capability of creating "incremental" clones, using what Casper refers to as
its "SmartClone" technology. Understand that the "incremental clone" is a
*complete* clone of the source disk. The result of this incremental clone
process is that it takes the user only a fraction of the time to create
subsequent clones of the source HDD than it would otherwise take using the
typical disk-cloning methodology.

As an example...

When a typical disk-cloning program undertakes its disk-to-disk cloning
process it does so without regard to the fact that the "source" and
"destination" HDDs involved in the disk-cloning operation may be the
*identical* drives that had been involved when a prior disk-cloning
operation had been undertaken (which is the usual scenario for the great
majority of users). It doesn't matter to the disk-cloning program whether
the HDD now being cloned was cloned an hour ago, or a day ago, or whenever.
The "now" disk-cloning operation will proceed as if the HDD recipient of the
clone, i.e., the destination HDD is bare of data, even if that same
destination HDD was the recipient of a prior clone from the same source HDD
10 minutes ago.

As a result...

The disk-cloning operation will take a substantial amount of time to "do its
work" each time the disk-cloning operation is undertaken, without regard to
the fact that perhaps only a relatively few changes involving the source
HDD's data has changed since the last disk-cloning operation. So, as an
example, let's say it takes about 30 minutes or so to clone the contents of
a HDD containing 40 GB of data to another HDD. Two days later the user
decides to again back up his or her system by undertaking another
disk-cloning operation. Presumably the data changes over those two days
haven't been especially large. But with the typical disk-cloning program,
e.g., Acronis True Image, it will take the disk-cloning program just about
the *same* period of time to perform current the disk-cloning operation as
it did originally, i.e., 30 minutes in the preceding example. And so on and
so on in the following days.

But with the Casper program, the program has the capability of recognizing
*only* the change in data that has occurred from its last disk-cloning
operation and will proceed to "do its work" on that basis. Thus, given the
example above it will probably take less than 3 or 4 minutes to complete the
disk-cloning operation. And so on and so forth.

So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to systematically
& routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that the
expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be
relatively slight. Surely this is a strong incentive for a user to maintain
his/her complete system in a reasonably up-to-date fashion. Obviously the
amount of time it will take to complete this "incremental" disk-cloning
operation with Casper will be dependent upon the total volume of data being
cloned as well as the additions, deletions, configuration changes, etc. that
had been made since the previous disk-cloning operation. So the user is
encouraged to perform these disk-cloning operations on a relatively frequent
basis since by doing so the expenditure of time in completing the operation
will be relatively trifling.

And keep in mind that the recipient of the clone - the destination HDD -
will be a precise copy of the source HDD with all its data immediately
accessible in exactly the same way one would access data from their source
HDD - their day-to-day working HDD in most cases. And the destination HDD,
should it be an internal HDD or installed as a internal HDD from an exterior
enclosure will be immediately bootable without the need of any recovery
process. (And now, with the new Casper 6 program a USB external HDD that has
served as a recipient of the clone can be a bootable device. See below for
details.)

As "bobster" has recommended, you could download/install a trial version of
the Casper program to at least get a feel as to how you like the program.
But bear in mind that the trial version is somewhat "crippled" in that
(using your example) the trial version will not allow you to clone the
contents of your 120 GB HDD to a 500 GB HDD. The trial version does not
provide volume resizing. For example, let's say the total data on your 120
GB "source" HDD totaled 55 GB. While you could clone those total contents to
the new 500 GB "destination" HDD, the trial version of Casper will create
only a 55 GB partition on the 500 GB drive to hold those contents. The
remaining disk space of the drive would be "unallocated" disk space, i.e.,
disk space that you could subsequently partition/format.

Understand that this limitation applies *only* to the trial version. The
licensed version of Casper would permit you to manipulate the disk space on
the destination HDD in virtually any fashion you desired. For example, you
could (using the Casper program) create a 120 GB partition on the
destination HDD to hold the contents of that 120 GB source HDD, or you could
use the entire 500 GB to hold the contents, or you could establish whatever
size partition you desired to hold the contents (as long as the partition
was large enough to contain the contents).

I want to emphasize to you and others who might be interested in a
comprehensive backup program that the Casper program's outstanding advantage
(again, in our view) over similar type programs is its speed in undertaking
backup operations. In order to achieve this advantage it's important that
the user employ the program on a routine & frequent basis . Hopefully the
user will use the program not less than weekly and perhaps even on a more
frequent basis and ensure that he/she has an up-to-date complete backup of
their system at any given time. Frankly, if the user is merely interested in
an occasional comprehensive backup of their system, say, every few months or
so, or only when they install a new larger HDD as their day-to-day working
HDD, then virtually any disk-cloning (or disk-imaging) program will suffice
for those needs.

A word or two about the recently released Casper 6 program...

Apparently the two major changes (as far as we can discern) incorporated in
that program over the Casper 5 program are...
1. It's designed to be compatible with the new Windows 7 program (in
addition, of course, to XP), and,
2. The program now provides for USB boot capability.

With respect to 2., heretofore while the contents of the source HDD could be
cloned to a USB external HDD for backup purposes, that latter device (as a
practical matter) was not bootable. Now Casper 6 has that capability of
creating a bootable USBEHD (at least based upon our limited experience with
the new version in an XP environment. We haven't worked with the program to
any appreciable extent in a Windows 7 OS environment.)

Needless to say that's a significant "leap forward". Naturally the
motherboard's BIOS must support a boot from a USB device in order for this
capability to exist. And not all motherboard BIOS's support that capability,
especially older motherboards.
Anna
 
P

Pete B

Yes, I just spent an hour on the Paragon website checking out their various backup software packages, and I noted that they appear to have a reasonably-priced migration function,in the package you mention and in the Pro package, although from what I read I still wonder whether it would do the trick if you do not have any info about the drivers and such needed for the new PC available on disk or on a server somewhere.

That functionality is really what I am looking for, so that if needed I could migrate my whole current HDD to a brand new but different construct of PC (since my current system, as with all my PCs I have ever bought, is a custom build). And I am running WinXP Pro SP3 now, if I decided to upgrade to Win 7 on a new system, I would like to find something that can "move" all my current system and third-party software to the new PC without me haviung to reinstall everything from scratch, which would take a month!!

AFA cloning my current HDD to a new one, Acronis does that already very easily, so I am really not concerned about that issue. I could just install the new larger HDD as a second drive in my PC and Acronis will clone my current drive to it and expand the partition as well so that I get all the additional storage space. But Aclonis has a **pitiful** migration add-in, that is just pathetically screwed up and defective, so forget migrating to a new PC with Acronis.

Turned it off; never knew what it did, it was default.

--
Pete B


Daave said:
Pete said:
I currently use WinXP Pro SP3, with Acronis TI Home 2010 for backup
purposes for my HDD. I am investigating other choices, because what
I want is a package that will easily allow me to make an image of my
HDD, then restore it to a new, different-size replacement HDD (say,
from current 120 GB drive to a new 500 GB drive). As well, it would
help if the software could do P2P restores where it can restore to a
completely new PC system.

I see Paragon offers a Pro package that seems to do the task but I am
not sure; anyone use it now? Does anyone have iodeas or suggestions
on any products for this purpose? I am a home user, so this is just
for upgrading in the future, otherwise Acronis works fine for me, but
it has limitations in this regard.

Any ideas/comments welcome....

Paragon's Miagration and Virtualization feature from their Backup &
Recovery 10 Suite is the only (afforadable) solution I am aware of with
regard to "restor[ing] to a completely new PC system." I am considering
it myself. More info:

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/brs/cat_migration.html

P.S., Please turn off Quoted Printable in your Plain Text settings,
which has the effect of negating your word wrap. Thx.
 
P

Pete B

Anna, you obviously work for Casper :=), nice try but no sale. Cloning my HDD is no problem with Acronis, it is easy to do, as is simply backing up an image and restoring it, or anything in between. What I am looking for is a package with migration capabilies, so I can also transfer all my HDD image to a new PC with different hardware and even maybe different OS version. Acronis can clone a HDD easy as pie, but it has no real migration capability (the addon for doing it is a disaster).

As for incremental cloning and backups, easy as pie in Acronis, one click on "update" and it produces an incremental backup or clone of the last stored full backup; I just did that today and it took about an hour to produce a 4G+ increment to my current full 120G previous backup. Or alternatively you can use Acronius to do continual backups all the time the PC is running, every change you make is backed up. Restoring is also a quick and simple job, so that is not a problem either. And unlike bobcat I find Acronis extremely easy to use, especially for a restore (it has saved my a** more than once).

I will look at Casper but it really sounds about the same as Acronis. Thanks for the comments.
 
A

Anna

Anna said:
Pete:
Just let me add a few add'l comments to those of "bobster"...

I too am a long-time fan of the Casper disk-cloning program, particularly
the Casper 5 program which we've been using over the past few years.

You should note, however, that Casper is a disk-to-disk (or
partition-to-partition) cloning program. It does not have "disk imaging"
capability similar to that of your Acronis True Image program.

I'm not clear as to why you could not use your current ATI program in
accordance with your stated requirement of restoring the ATI disk-image to
a
different-sized (larger) HDD. While except for some cursory experience
with
the ATI Home 2010 program, I've worked with various earlier versions of
the
ATI program and I'm pretty sure the program had the capability you desire.
If I'm wrong about that I'm sure other responders will correct me.

And, of course, Acronis also has disk-cloning capability as well.

But getting back to the Casper disk-cloning program...

In addition to its outstanding qualities in terms of general
effectiveness,
simplicity of design, and ease of use even for inexperienced users, the
chief advantage of Casper (in our view) is its rather extroardinary
capability of creating "incremental" clones, using what Casper refers to
as
its "SmartClone" technology. Understand that the "incremental clone" is a
*complete* clone of the source disk. The result of this incremental clone
process is that it takes the user only a fraction of the time to create
subsequent clones of the source HDD than it would otherwise take using the
typical disk-cloning methodology.

As an example...

When a typical disk-cloning program undertakes its disk-to-disk cloning
process it does so without regard to the fact that the "source" and
"destination" HDDs involved in the disk-cloning operation may be the
*identical* drives that had been involved when a prior disk-cloning
operation had been undertaken (which is the usual scenario for the great
majority of users). It doesn't matter to the disk-cloning program whether
the HDD now being cloned was cloned an hour ago, or a day ago, or
whenever.
The "now" disk-cloning operation will proceed as if the HDD recipient of
the
clone, i.e., the destination HDD is bare of data, even if that same
destination HDD was the recipient of a prior clone from the same source
HDD
10 minutes ago.

As a result...

The disk-cloning operation will take a substantial amount of time to "do
its
work" each time the disk-cloning operation is undertaken, without regard
to
the fact that perhaps only a relatively few changes involving the source
HDD's data has changed since the last disk-cloning operation. So, as an
example, let's say it takes about 30 minutes or so to clone the contents
of
a HDD containing 40 GB of data to another HDD. Two days later the user
decides to again back up his or her system by undertaking another
disk-cloning operation. Presumably the data changes over those two days
haven't been especially large. But with the typical disk-cloning program,
e.g., Acronis True Image, it will take the disk-cloning program just about
the *same* period of time to perform current the disk-cloning operation as
it did originally, i.e., 30 minutes in the preceding example. And so on
and
so on in the following days.

But with the Casper program, the program has the capability of recognizing
*only* the change in data that has occurred from its last disk-cloning
operation and will proceed to "do its work" on that basis. Thus, given the
example above it will probably take less than 3 or 4 minutes to complete
the
disk-cloning operation. And so on and so forth.

So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to
systematically
& routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that
the
expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be
relatively slight. Surely this is a strong incentive for a user to
maintain
his/her complete system in a reasonably up-to-date fashion. Obviously the
amount of time it will take to complete this "incremental" disk-cloning
operation with Casper will be dependent upon the total volume of data
being
cloned as well as the additions, deletions, configuration changes, etc.
that
had been made since the previous disk-cloning operation. So the user is
encouraged to perform these disk-cloning operations on a relatively
frequent
basis since by doing so the expenditure of time in completing the
operation
will be relatively trifling.

And keep in mind that the recipient of the clone - the destination HDD -
will be a precise copy of the source HDD with all its data immediately
accessible in exactly the same way one would access data from their source
HDD - their day-to-day working HDD in most cases. And the destination HDD,
should it be an internal HDD or installed as a internal HDD from an
exterior
enclosure will be immediately bootable without the need of any recovery
process. (And now, with the new Casper 6 program a USB external HDD that
has
served as a recipient of the clone can be a bootable device. See below for
details.)

As "bobster" has recommended, you could download/install a trial version
of
the Casper program to at least get a feel as to how you like the program.
But bear in mind that the trial version is somewhat "crippled" in that
(using your example) the trial version will not allow you to clone the
contents of your 120 GB HDD to a 500 GB HDD. The trial version does not
provide volume resizing. For example, let's say the total data on your 120
GB "source" HDD totaled 55 GB. While you could clone those total contents
to
the new 500 GB "destination" HDD, the trial version of Casper will create
only a 55 GB partition on the 500 GB drive to hold those contents. The
remaining disk space of the drive would be "unallocated" disk space, i.e.,
disk space that you could subsequently partition/format.

Understand that this limitation applies *only* to the trial version. The
licensed version of Casper would permit you to manipulate the disk space
on
the destination HDD in virtually any fashion you desired. For example, you
could (using the Casper program) create a 120 GB partition on the
destination HDD to hold the contents of that 120 GB source HDD, or you
could
use the entire 500 GB to hold the contents, or you could establish
whatever
size partition you desired to hold the contents (as long as the partition
was large enough to contain the contents).

I want to emphasize to you and others who might be interested in a
comprehensive backup program that the Casper program's outstanding
advantage
(again, in our view) over similar type programs is its speed in
undertaking
backup operations. In order to achieve this advantage it's important that
the user employ the program on a routine & frequent basis . Hopefully the
user will use the program not less than weekly and perhaps even on a more
frequent basis and ensure that he/she has an up-to-date complete backup of
their system at any given time. Frankly, if the user is merely interested
in
an occasional comprehensive backup of their system, say, every few months
or
so, or only when they install a new larger HDD as their day-to-day working
HDD, then virtually any disk-cloning (or disk-imaging) program will
suffice
for those needs.

A word or two about the recently released Casper 6 program...

Apparently the two major changes (as far as we can discern) incorporated
in
that program over the Casper 5 program are...
1. It's designed to be compatible with the new Windows 7 program (in
addition, of course, to XP), and,
2. The program now provides for USB boot capability.

With respect to 2., heretofore while the contents of the source HDD could
be
cloned to a USB external HDD for backup purposes, that latter device (as a
practical matter) was not bootable. Now Casper 6 has that capability of
creating a bootable USBEHD (at least based upon our limited experience
with
the new version in an XP environment. We haven't worked with the program
to
any appreciable extent in a Windows 7 OS environment.)

Needless to say that's a significant "leap forward". Naturally the
motherboard's BIOS must support a boot from a USB device in order for this
capability to exist. And not all motherboard BIOS's support that
capability,
especially older motherboards.
Anna


Anna, you obviously work for Casper :=), nice try but no sale. Cloning my
HDD is no problem with Acronis, it is easy to do, as is simply backing up an
image and restoring it, or anything in between. What I am looking for is a
package with migration capabilies, so I can also transfer all my HDD image
to a new PC with different hardware and even maybe different OS version.
Acronis can clone a HDD easy as pie, but it has no real migration capability
(the addon for doing it is a disaster).

As for incremental cloning and backups, easy as pie in Acronis, one click on
"update" and it produces an incremental backup or clone of the last stored
full backup; I just did that today and it took about an hour to produce a
4G+ increment to my current full 120G previous backup. Or alternatively you
can use Acronius to do continual backups all the time the PC is running,
every change you make is backed up. Restoring is also a quick and simple
job, so that is not a problem either. And unlike bobcat I find Acronis
extremely easy to use, especially for a restore (it has saved my a** more
than once).

I will look at Casper but it really sounds about the same as Acronis.
Thanks for the comments.

--
Pete B


Pete:
First of all, I do not work for Casper. I have no connection, neither
commercial nor personal, with the developer of that program. I highly
recommend the program for most PC users for the reasons I stated in my post
based on my extensive experience with that program (as well as other
disk-cloning, disk-imaging programs) and working with many, many other users
of that program.

If the program isn't suitable for your specific purposes, so be it.

It is true that Casper (as well as every other disk-cloning/disk-imaging
program that I've worked with) is not designed as a data migration type of
program. It is solely designed to be a disk-cloning (partition-cloning)
program along the lines I indicated.

You'll pardon me for apparently misunderstanding the entire thrust of your
inquiry. I would only add that over the years we've worked with a number of
data migration programs (although I can't recall whether we've worked with
that specific Paragon program you mentioned) and we've yet to find one that
truly worked as a comprehensive "migration" program in that it effectively
migrated the established OS, all programs & applications, and user-generated
data over to a completely different system in a self-sustaining manner
without further ado. It would be interesting to learn whether you find that
Paragon program (or some other similar type of program) suitable in that
regard.
Anna
 
U

Unknown

Check out www.cmsproducts.com for your needs. You can ask them questions
and they will respond.
They are Computer Management Systems.
Anna, you obviously work for Casper :=), nice try but no sale. Cloning my
HDD is no problem with Acronis, it is easy to do, as is simply backing up an
image and restoring it, or anything in between. What I am looking for is a
package with migration capabilies, so I can also transfer all my HDD image
to a new PC with different hardware and even maybe different OS version.
Acronis can clone a HDD easy as pie, but it has no real migration capability
(the addon for doing it is a disaster).

As for incremental cloning and backups, easy as pie in Acronis, one click on
"update" and it produces an incremental backup or clone of the last stored
full backup; I just did that today and it took about an hour to produce a
4G+ increment to my current full 120G previous backup. Or alternatively you
can use Acronius to do continual backups all the time the PC is running,
every change you make is backed up. Restoring is also a quick and simple
job, so that is not a problem either. And unlike bobcat I find Acronis
extremely easy to use, especially for a restore (it has saved my a** more
than once).

I will look at Casper but it really sounds about the same as Acronis.
Thanks for the comments.
 
B

Bob CP

Pete said:
I currently use WinXP Pro SP3, with Acronis TI Home 2010 for backup purposes for my HDD. I am investigating other choices, because what I want is a package that will easily allow me to make an image of my HDD, then restore it to a new, different-size replacement HDD (say, from current 120 GB drive to a new 500 GB drive). As well, it would help if the software could do P2P restores where it can restore to a completely new PC system.

I see Paragon offers a Pro package that seems to do the task but I am not sure; anyone use it now? Does anyone have iodeas or suggestions on any products for this purpose? I am a home user, so this is just for upgrading in the future, otherwise Acronis works fine for me, but it has limitations in this regard.

Any ideas/comments welcome....
Not a perfect fit, but take a look at PCMover. You can migrate
programs, preferences and data files to a new machine with a different
MS OS.
 
B

bobster

Pete,

Like Anna, I also have no connection with Casper other than buying v5 from
them a year ago and yesterday upgrading to v6.

Sounds like Casper will not do what you want, i.e. migrate a bootable "C"
drive from one machine to a different one.

Sorry if my first post sounded like a commercial for Casper. And I also
might have misunderstood what it is you wanted to do.

The reason I like Casper is that I can keep a "hot spare" hard drive either
in my second internal slot, or at the ready in an external eSATA connected
Vantec enclosure,(actually, HDs being so cheap, I do both). I automatically
update weekly or more often manually on occasion. If my regular "C" drive
fails, or I muck it up by screwing around, I can get back on line in about
45 seconds by re-booting into the other internal/ external drive. I can
then clone the active drive contents back onto my "C" drive in 5-7 minutes
(typically) and be completely recovered from disaster in less than 8
minutes. It gives me a foolproof recovery system that has never let me
down. My admittedly limited experience with ATI (I sent it back to Amazon
for a refund after 3 days) led me to believe that I couldn't come close to
doing that with it.

I am well aware of the differences between cloners and imagers and
understand the risk of cloning a "bad" "C" drive content. One always has to
be careful but so far that has not been a problem.

Anna, you obviously work for Casper :=), nice try but no sale. Cloning my
HDD is no problem with Acronis, it is easy to do, as is simply backing up an
image and restoring it, or anything in between. What I am looking for is a
package with migration capabilies, so I can also transfer all my HDD image
to a new PC with different hardware and even maybe different OS version.
Acronis can clone a HDD easy as pie, but it has no real migration capability
(the addon for doing it is a disaster).

As for incremental cloning and backups, easy as pie in Acronis, one click on
"update" and it produces an incremental backup or clone of the last stored
full backup; I just did that today and it took about an hour to produce a
4G+ increment to my current full 120G previous backup. Or alternatively you
can use Acronius to do continual backups all the time the PC is running,
every change you make is backed up. Restoring is also a quick and simple
job, so that is not a problem either. And unlike bobcat I find Acronis
extremely easy to use, especially for a restore (it has saved my a** more
than once).

I will look at Casper but it really sounds about the same as Acronis.
Thanks for the comments.
 
P

Pete B

My gosh, Bob, I had forgotten about LapLink, which was one of the earliest remote programming software packages I ever used. And what you suggest may be even more ideal for me IF I want to do a migration rather than just cloning a HDD or using the other packages, since I would only need this if I were to buy a new PC or upgrade to a newer version of Windows on a new HDD/new PC. Don't need it right now, but that is closer to what I really need.

Presuming it does actually move the apps as though you had actually installed them on the new HDD, not just copy the files and data, of course. I will keep this in mind, added it to my Favorites list.

Good suggestion!
 
P

Pete B

Anna, I was not criticizing you, your reply was very informative, and I did go to the Casper site and check it out. It does appear to be quite good, but I do not see that much difference from ATI that I would want to abandon the ATI and go to the Casper (unless they give it away for free!). It actually appears to be pretty much the same as ATI on almost everything (as does Paragon for that matter), and I have had very good experience with ATI over many years spo I will; stick with it for cloning.

So please forgive me if I appeared to be rebuking you, I was just kidding, that was why the :=), I did not really think you worked for Casper, heck, I would probably do the same if someone asked about ATI....

Yes, I too have not really seen anything for migrating that looks good, and as I said the ATI addin sucks. But what BobCP suggests, my old friend LaoLink, may do what I want (which admittedly I may not have clarified very well). I am not going to bother with Paragon, since I think it uses the WinPE method for migrating which sucks IMO.

Anyway, thanks for your informative reply, I really did appreciate it.
 
P

Pete B

I will take a look. Thanks

--
Pete B
Unknown said:
Check out www.cmsproducts.com for your needs. You can ask them questions
and they will respond.
They are Computer Management Systems.
Anna, you obviously work for Casper :=), nice try but no sale. Cloning my
HDD is no problem with Acronis, it is easy to do, as is simply backing up an
image and restoring it, or anything in between. What I am looking for is a
package with migration capabilies, so I can also transfer all my HDD image
to a new PC with different hardware and even maybe different OS version.
Acronis can clone a HDD easy as pie, but it has no real migration capability
(the addon for doing it is a disaster).

As for incremental cloning and backups, easy as pie in Acronis, one click on
"update" and it produces an incremental backup or clone of the last stored
full backup; I just did that today and it took about an hour to produce a
4G+ increment to my current full 120G previous backup. Or alternatively you
can use Acronius to do continual backups all the time the PC is running,
every change you make is backed up. Restoring is also a quick and simple
job, so that is not a problem either. And unlike bobcat I find Acronis
extremely easy to use, especially for a restore (it has saved my a** more
than once).

I will look at Casper but it really sounds about the same as Acronis.
Thanks for the comments.
 
P

Pete B

I'm with you on all that, bobster. In my case, though, I am just a retired home user with one PC, no urgency involved, so simply restoring from a backup is simplke, I have done so several times (and I can relate to restoring old problems!). Like I said to Anna, I was just kidding about you folks working for Casper, my bad :=).

See the reply of Bob CP, I am going to check out LapLink, that may be just what I need. Thanks to all.
 
B

Bob CP

Pete said:
My gosh, Bob, I had forgotten about LapLink, which was one of the earliest remote programming software packages I ever used. And what you suggest may be even more ideal for me IF I want to do a migration rather than just cloning a HDD or using the other packages, since I would only need this if I were to buy a new PC or upgrade to a newer version of Windows on a new HDD/new PC. Don't need it right now, but that is closer to what I really need.

Presuming it does actually move the apps as though you had actually installed them on the new HDD, not just copy the files and data, of course. I will keep this in mind, added it to my Favorites list.

Good suggestion!

I'm wondering whether you could use PCMover to migrate your stuff to a
file on a separate drive (they say you can use separate media rather
than the cable connection), then do a complete clean OS reinstall, then
re-migrate your apps back onto the drive. What a cool way to clean
things up, assuming none of your apps is contaminated... Reinstalling
everything that I work with, including all the updates and patches,
could take a couple of days.
 
B

Bill in Co.

bobster said:
Pete,

Like Anna, I also have no connection with Casper other than buying v5
from them a year ago and yesterday upgrading to v6.

Sounds like Casper will not do what you want, i.e. migrate a bootable "C"
drive from one machine to a different one.

Sorry if my first post sounded like a commercial for Casper. And I also
might have misunderstood what it is you wanted to do.

The reason I like Casper is that I can keep a "hot spare" hard drive
either
in my second internal slot, or at the ready in an external eSATA connected
Vantec enclosure,(actually, HDs being so cheap, I do both). I
automatically
update weekly or more often manually on occasion. If my regular "C" drive
fails, or I muck it up by screwing around, I can get back on line in about
45 seconds by re-booting into the other internal/ external drive.

I am curious about something here (I'm only used to ATI and disk imaging,
and know that much better), but would like some more clarification on this.

Using Casper to make a clone of your source drive C: to your second
*internal* drive, does your second internal drive then show up in windows
explorer with a different drive letter, like D:, or is it hidden?

Or let's say your source drive has two partitions, C: and D:. Assuming you
only wanted to clone the C: partition, what would windows explorer show for
the drive letter on your second internal drive after cloning? E:?

Or suppose you wanted to clone BOTH C: and D: partitions. What would
explorer show for your second internal drive letters after the process was
completed in windows explorer? (I'm guessing E: and F - is that right?):

Some of this matters to me since I have some apps expecting certain drive
letters). My source drive now has 4 partitions (C, D, E, F), and my backup
drive used to store images only has one partition (G). (The E: and F:
partitions are for (the rather large) music and video files, respectively).
 
B

bobster

Bill,

I have 3 identical WDC 3200AAKS gig drives. Their drive letters are "C" in
internal position 1, "F" in internal position 2, and "E" in the external
eSATA connected Vantec enclosure. They show up as 3 independent local disk
drives in "My Computer". The "C" drive is partitioned (as delivered from
Dell) into three partitions:

Disk 1, Partition 1 [Dell OEM] 47.03 MB
Local Disk (C) 2 294.74 GB
Disk 1, Partition 3 [Dell PC Restore] 3.30 GB

I have never changed the factory delivered partitioning of the original 2007
Dell configuration. When I do a Casper clone operation, this configuration
is cloned intact from the "C" drive to the target drive, either "F" or "E"
depending on which one I select. My computer can be booted from any one of
the three by selection during the boot sequence. The default boot drive is
the "C". As I recall, the letters "F" and "E" were autoselected as they
were the next unused letters on my computer when I installed the additional
hard drives

I must confess that I have had no experience with cloning individual
partitions of the main "C" drive but I believe individual partitions can be
cloned if the target drive has sufficient un-partitioned space. I would
refer you to the Casper site for more information or to their support
function which is very responsive.

Casper website: http://www.fssdev.com/default.aspx

Casper Support: (e-mail address removed)

The above support address takes you directly to a guy named Jim, who wrote
most of the Casper software

I


bobster said:
Pete,

Like Anna, I also have no connection with Casper other than buying v5
from them a year ago and yesterday upgrading to v6.

Sounds like Casper will not do what you want, i.e. migrate a bootable "C"
drive from one machine to a different one.

Sorry if my first post sounded like a commercial for Casper. And I also
might have misunderstood what it is you wanted to do.

The reason I like Casper is that I can keep a "hot spare" hard drive
either
in my second internal slot, or at the ready in an external eSATA connected
Vantec enclosure,(actually, HDs being so cheap, I do both). I
automatically
update weekly or more often manually on occasion. If my regular "C" drive
fails, or I muck it up by screwing around, I can get back on line in about
45 seconds by re-booting into the other internal/ external drive.

I am curious about something here (I'm only used to ATI and disk imaging,
and know that much better), but would like some more clarification on this.

Using Casper to make a clone of your source drive C: to your second
*internal* drive, does your second internal drive then show up in windows
explorer with a different drive letter, like D:, or is it hidden?

Or let's say your source drive has two partitions, C: and D:. Assuming you
only wanted to clone the C: partition, what would windows explorer show for
the drive letter on your second internal drive after cloning? E:?

Or suppose you wanted to clone BOTH C: and D: partitions. What would
explorer show for your second internal drive letters after the process was
completed in windows explorer? (I'm guessing E: and F - is that right?):

Some of this matters to me since I have some apps expecting certain drive
letters). My source drive now has 4 partitions (C, D, E, F), and my backup
drive used to store images only has one partition (G). (The E: and F:
partitions are for (the rather large) music and video files, respectively).
 
B

Bill in Co.

bobster said:
Bill,

I have 3 identical WDC 3200AAKS gig drives. Their drive letters are "C"
in internal position 1, "F" in internal position 2, and "E" in the
external
eSATA connected Vantec enclosure. They show up as 3 independent local
disk
drives in "My Computer". The "C" drive is partitioned (as delivered from
Dell) into three partitions:

Disk 1, Partition 1 [Dell OEM] 47.03 MB
Local Disk (C) 2 294.74 GB
Disk 1, Partition 3 [Dell PC Restore] 3.30 GB

Like you I have a Dell, but I wasn't counting those hidden partitions (I
have the same thing), as those are not assigned drive letters.

And in my case, unlike yours, my source drive now has C:, D:, E:, and F:
(but I rarely need to backup the last two partitions, however).

C:, of course, is most critical, as it has the majority of everything on it,
and is the one I routinely backup (to an image in my case).
I have never changed the factory delivered partitioning of the original
2007
Dell configuration. When I do a Casper clone operation, this
configuration
is cloned intact from the "C" drive to the target drive, either "F" or "E"
depending on which one I select. My computer can be booted from any one
of
the three by selection during the boot sequence.

How so? Are you doing that by pressing F12 at bootup, or does a menu
always come up at boot time to ask which one to boot to.
The default boot drive is
the "C". As I recall, the letters "F" and "E" were autoselected as they
were the next unused letters on my computer when I installed the
additional
hard drives

I was going to ask you how it got to F: Wow. That's *quite* a jump (from
C: all the way to F:
I must confess that I have had no experience with cloning individual
partitions of the main "C" drive but I believe individual partitions can
be
cloned if the target drive has sufficient un-partitioned space.

I think Anna has testified to that too, but I can't recall for sure now (it
was awhile ago). Several of us had an extended discussion on that in here,
with some folks saying it couldn't be done, and some saying it could be done
(in Casper). I believe the end result (according to Anna) was that
individual partitions *could* indeed be cloned to the target drive (assuming
the target drive had sufficient un-partitioned space). Of course, for each
one you do that for, that will end up adding a new drive letter.
I would
refer you to the Casper site for more information or to their support
function which is very responsive.

Casper website: http://www.fssdev.com/default.aspx

Some time ago I checked out their website and even downloaded the manual,
for an older version, but I don't recall the answer now.
 
B

bobster

Bill,

You asked,

"How so? Are you doing that by pressing F12 at bootup, or does a
menu
always come up at boot time to ask which one to boot to."

When the Dell logo appears on bootup, I press F12 for several seconds which
initiates the boot options list that includes my "C", "E" and "F" HDs, and
my DVD-RW "D" drive. "C" of course is the default so if I let the boot
sequence continue without pressing F-12, that's the one it boots to.

My other drive letters are for non-bootable stuff, xD/SM Drive "H", SD Card
Drive "J", Compact Flash Drive, "G", Memory Stick Drive, "I" and Removable
Disk, "K" for an external Camera SD reader.
Most of the latter stuff I don't often use.

IF, and that's a big if, one needs only a fast, ultra reliable way of a
complete "C" drive backup, the cloned "hot spare" approach is hard to beat.
Although I like Casper because of the speed of the "smart clone" feature,
there are other clone packages out there, some free ones that work well but
are slower than Casper.

Just my biased opinion -- As always, YMMV ;-)




bobster said:
Bill,

I have 3 identical WDC 3200AAKS gig drives. Their drive letters are "C"
in internal position 1, "F" in internal position 2, and "E" in the
external
eSATA connected Vantec enclosure. They show up as 3 independent local
disk
drives in "My Computer". The "C" drive is partitioned (as delivered from
Dell) into three partitions:

Disk 1, Partition 1 [Dell OEM] 47.03 MB
Local Disk (C) 2 294.74 GB
Disk 1, Partition 3 [Dell PC Restore] 3.30 GB

Like you I have a Dell, but I wasn't counting those hidden partitions (I
have the same thing), as those are not assigned drive letters.

And in my case, unlike yours, my source drive now has C:, D:, E:, and F:
(but I rarely need to backup the last two partitions, however).

C:, of course, is most critical, as it has the majority of everything on it,
and is the one I routinely backup (to an image in my case).
I have never changed the factory delivered partitioning of the original
2007
Dell configuration. When I do a Casper clone operation, this
configuration
is cloned intact from the "C" drive to the target drive, either "F" or "E"
depending on which one I select. My computer can be booted from any one
of
the three by selection during the boot sequence.

How so? Are you doing that by pressing F12 at bootup, or does a menu
always come up at boot time to ask which one to boot to.
The default boot drive is
the "C". As I recall, the letters "F" and "E" were autoselected as they
were the next unused letters on my computer when I installed the
additional
hard drives

I was going to ask you how it got to F: Wow. That's *quite* a jump (from
C: all the way to F:
I must confess that I have had no experience with cloning individual
partitions of the main "C" drive but I believe individual partitions can
be
cloned if the target drive has sufficient un-partitioned space.

I think Anna has testified to that too, but I can't recall for sure now (it
was awhile ago). Several of us had an extended discussion on that in here,
with some folks saying it couldn't be done, and some saying it could be done
(in Casper). I believe the end result (according to Anna) was that
individual partitions *could* indeed be cloned to the target drive (assuming
the target drive had sufficient un-partitioned space). Of course, for each
one you do that for, that will end up adding a new drive letter.
I would
refer you to the Casper site for more information or to their support
function which is very responsive.

Casper website: http://www.fssdev.com/default.aspx

Some time ago I checked out their website and even downloaded the manual,
for an older version, but I don't recall the answer now.
 

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