need recommendation for cloning software

[~AlicGinnis~]

Hi,
I've been reading cloning software such as Clonn Max, Norton Ghost, Aconis,
etc., even copyxx from a dos prompt, and I still don't know which one will
do what I want.
I have a 500 gig external usb2 hard drive, and what I want to do is clone 4
laptops, and two mini tower systems to it. You know how it goes, you build
the system, and release it
into the wild, and sooner or later it finds it's way back to you to rebuild
it again, ad nausium. It's not fun anymore. Hence the large external hard
drive.

I want to clone the systems right after all the drivers are updated, os
installed and updated, software installed and updated, and email clients
setup and internet access is working. I want to be able to name each clone
in the following way: example: 20080105 Sharon's Laptop.
So that when Sharon brings me her virus infected, spyware bloated, keylogger
back, I can simply clone my backup onto it, and be done in 10 minutes
instead of 10 hours. I remember one cloner along the line would only clone
to a partition that was the same size as the hard drive. I'm not interested
in doing that for obvious reasons. First off, is this even possible?

I'm not sure you can clone from a usb hard drive, because I think the os
loads the usb drivers.

Thanks in avance for any recommandations.

mike

 

[meerkat]

Hi,
I've been reading cloning software such as Clonn Max, Norton Ghost,
Aconis, etc., even copyxx from a dos prompt, and I still don't know
which one will do what I want.
I have a 500 gig external usb2 hard drive, and what I want to do is
clone 4 laptops, and two mini tower systems to it. You know how it
goes, you build the system, and release it
into the wild, and sooner or later it finds it's way back to you to
rebuild it again, ad nausium. It's not fun anymore. Hence the large
external hard drive.

I want to clone the systems right after all the drivers are updated,
os installed and updated, software installed and updated, and email
clients setup and internet access is working. I want to be able to
name each clone in the following way: example: 20080105 Sharon's
Laptop.
So that when Sharon brings me her virus infected, spyware bloated,
keylogger back, I can simply clone my backup onto it, and be done in
10 minutes instead of 10 hours. I remember one cloner along the line
would only clone to a partition that was the same size as the hard
drive. I'm not interested in doing that for obvious reasons. First
off, is this even possible?

I'm not sure you can clone from a usb hard drive, because I think the
os loads the usb drivers.

Thanks in avance for any recommandations.

Acronis for me !!.

 

[Thomas Wendell]

Hi,
I've been reading cloning software such as Clonn Max, Norton Ghost,
Aconis, etc., even copyxx from a dos prompt, and I still don't know which
one will do what I want.
I have a 500 gig external usb2 hard drive, and what I want to do is clone
4 laptops, and two mini tower systems to it. You know how it goes, you
build the system, and release it
into the wild, and sooner or later it finds it's way back to you to
rebuild it again, ad nausium. It's not fun anymore. Hence the large
external hard drive.

I want to clone the systems right after all the drivers are updated, os
installed and updated, software installed and updated, and email clients
setup and internet access is working. I want to be able to name each
clone in the following way: example: 20080105 Sharon's Laptop.
So that when Sharon brings me her virus infected, spyware bloated,
keylogger back, I can simply clone my backup onto it, and be done in 10
minutes instead of 10 hours. I remember one cloner along the line would
only clone to a partition that was the same size as the hard drive. I'm
not interested in doing that for obvious reasons. First off, is this even
possible?

I'm not sure you can clone from a usb hard drive, because I think the os
loads the usb drivers.

Thanks in avance for any recommandations.

mike

That's how I use Acronis TrueImge.

I've been supporting a small dentist's office for 7 years.(Now 5 new
computers I bought and set up for him 3 months ago + the old one "server").
I go there once a month, WinUpdate those computers, malware-scan them,check
function and other such maintenance. Then I image them to my own external
HD. There'snot much on these computers (4*Acer Extensa 5220, 1 old AMD
XP2200+ as "server" and a new AMD A64 4000+ dual core as a ortho-pantograph
machine), as they are mostly for office use only. The last image for the
Acers were on the order of 3GB, the server 5GB and the ortho-machine 12GB.
So a 200GB disk (old Seagate in ext case) is ample space, so far at least.

The old "server" is ~6years, and the HD has failed once. When it did, it was
an easy task of: replace HD, boot from TrueImage Rescue CD, restore image to
new HD, then restore a daily taken copy of their dentist's client
database...

At home I have an old AMD A64 3200+ (s939) w/ 500GB, backed up to an add'l
internal 250GB (usually about 16GB), and an Acer TM7520 that I image to an
ext 500GB laCie (last image about 13GB, there's still a lot of
Acer-installed crap on it) .
These last to machine's images I every now and then copy crosswise, ie.
TM7520 stuff to other machines internal 250GB, an vv.

--
Tumppi
=================================
A lot learned from these newsgroups
Helsinki, FINLAND
(translations from/to FI not always accurate
=================================

 

[Bill]

Hi,
I've been reading cloning software such as Clonn Max, Norton Ghost, Aconis,
etc., even copyxx from a dos prompt, and I still don't know which one will
do what I want.
I have a 500 gig external usb2 hard drive, and what I want to do is clone 4
laptops, and two mini tower systems to it. You know how it goes, you build
the system, and release it
into the wild, and sooner or later it finds it's way back to you to rebuild
it again, ad nausium. It's not fun anymore. Hence the large external hard
drive.

I want to clone the systems right after all the drivers are updated, os
installed and updated, software installed and updated, and email clients
setup and internet access is working. I want to be able to name each clone
in the following way: example: 20080105 Sharon's Laptop.
So that when Sharon brings me her virus infected, spyware bloated, keylogger
back, I can simply clone my backup onto it, and be done in 10 minutes
instead of 10 hours. I remember one cloner along the line would only clone
to a partition that was the same size as the hard drive. I'm not interested
in doing that for obvious reasons. First off, is this even possible?

I'm not sure you can clone from a usb hard drive, because I think the os
loads the usb drivers.

Thanks in avance for any recommandations.

mike

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/

Free trial download. Try it.


Bill

 

[peter]

I recommend.........and apparently so do others........Acronis True Image.
But instead of cloning her HD I would perform Imaging and safe the Images by
date...or add to the Image.
When poor Sharon comes to you crying then you just restore her Image....

peter

 

[John Doe]

Hi,
Lo,

I want to clone the systems right after all the drivers are
updated, os installed and updated, software installed and updated,
and email clients setup and internet access is working.

So that when Sharon brings me her virus infected, spyware bloated,
keylogger back, I can simply clone my backup onto it, and be done
in 10 minutes instead of 10 hours.

Thanks in avance for any recommandations.

mike

Anyone in your situation who doesn't do that misses the boat IMO.

Of course you need to make copies of any important files like My
Documents and any other user generated important files regularly,
and immediately before you do a restoration. Then diligently restore
those files immediately after the restoration.

Another thing you can do is spend some time or check back with the
user very soon after a restoration to see what he (or she) misses
from all of the good/bad stuff added since your original
installation. Then you expertly add those things and make the copy.
How useful that is depends on how much time you spend adding and
configuring the additional stuff.

I use Partition Manager. The original Windows XP installation plus
ordinary programs takes no more than about 10 GB here. So you can
easily make a hidden copy of the Windows partition to the primary
partition area of the same hard drive. There's no need to use
another hard drive and you can easily restore Windows without using
another hard drive. You can also do a very neat installation by
making incremental copies as you are doing the installation, the
primary partition area allows two copies. If Acronis will do that,
you should probably go with that since you're likely to get support
from the fans. If Acronis won't make a hidden primary partition
copy of Windows XP, I would go with something else that will.

Good luck.

 

[PeterC]

.and apparently so do others........Acronis True Image.
But instead of cloning her HD I would perform Imaging and safe the Images by
date...or add to the Image.

If you have only one Maxtor or Seagate HDD (doesn't matter what the others
are), you can download a limited version of Acronis (Seatools/Seagate Disc
Wizard) from Seagate's site.
I've used it to clone disks, although having a Maxtor and 2 non-Seagate
means that the order has to be OK - it won't clone the Deskstar to the
Spinpoint.