Setup for Drive Image

[Talal Itani]

I want to start making an image of my drive, to recover from a disk failure.
I am not sure what setup is best. If I use an external USB2 drive, can the
PC boot from an external USB drive? What about an external SATA? If I put
an IDE drive in an external USB2 case, and later take that drive and place
it inside the PC, will the PC boot from it, will everything be on it? Thank
you very much.

 

[DL]

And what software are using for imaging?
Drive Image is I believe an old version App now owned by Symantec and
marketed as Ghost.
Acronis True Image has the ability to run from the Acronis cd in order to
recover an image

An image is usually a single file and as such is diiferent than a cloned sys
or mirror raid

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I want to start making an image of my drive, to recover from a disk failure.
I am not sure what setup is best. If I use an external USB2 drive, can the
PC boot from an external USB drive? What about an external SATA? If I put
an IDE drive in an external USB2 case, and later take that drive and place
it inside the PC, will the PC boot from it, will everything be on it? Thank
you very much.

An image is not the real thing - it is just a file, usually compressed,
of everything that's on your disk. You must restore the image before
you can use it.

Regardless of this, there is little point in asking these questions
here. If you want a reliable backup of your hard disk then it is
absolutely necessary for you to go through a full backup/recovery
cycle. If you don't and if you rely one some respondent's advice
only then you can never be sure that it actually works. Furthermore,
you must test your image to check its integrity. Don't assume that
it can be used - I have seen plenty of corrupted image files.

 

[FreeComputerConsultant.com]

An image is not the real thing - it is just a file, usually compressed,
of everything that's on your disk. You must restore the image before
you can use it.

Not with Acronis True Image. You can "mount" the image (in read only or
read/write) and explore, copy files, etc.

Regardless of this, there is little point in asking these questions
here. If you want a reliable backup of your hard disk then it is
absolutely necessary for you to go through a full backup/recovery
cycle. If you don't and if you rely one some respondent's advice
only then you can never be sure that it actually works. Furthermore,
you must test your image to check its integrity. Don't assume that
it can be used - I have seen plenty of corrupted image files.

www.FreeComputerConsultant.com

 

[FreeComputerConsultant.com]

I want to start making an image of my drive, to recover from a disk failure.
I am not sure what setup is best. If I use an external USB2 drive, can the
PC boot from an external USB drive? What about an external SATA? If I put
an IDE drive in an external USB2 case, and later take that drive and place
it inside the PC, will the PC boot from it, will everything be on it? Thank
you very much.

I have some pages on this on my website:

http://www.freecomputerconsultant.com/computer-backup.html

and more specifically:

http://www.freecomputerconsultant.com/usb-hard-drive.html

My favorite external USB enclosure is a NexStar 3. Can be USB or
external SATA. Even includes an external SATA connector that can be
installed in your PC.

The PC won't boot from an image, but it's very easy to install a new
drive in the PC, boot from an Acronis Recovery CD, and restore to a new
hard drive.

Read a real life event of a disk failure and how easily he recovered here:

http://www.freecomputerconsultant.com/computer-backup-success-1.html


www.FreeComputerConsultant.com

 

[Rock]

I want to start making an image of my drive, to recover from a disk
failure.

Excellent thing to do. Been using a drive imaging program for a long time
to as a backup mechanism.

I am not sure what setup is best.

What program are you going to use?

If I use an external USB2 drive, can the PC boot from an external USB
drive?

No. XP is not designed to boot from an external USB drive. Besides an
image is not a bootable entity. There is a difference between an image and
a clone. An image is a single file that contains a snapshot of the data on
the drive, often times compressed. A clone is an exact reproduction of the
existing drive, but even that can't be run from an external USB drive.

What about an external SATA?

An external eSATA drive that is actually connected to an internal SATA
connector can be booted, assuming it is a clone, because it is, in essence,
an internal drive that happens to be located outside the computer.

If I put an IDE drive in an external USB2 case, and later take that drive
and place it inside the PC, will the PC boot from it, will everything be
on it?

If it is a clone, yes. If an image, no.

Whatever system you decide on you must test it out to make sure you know how
and that it it works in real world conditions

 

[Anna]

After reading the entire post, you want a clone on another hard drive.
Either connected USB2, or SATA externally.

Boot from USB2, no.
Boot from SATA (internal connector), yes, but you need to repair install
to inject the SATA driver to modify HAL.
This is assuming you can setup the bios to boot from SATA properly.

Talal Itani:
Dave is correct in that you will not be able to boot the XP operating
system - cloned or otherwise - from a USB external HDD.

And, as he infers, you can boot from an "external" SATA HDD that contains
the XP OS if that "external" SATA HDD has SATA-to-SATA connectivity, i.e.,
its SATA enclosure - its data cable - is connected directly to one of the
motherboard's internal SATA connectors. I trust you understand this.

Dave's comment about needing to undertake a "repair install" in order to
install a SATA controller driver (should you use a SATA HDD) is not
necessarily so. First of all, it's possible - depending upon your
motherboard - that the SATA driver has been integrated with the motherboard
so that no auxiliary SATA driver is necessary. But if you *do* need to
install that driver for the system to recognize the existence of a SATA HDD
it will ordinarily not be necessary to undertake a Repair install of the XP
OS. You will need to have a copy of the appropriate SATA driver file and
install such to your system. The particular installation method depends upon
the motherboard so it will be important for you to read your motherboard's
User Manual to determine the proper installation method should that be
necessary.
Anna

 

[Dave]

After reading the entire post, you want a clone on another hard drive.
Either connected USB2, or SATA externally.

Boot from USB2, no.
Boot from SATA (internal connector), yes, but you need to repair install to
inject the SATA driver to modify HAL.
This is assuming you can setup the bios to boot from SATA properly.