Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => Ctrl-Alt-Del => Topic started by: Bluebottle on 06 April, 2008, 06:10:31 pm
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Recommendations for disk imaging or software for the easy backup of hard-disks are sought. Windows based and freebies prefered.
Deep joys.
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I bought PC Pro in the week. The dvd has a copy of Acronis Drive Copy 8.0 personal which is disk imaging software. Apparently it allows you to create a fully bootable clone of your current hard drive.
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I never bother with disk images; I just backup stuff I've downloaded or made. If the PC goes castors-up then it was probably ready for a reinstall anyway.
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Acronis software is wonderful stuff. Available in a variety of flavours, all with a fifteen day fully functional trial period. Some stuff is free, but it is worth paying for.
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I'll also agree with the Acronis recommendation. I used it on the CEO's laptop, and alleluia it worked.
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Acronis software is wonderful stuff. Available in a variety of flavours, all with a fifteen day fully functional trial period. Some stuff is free, but it is worth paying for.
This is good to know. I've been using it for a couple of years and have always assumed it's OK because I didn't know any different and didn't have anything else to compare it to. It's never gone belly up either. Always good to hear recommendation from people who know more about this sort of thing than me.
I just back up to three external hard drives and keep them in separate locations
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I use Acronis True Image. Not free, but it's simple to use and it works. I've had to restore my system a few times so I know it works. Not everything else really will do as claimed and completely backup your C drive (or whatever drive you have Windows on) with all system files included.
Acronis Disk Director is also useful if you like to mess about with partitions.
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Real sysadmins use partimage!!!
http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page
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The only problem I've ever had with Acronis True Image 8, is that it doesn't really seem to know about many DVD drives. That's OK most of the time, since I just send it across the network to a Samba server, but if you do want a backup onto optical media, backing a modern PC onto CD's at 500M a time takes a while. 4.5G of DVD would help a bit. Possibly newer versions of True Image have better drive support.
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The only problem I've ever had with Acronis True Image 8, is that it doesn't really seem to know about many DVD drives. That's OK most of the time, since I just send it across the network to a Samba server, but if you do want a backup onto optical media, backing a modern PC onto CD's at 500M a time takes a while. 4.5G of DVD would help a bit. Possibly newer versions of True Image have better drive support.
With True Image 9, I backup to hard disk first, then burn the files to DVD afterwards. You can split the backup into any size chunks you like.
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With True Image 9, I backup to hard disk first, then burn the files to DVD afterwards. You can split the backup into any size chunks you like.
I have done that, but sometimes it would be easier if we didn't have to plug the PC into the network, or add another disc.
If we want to plug a machine in, which isn't registered on the network, we have to apply to our network support bods, and then wait between a few hours and a week, depending on how efficient they are. There are ways around this (shift MAC address, and use another machines IP), but it's a pain. For an old machine with a 10 or 20 gig hard disc (or even smaller), a quick one time backup directly to a DVD would be handy.
Some machines don't have USB interfaces (we have still operating machines which are over 10 years old).
I'll probably buy a newer version of Acronis at some point. The main issue that stopped me last time, was finding someone who would sell us a copy, and who was registered on our purchasing system.
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1. Boot off Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.org/) Disk.
2. Kick off partimage backup of whole disk to USB drive.
3. Go for a bike ride
4. Upon return, reboot and continue working.
Don't forget - you have to be brave at least once and try a restore. A trashable drive helps with this. Any backup policy is only as good as its ability to be restored.
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I wouldn't be surprised if backing up to DVD directly is possible with True Image 9 (one way or another). I haven't really looked into it as I have no need for it myself.
I have plenty of space on my internal hard disk to put the initial backup there (onto another partition). Compression helps.
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I wouldn't be surprised if backing up to DVD directly is possible with True Image 9...
It's theoretically possible with True Image 8, but I've yet to find a DVD Drive that it's Linux distro has driver support for !