Never reinstall OS again

[LeapFrog]

goldtoes, thanks for additional info on deep freeze. I very well may pick this up as I think it would be a good addition to my security suite. I would probably just have an unfrozen partition that I run my VMs on.

[ QUOTE ]

If all you want is a snapshot of the OS, as you state in post #8, windows does include a few backup tools. Even the xp cd has some os repairing utility that I can't remember the name of built in.

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Low Key, thanks but I am aware of system restore feature in XP. The last time I had to reinstall XP it would hang on normal bootup for some reason but could boot into safe mode. Tried restoring to multiple snapshots and tried repair -- no dice. I'm basically looking for a bit by bit copy of my XP partition. If I don't go the raid route I will probably go with Ghost as you and others have suggested.

[Low Key]

Ghost would probably be the best idea, then. Software raid via xp might not be the best idea. Unless you already had all the hardware and controllers you need for a real raid array.

Oh, and it was recovery console that I couldn't think of earlier.. Slow I'm remembering things that I used to know. Hooray!

[CORed]

There is a linux utility called ntfsclone that will make an image file from an ntfs partition and restore it. It is on most bootable linux CD's. You can pipe its output to gzip or bzip2 to make a compressed image. Another option is dd, a basic command utility that will make a byte for byte copy of apartition or entire drive. The only down side of dd is rhat it will also faithfully copy the random garbage in the free space, which wastes time and space. Dd isuseful for copying MBR's and boot sectors, too.

[LeapFrog]

[ QUOTE ]
There is a linux utility called ntfsclone that will make an image file from an ntfs partition and restore it. It is on most bootable linux CD's. You can pipe its output to gzip or bzip2 to make a compressed image. Another option is dd, a basic command utility that will make a byte for byte copy of apartition or entire drive. The only down side of dd is rhat it will also faithfully copy the random garbage in the free space, which wastes time and space. Dd isuseful for copying MBR's and boot sectors, too.

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Cool, thanks for the info. Haven't done much with linux in a long time, would it be easy to boot up off a linux CD and mount a usb hard drive? In terms of reliability how would you compare Ghost and bootup+ntfscopy?

[buckslayer80]

Hard drives are so cheap now I don't know why you would choose a software option, especially if you have a lot of VMs. That's a lot of changing data. I'd buy a hard drive and set up a RAID 1 array.

[mosta]

if you don't go the raid way, why not skip dos and restores and extractions and boot discs and back up dvds etc, by having a clone that is bootable. look up xxclone. it's designed to make bootable xp clones (which xp normally won't do, eg with ghost (I tried ghost and my first clone booted one time, but never again)). it's cheap too. it is a complete clone of the disc with all the system and registry and boot info--but, also, it's not sector by sector. it's file by file. which means that it also defrags for you. last two times my drive failed I was up and running with all my programs (as of my last backup) literally in the time it took me to reboot.

[LeapFrog]

Ok, bit of a trip report.

Using a linux bootdisk and ntfsclone. Below is a link that describes how to do this. Figured I would give the commercial trial versions a chance first.
http://alma.ch/blogs/bahut/2005/04/c...ntfsclone.html

So, for commercial I'm looking at Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image, and Paragon Drive Backup. Both Norton and Acronis have pretty terrible user reviews at Amazon, I don't think they carry Paragon.

Norton: 82 reviews 2.5 stars av -- plenty of tales of woe
http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Ghost-Compu...&s=software

Acronis: 11 reviews, 2.5 stars av -- more tales of corruption and frustration
http://www.amazon.com/Acronis-True-Image...&s=software


So, began testing on an older machine I have laying around that has Win2k on it. I first decided to try Paragon. Installed the trial version (30 days IIRC) and created the bootable recovery disk. Booted up, it doesn't recognize my ps2 mouse and it can't see my usb drive, oops.

Ok, onto Acronis. Same procedure (15 day trial) except after booting it can see the usb drive (and mouse, yay). --Interesting caveat here... Can only get the recovery CD to boot properly after a COLD boot crazily enough, during warm boots it either locks up or the computer shuts down LOL -- So I'm about to begin a backup of the drive from the recovery cd, after setting everything up and hitting proceed it says not available in the trial version. Gee thanks Acronis. I figured the backup from the recovery disk would be safest as there is no hot swaping, but thats not an option now. So, I try the backup from within 2k.

Everything goes smoothly and it takes about 5 min or so (2.5gb approx). I then verify the backup (a feature within True Image) that goes fine. Then I formatted the drive, booted up with the recovery cd and installed the backup. Success!

Ok, so now for the true test. Backup my main computer's XP partition and install on my older computer. Long story short it works fine and XP boots up on my old machine. I did have to specify to Acronis to make the partition active (this was not default), but that was it.

Now the trial version is for 15 days so you won't be able to create new backups beyond that. However, it appears that you can, using the restore disk, install your backups beyond this period (I changed my computer date to be months in the future and tried this successfully).

So, this looks to be a pretty good solution to what I was looking for. Only thing I can think to add is that I wasn't using the incremental backup feature (somewhat pointless for a 15 day trial version) and I imagine this could increase the chance of backup corruption. Also, since my images are relatively small I didn't use compression when backing up.

[aflaba]

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look up xxclone. it's designed to make bootable xp clones (which xp normally won't do, eg with ghost (I tried ghost and my first clone booted one time, but never again)).

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What does this mean?

With xxclone you can boot from like a DVD without installing it to your computer?

With Ghost you can still install the backup to your PC any number of times, it's only that you can't boot directly from the DVD?

[aflaba]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
look up xxclone. it's designed to make bootable xp clones (which xp normally won't do, eg with ghost (I tried ghost and my first clone booted one time, but never again)).

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With Ghost you can install the backup to your PC any number of times without any problems?

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Just want to make sure Ghost is the right product for me.