Recovery

[Guest]

if i have norton Ghost and parition magic ,,, have i got everything i need to
make my own recovery partition?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

if i have norton Ghost and parition magic ,,, have i got everything
i need to make my own recovery partition?

The knowledge to use them in the way you desire is also required.

Why do you wish to do this anyway?

Wouldn't it be better to backup your stuff periodically (often) in case
things go wrong and just have the CDs ready and waiting if needed? Will you
be re-building the image periodically? Or is this strictly a "restore to
this point in time" situation? If so - unless you are doing this on a large
scale with many machines - why would you waste hard drive space and not just
create an image and store it on external media?

I don't think you need partition magic - unless you plan on making the
partition now instead of after a fresh install.
Norton Ghost is one "imaging" product out there. Yes - so it can make a
"recovery" image that you could use in a "recovery" partition.

How To Use Backup to Back Up Files and Folders on Your Computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422

Yes - you still need some sort of external media to store the results
on, but you could schedule the backup to occur when you are not around,
then burn the resultant data onto CD or DVD or something when you are
(while you do other things!)

Another option that came to my attention as of late:

Cobian Backup
http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

A lot of people have wondered about how to completely backup their system
so that they would not have to go through the trouble of a reinstall..
I'm going to voice my opinion here and say that it would be worthless to
do for MOST people. Unless you plan on periodically updating the image
backup of your system (remaking it) - then by the time you use it
(something goes wrong) - it will be so outdated as to be more trouble than
performing a full install of the operating system and all applications.

Having said my part against it, you can clone/backup your hard drive
completely using many methods - by far the simplest are using disk cloning
applications:

Symantec/Norton Ghost
http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/

Acronis True Image
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage

BootItT NG
http://terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

 

[Guest]

You may wish to look into the "Windows Shared Computer Toolkit" as well, it
is a free tool by Microsoft which allows instant recovery from accidental
changes, deletions and malware when used correctly and with proper user
restrictions.

It's more of a "Set It And Forget It" recovery method, that only required
human intervention when changes or new software is installed.

Here is a review I did on it, and it can blend with Ghost recovery as well,
it is still important to do backups as well:

http://testing.onlytherightanswers.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=38

 

[Shenan Stanley]

You may wish to look into the "Windows Shared Computer Toolkit" as
well, it is a free tool by Microsoft which allows instant recovery
from accidental changes, deletions and malware when used correctly
and with proper user restrictions.

It's more of a "Set It And Forget It" recovery method, that only
required human intervention when changes or new software is
installed.

Here is a review I did on it, and it can blend with Ghost recovery
as well, it is still important to do backups as well:

http://testing.onlytherightanswers.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=38

I read your review earlier - very nicely done and has me thinking about the
'Shared Computer Toolkit' in a different manner.
Just wanted to thank you for that.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, just wish more people knew this was there, I am sure as you know,
many people seem to limit at first what they think it can do.

Funny thing is, when was the last time you visited a libray and they said
"Someone deleted this or that, all are systems are down" or "Sorry, our
systems have a Zero-Day malware infection at the moment, please come back
tomorrow"

Makes one think about how important recovery is