Image to external hard drive?

[Ted Jensen]

I have two computers. Both have XP home version on them but the
additional hardware and software are not the same on the two machines.
Each has about 20 Gb of software plus data on them. I want to
purchase an external USB hard drive to image what is on each machine
for backup purposes. Can I use one large external hard drive (~100Gb]
to do this and keep the images separate and independent from one
another?
Perhaps by partitioning the external drive into two drives?

Also, one machine is formatted in FAT32 and the other in NTFS. Is
this going to be a problem? What other problems could potentially
occur?

Ted

 

[Brian K]

You can use an external HD with just a single logical partition. The two
different Windows formats will make no difference to the final result. You
can put both images together on the HD. They will appear as two files. In
folders if you like.
What software do you plan to use? I hear some people are having problems
with external HD's and Acronis TI.

Brian

 

[Brian K]

Alternately you could network the computers and image each to the other.
Don't need an external HD then.

Brian

 

[Ted Jensen]

Thanks Brian! Regarding software, I hadn't thought that far ahead.
The only brand I've heard of is Ghost by Symantec. Now that I am
thinking a bit ahead it comes to me that I'm going to have to buy a
copy of this for each machine. That makes your idea of networking the
two computers together sound good. Unfortunately, though 2 machines
are involved one is my sister's who lives about 20 miles away. At this
moment that machine happens to be in my hands since I'm about to
reformat the hard drive and reinstall XP etc.

I was thinking of running down to a local store and picking up a
portable drive so I could make an image of her system immediately
after getting the operating system and standard software up and
running. And I do get to her place once a month or so. If anything
happened to her computer (like the two trojan horses currently on it!)
I thought it would be convenient for me to visit her and reformat and
load the image of her machine without the need of bringing it to my
home and having to re-install XP, SP2, downloading fixes since then,
downloading IE6 fixes, etc. Your comments have raised new questions:

a) Am I right in concluding that I need 2 copies of Ghost?

b) Can you recommend any other good quality imaging software that
might cost less?

c) I'm thinking of purchasing a 2nd system for myself in coming weeks
and will be investigating your idea of networking it with my current
one. If that happens will I need to install imaging software on each
machine?

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:12:00 +1000, "Brian K" <iibntgyea4

You can use an external HD with just a single logical partition. The two
different Windows formats will make no difference to the final result. You
can put both images together on the HD. They will appear as two files. In
folders if you like.
What software do you plan to use? I hear some people are having problems
with external HD's and Acronis TI.

Brian

I have two computers. Both have XP home version on them but the
additional hardware and software are not the same on the two machines.
Each has about 20 Gb of software plus data on them. I want to
purchase an external USB hard drive to image what is on each machine
for backup purposes. Can I use one large external hard drive (~100Gb]
to do this and keep the images separate and independent from one
another?
Perhaps by partitioning the external drive into two drives?

Also, one machine is formatted in FAT32 and the other in NTFS. Is
this going to be a problem? What other problems could potentially
occur?

Ted

 

[shakey]

..

The only brand I've heard of is Ghost by Symantec.
I was thinking of running down to a local store and picking up a
portable drive b) Can you recommend any other good quality imaging
software that
might cost less?

If you are not in a big hurry wait for a good sale. I just bought Ghost 9.0
for less than $20 after refunds and a WD 120gb external drive for about $80.
Both at local BestBuys store.
SG

 

[Brian K]

a) Am I right in concluding that I need 2 copies of Ghost?

You need to check the licensing requirements but only one application is in
use at any one time. Theoretically you could uninstall it from one computer
and then use it on the other.

b) Can you recommend any other good quality imaging software that
might cost less?

I've tried many of the imaging applications but Ghost 9 (almost identical to
the former Power Quest v2i Protector Desktop) is my favourite. I must say
that although the others never failed me, Ghost 9 is the nicest to use and
has handy features such as scheduling and incremental backups which some of
the others lack. I've always imaged to the hard drive first and burnt to a
DVD or CD later (if needed). You need to image to another partition on the
same HD, to a second HD, to a HD on another computer or to an external HD.
You can't write an image to the partition being imaged. Imaging to a HD is
faster and more reliable but some people like to image direct to DVD. With
an external HD you can omit the DVD copy as you can store this off site.
Other software I've tried include Acronis True Image, Drive Snapshot, Image
for Windows, older versions of Ghost and Power Quest Drive Image. I doubt
the older versions would work with SATA drives.

c) I'm thinking of purchasing a 2nd system for myself in coming weeks
and will be investigating your idea of networking it with my current
one. If that happens will I need to install imaging software on each
machine?

Ghost 9 needs to be installed on the computer that is being imaged. Some of
the others can be run from a CD (eg Acronis TI) or floppy. Acronis TI
doesn't need to be installed on either computer, imaging and restoring can
be done from the bootable CD.

This is an excellent overview.

http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_1.htm


Brian

 

[Brian K]

How are things progressing Ted?

Brian