Norton Ghost question

[Dazarath]

How does software like Norton Ghost work? Does it just make a copy of the entire drive? Wouldn't that imply that you'd need a duplicate hard drive just to hold it? If not, then how does it make a copy without actually copying every little bit of data?

[StumpyJoe]

Norton Ghost makes a backup of your entire drive but it compresses it. I have a second, smaller, hard drive that I store my backups on. You can also tell it to divide the backup into CD or DVD sized chunks so you can make an offline backup.

[boondoggle]

lol...do not use norton ghost. JUNK. Instead head over to acronis.com and get true image. Much better! True Image does not have to reboot into DOS to make image. It can make an image of the current system without having to reboot.

cheers
Boon

[CORed]

Another option is to use linux utilities. There is a program that is called ntfsclone that will do good job of making a compressed image of an ntfs partition. It is on many live CD distros, so you can boot it from the cd and write an image to an external HD. Another program called partimage works well for FAT, ext2/3 or Reiserfs (these last two are used by linux) partitions, but has some problems with NTFS. I was able to restore an ntfs partion from a partimage image, but it had a lot of errors. Windows XP's chkdsk was able to repair it, but I really wouldn't trust it for critical data. Another option is the old reliable dd. It can make a byte-for-byte copy of a partition or entire hard drive, and it can be piped through gzip to comress. It isn't as eficient in time or space as ntfsclone (especially on a drive with lots of free space, but it is completely reliable. If you use any of these utilities, you will have to back up to an external HD formatted with a linux file system, or FAT32. It's probably not good for everyone, but if you're technicly inclined, and comfortable with linux or UNIX, it's a good, low-cost way to go.