Yobbo said:
Hi All
I now work on behalf of 5 or so primary schools as the IT technician
and I'm finding it really frustrating to install the same educational
software over and over again on each of their PCs. It gets really
bad when a PC goes down, which happened recently, and I then have to
re-install of the apps again!!
I've been told that I should look at imaging/cloning software, but
doesn't this mean that the machines have to be EXACTLY the same spec?
No. In the best case, each machine would have its own image, which you
would carry with you when you make the visits. I have more on this below.
Don't get me wrong this does happen, as I've got to put the same
software on 6 Fujitsu laptops next week, but there is a variation on
machines, eg Acer, Fujitsu, Dell, etc, all bought at diff times so
they have diff specs as well. Can the imaging/cloning software
simply copy the actual software installations rather than the OS as a
whole?
What imaging software does is take a "picture" of the hard drive at an
instant in time (it doesn't happen instantly though, but you'll be surprised
how fast is really is to make an image compared to a backup).
What about licensing issues? The machines each have their own
product key for WinXP and some are XP home and some XP pro. Some are
even Win98, but there are really only a couple of these.
Suggest contacting the manufacturers/vendors for info there. Sometimes you
can work a deal on the licenses, so it never hurts to at least ask. If
you're networked there might be some savings to be had there too but it
varies. Networks make imaging a very slow operation, if they work at all.
In my experience, anyway: I am FAR from being any kind of guru; I simply
know a little more than the guy on the street<g>.
Hi Yobbo,
I can't answer your licensing questions, but an imaging software would
definitely make things much easier for you. In fact, it makes things much
easier and quicker for even one machine.
Let me start by saying there is always the operating system's own backup
offering, even if it's not reliable and takes forever to back up. Imaging
is much faster in m experience than ntbackup et al. And, you only have the
one program to learn vs one for each os otherwise.
Basically, each machine could have its own image for you to carry around
when you make your visits. So that machine's image is linked to the machine.
If any machines are duplicates of each other, then of course one image may
suffice for all of those.
YOu can do full backups, add only what's changesd since the last backup
(incrementals), or stand alones, or any single file or folder or drive or
set of same you wish to back up. And yes, I can restore the same way, from
a single file to the entire drive.
You might need to invest in one or two external hard drives to carry the
images around on. 160Gid hard drives are cheap these days and how many
images you could hold in the given space depends on the machines. My
windows XP Pro image, with all updates, etc., takes about 10 Gig
(compressed) for the C drive, which is my system drive. Ymmv of course!
So, five to eight images might fit on a drive the size I have. I have it
limited to three sets; each time it backs up it deletes the oldest one.
The downside of images is that they have to reside on the hard drive at
least until they're copied off onto other media. But, if there's room for
them to co-reside on the hard drives, as long as the drive is intact, the
system can be re-imaged right from that.
Make sure whatever imaging app you buy has the ability to compress; it
saves tons of space!
Imaging programs also usually have an "emergency startup CD" and some
also a set of floppies to restore a system where the hard drive has had to
be replaced or reformatted or is otherwise unusable. I can boot from the
CD, tell it where the images are located, and it takes over for me.
Good imaging software will also make incremental backups whenever you
schedule them, so whenever you add something or remove something, the
incremental includes that information. I set mine to run at 2 AM so
whenever I want to add an incremental, I just leave the computer turned on
overnight.
The three most reliable imaging softwares seems to be Norton's Ghost,
Acronis' True Image and BootItNG. Personally I think Ghost is the easiest
to use and has the most bang for the buck and I believe the retail cost from
Symantec Norton Ghost 10 was like $70. TI was $50, I think, at the time. I
forget what bootitNG was.
I keep my backups mostly on an external 160 Gig Acom USB hard drive and
when I've made enough changes, I burn a set of DVDs for my offsite storage
(my sister's home).
One of the most important things to tell you is probably to TEST whatever
imaging software you might buy. I intentionally first damaged one of my
non-system drives (after backing it up with ntbackup), and Ghost restored it
perfectly. Then I got braver and actually trashed my system drive because
there you have files that are in use and are often not able to be backed up.
Ghost again restored it perfectly for me.
If you can, you want to do the testing on a test machine, of course, not
one you depend on<g>!
By then you're home free. I've only had to use it once in the last year,
but boy, it's great. And once you've gained confidence in them, they run
unattended restores, so you can do other things for that period of time.
I'd suggest checking them out; use Google to locate them if you need help
there.
HTH,
Pop`
