I have a copy of Avanquest's "Perfect Image Backup & Protect suite" s/w and would like to take advantage of some of its capabilities as I have to re-install Windows XP on my laptop. I plan to do the following; 1) Install a new larger hard-disk in the laptop. 2) Install Windows and drivers etc. 3) Burn a copy image of the fresh install on the new disk onto a DVD/CD using the Avanquest software (before all the usual apps etc get loaded). 4) Put the copy away for a rainy day. Couple of questions occur to me (with the caveat that I do intend to use the Avanquest s/w and the image it's made previously!) a) If I subsequently need to re-install XP using my DVD-stored image (and assuming that the laptop is still running), do I simply insert the DVD into the laptop and invoke the "restore image" functionality in the Avanquest s/w? and/or b) If say, the HDD dies and I have to install a new disk, how does the laptp boot up in the first-place to enable me to use the previously made image. Can I boot from the image DVD or do I have to do something else first so that I can then use the DVD image previosuly made? I believe that Avanquest can also make bootable disks and in fact the disk the s/w came on can also act as a bootable disk. Many thanks. Sorry if this is a bit long-winded but it's one of those things you typically don't know how to do until you've done it once or more!
Neil, I would assume that Avanquest's disk it burns will be something similar to Norton Ghost where it creates a bootable disk with the necessary bits and the image for your machine all in one. Simply stick the disk in, boot machine and it should load to a GUI of some sort with the option for you to restore the image etc.
I'm sort of assuming that this is what it'll do, but the manual is so wordy although despite the wordiness it doesn't explain the various terms it uses - interchanging (as far as I can tell) words like "recovery disk" and "back-up disk" apparently randomly. I'm sure it's all pretty obvious to the guy who wrote the manual, however this is a case to too much (unclear) information. I guess it's probably going to give me the option of creating a bootable image disk, but it's not clear at this point, as I'm waiting to get a fully stable base XP install (see other thread of mine re wifi problem) before jumping into even more complexity rather than trying to do a million things at once and compounding the root-problem I'm encountering. I'm asking this question on this thread so I can try (for once!) to do the right thing in terms of creating a really useful back-up etc when the time comes. Thanks for any input.
